Ability Law Blog
Author: Randy Chapman, Esq.
Randy Chapman has been the director of legal services at Disability Law Colorado since 1980. He played a pivotal role in the development of disability law and helped break ground in implementing special education law.
He has authored multiple publications about special education law, and overseen legal representation to more than 25,000 people with disabilities in Colorado.
ADA Amendments Act of 2008 Clears Congress, Awaits...
Sep 17 2008
Last week the ADA Amendments Act passed the Senate and today it has passed the House of Representatives. President Bush is expected to sign this important legislation into law. The amendments ... Senate Passes ADA Restoration Act
Sep 12 2008
Yesterday afternoon the US Senate passed, by unanimous consent, S. 3406 The ADA Amendments Act of 2008 also known as the ADA Restoration Act. This act overturns Supreme Court decisions that... 10th Circuit Denies Private Residential Placement for Child...
Sep 12 2008
In Thompson R2-J School District v Luke P., a case out of Colorado, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned a district court decision ordering the Thompson School District to reimburse the... Ninth Circuit Rules that Limiting Parents’ Expert’s Class...
Aug 21 2008
In L.M. v Capistrano Unified School District, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals determined that limiting the parents’ classroom observational opportunities to twenty minute sessions, while the... Services Plans for Parentally-placed Private School...
Aug 19 2008
Some students with disabilities attend private rather than public schools. There are three scenarios in which a student with a disability might be placed in a private school. First, the public... Helping Parents Help their Students with Disabilities:...
Aug 1 2008
Under the IDEA, students with disabilities must be provided the related services they need to benefit from their special education program. In most circumstances those services are provided to the... Section 504, School Field Trips, and Students with...
Jul 24 2008
In a previous post, Opening the School Door to Section 504, I discussed the Section 504 and ADA requirements to provide services to children with disabilities. If you are not familiar with how... Second Edition of The Everyday Guide to Special Education...
Jul 18 2008
Readers, at the end of May I posted that the Second Edition of my book The Everyday Guide to Special Education Law was available for preorder. The book is here and can be ordered now.
From the Outside Looking In: Independent Educational...
Jul 8 2008
The parents’ right to obtain an independent educational evaluation (IEE) of their child is an important IDEA procedural safeguard. School districts conduct evaluations to provide information to... Parent Consent and Independent Educational Evaluation...
Jun 26 2008
A functional behavior assessment, or FBA, is a tool to gather information about a student’s inappropriate or problem behavior to understand why a student engages in the behavior. Once an IEP team... 