ERIC Number: EJ1192481
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017-May
Pages: 2
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0164-775X
EISSN: N/A
Child Find under the IDEA: An Empirical Analysis of the Judicial Case Law
Zirkel, Perry A.
Communique, v45 n7 p4, 6 May 2017
The modern meaning of "child find" under the IDEA is almost entirely a matter of court decisions, because the legislation (§ 1412[a][3][A]) and the regulations (§ 300.111) are limited to the historical obligation to "locate, identify, and evaluate" students with disabilities. More specifically, in interpreting and applying this broad obligation, courts have developed two successive standards for this modern meaning: (1) the trigger, or starting point for this obligation, is when the school district has "reasonable suspicion" that the child may be eligible under the IDEA, and, once triggered; and (2) the district must initiate the evaluation of the child within a "reasonable period" of time (Zirkel, 2014). To fill a gap in the literature, this article provides an empirical analysis of the judicial case law to date (specifically, as of December 31, 2016) that addressed either or both of the two dimensions of child find under the IDEA. An extensive search of two overlapping legal databases (Westlaw and Special Ed Connection) for court decisions that expressly referred to, or that these databases indexed as, child find yielded a pool of more than 150 potentially relevant court decisions. The total number of decisions was 91, with the earliest being "Gerstmyer v. Howard County Public Schools" (1994) and the most recent being "Artichoker v. Todd County School District" (2016). The number of reasonable suspicion rulings was 70, and the number of reasonable period rulings was 35.
Descriptors: Disabilities, Educational Legislation, Equal Education, Federal Legislation, Court Litigation, Eligibility, Disability Identification
National Association of School Psychologists. 4340 East West Highway Suite 402, Bethesda, MD 20814. Tel: 301-657-0270; Fax: 301-657-0275; e-mail: publications@naspweb.org; Web site: http://www.nasponline.org/publications/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative; Information Analyses
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Laws, Policies, & Programs: Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A