The Lento Law Firm's premier Education Law Team helps hundreds of students nationwide, including Arkansas students, with IEP and disability rights issues and other matters affecting their education. Our attorneys are available to resolve IEP issues in elementary and secondary schools from Little Rock to Fayetteville, Fort Smith, Springdale Jonesboro, Rogers, Conway, North Little Rock, Bentonville, or another Arkansas city or town. Call 888.535.3686 now, or complete this contact form sharing information about your student's IEP matter. Don't leave your student's education and future in others' hands. Get our highly qualified help.
Facing and Overcoming Arkansas IEP Frustrations
Arkansas is a fine state in which to raise children, sending them through the state's public grade schools. But parents of Arkansas elementary and secondary school students who have disabilities affecting their education know the special challenges disabled students face. Educational disabilities, by definition, interfere with the student's learning from the usual school services. Students with disabilities can require modified school instruction, schedules, materials, furnishings, structures, and equipment to gain the same education as non-disabled students.
But schools in Arkansas and elsewhere aren't always ready to make such significant program accommodations and changes. Accommodating a disabled student can cost time, money, and other resources, even though state and federal funding cover special education services. Local school teachers and officials may just be rankled at changing their usual ways because usual ways are tried, trusted, and efficient. The federal IEP (individualized education plan) process that the federal IDEA law requires, and the federal and state funding that go along with those mandates, should relieve the school from any unreasonable burden. But school officials don't always see it that way and don't always cooperate.
When Arkansas' IEP process fails, your disabled student suffers. IEP failures and refusals can cripple a disabled student's academic, mental, emotional, and social development. The IEP process is supposed to level the playing field for disabled students. When it doesn't, parents and disabled students are hurt.
Getting Qualified Arkansas IEP Representation
You and your student need qualified, skilled, and experienced legal representation if you haven't been able to get Arkansas school officials to comply with federal IEP mandates for special education services. You've likely already experienced the frustration of having school disability specialists, teachers, and leaders fail or refuse to listen to your concerns for your disabled student. You may have seen them take the attitude that they know what's best for your student, when to the contrary, you know your student best and have the legal right to IEP involvement.
You may also have already sought legal advice from an unqualified local lawyer. Most local legal work entails criminal defense, family law disputes, estate planning, real property work, and business litigation. Few lawyers have substantial academic administrative experience, knowledge, and expertise. Even fewer of those lawyers know the complex federal laws and state rules for IEPs and special education services.
Arkansas School District IEP Representation
Arkansas, like other states, organizes its public schools into large districts. Local schools may have limited administrative resources to manage IEP responsibilities. The teachers and other staff at smaller local schools may lack IEP knowledge, training, and experience. You and your student may already depend on school district support, or you may need to access school district support. Your student's school district is also likely to be the level at which you need to resolve your student's IEP dispute, out of the hands of local school officials who are failing or refusing to provide needed special education services. Our attorneys are available at any Arkansas school district, including the following larger school districts.
Springdale School District IEP Representation
Springdale School District is Arkansas' largest school district, supporting twenty-nine schools with approximately 29,000 students. Serving Fayetteville, the Springdale School District has above-average test scores, a diverse student population, and a higher ranking for the best places to teach.
Little Rock School District IEP Representation
Little Rock School District is Arkansas' next-largest school district, supporting forty-two schools with approximately 22,000 students. Serving Little Rock, the Little Rock School District has some of the best schools and best places to teach, including Forest Park Elementary School and Jefferson Elementary School.
Bentonville Public Schools IEP Representation
The Bentonville Public Schools are also among Arkansas' largest school districts, supporting twenty-three schools and approximately 18,000 students. Serving Bentonville, the district has slightly larger than average class sizes.
Rogers School District IEP Representation
Rogers School District is Arkansas' next-largest school district, serving twenty-three schools and approximately 15,000 students. Serving Rogers, the school district has some of the best schools in the state, including Janie Darr Elementary School and Eastside Elementary School, with lower student-to-teacher ratios.
Arkansas' Commitment to IEP Implementation
The Arkansas Department of Education maintains a Division of Elementary and Secondary Education to regulate what happens in the state's kindergarten through grade twelve schools. The Arkansas Division of Elementary and Secondary Education in turn maintains an Office of Special Education and Federal Programs to carry out the state's federal law IEP and other disability-rights obligations. Make no mistake: Arkansas public education has equipped itself to draw on the substantial federal funding for special education services under the IDEA law that mandates the IEP process. The Office of Special Education declares that it “collaborates with local school districts … to ensure that all children with disabilities (ages 3 to 21) in Arkansas receive a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) as outlined in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).” No Arkansas local school district should complain that it lacks the state assistance and support to provide your student with IEP-mandated special education services.
To carry out that commitment, the Arkansas Department of Education Special Education Unit publishes a lengthy Technical Assistance Manual to help school teachers and disability specialists identify students with disabilities in need of special education services. The IDEA law requires schools to identify students whose unaccommodated disabilities are interfering with their education. The state's Technical Assistance Manual helps schools to carry out that duty. The Special Education Unit also publishes an even longer Special Education Process Guide to assist schools in implementing the IEP process. Local school officials do not lack clear guidance on IEP procedures. Your student's general education teachers, disability specialists, counselors, and school leaders have the knowledge or information they need of IEP rules, resources, and requirements. They may just not be listening to you. Get our help in holding them accountable to IEP legal requirements for your student's benefit.
Arkansas Department of Education IEP Overview
The Arkansas Special Education Unit's Special Education Process Guide shows the state's commitment to ensuring your student benefits from federal IEP rights. The Special Education Process Guide begins by making clear that your student's school has the obligation to evaluate your student for IEP eligibility as soon as it suspects that your student is in need of special education services because of a qualifying disability. You may, of course, request the school to make that investigation. But the federal IDEA law places the burden on the school to identify students with disabilities with or without parent request. The evaluation involves notice to the parent of the school's intent to refer the student to a specialist in disability identification. The school must even conduct specific activities to identify your student and other students needing an IEP.
The Arkansas Special Education Unit's Special Education Process Guide and Technical Assistance Manual also acknowledge the school's obligation to adopt and implement an IEP for students with a qualifying disability. Your student's IEP must ensure that your student receives the federally mandated “free appropriate public education” (FAPE) notwithstanding your student's disability. The school must supply any special education services the IDEA law lists that are necessary for your student to obtain the same education as non-disabled students. The Special Education Unit also alerts schools to their obligation to obtain parent consent for student evaluation, reevaluation, and special education services. Let us help if your student's school is not referring and qualifying your student for an IEP or not involving you in the process.
Arkansas Department of Education IEP Development
The Arkansas Special Education Unit's Special Education Process Guide and Technical Assistance Manual describe the process your student's school must follow to develop and adopt the individualized education plan (IEP) fitted to your student's special education needs. Your student's school cannot claim that it doesn't know the IEP process. That process involves appointing your student's IEP team, scheduling IEP team meetings, discussing, negotiating, and adopting the IEP at the team meeting, and then distributing the IEP to appropriate teachers and other school personnel for its prompt implementation. The IEP process the Arkansas Special Education Unit promotes includes an annual IEP team review of the IEP to make appropriate adjustments. Let us help if you don't see your student's school following the proper process to put in place and implement your student's IEP.
Arkansas Department of Education IEP Team Meetings
The Arkansas Special Education Unit's Special Education Process Guide and Technical Assistance Manual also acknowledge and instruct how your student's school should conduct IEP team meetings. Your student's school officials may claim that they have already adopted your student's IEP without a meeting or without notice to you. If so, then they have violated the federally mandated procedures about which the Arkansas Special Education Unit is instructing your student's school. Those procedures require that the IEP team meet to negotiate and approve your student's IEP.
IEP Team Members
The Arkansas Special Education Unit, through its technical manuals, has also told your student's school officials who must be on the IEP team. Your student's school officials must permit you to participate as a full-fledged member of your student's IEP team. Your student, unless very young, also has the right to attend IEP team meetings, although you may determine whether your student should exercise that right depending on your student's maturity and ability to contribute. Don't let your student's school shut you out of the development of your student's IEP. Read school notices, and attend at the time and place indicated. Your student's general education teacher and the school specialist are other mandated participants. The school leader may also attend. Let us help if your student's school isn't allowing you to participate in the development and approval of your student's IEP. The IEP is your student's legal tool for needed special education services.
Federal IEP Mandates Arkansas's Department of Education Recognizes
Arkansas officials, right down to public school classroom teachers, must recognize and comply with lawful federal law mandates. That is the structure of our democratic republic form of government. The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) mandates individualized education plans (IEPs). That's why the Arkansas Special Education Unit distributes technical assistance manuals to local schools to ensure that school officials comply. Your student's teachers and other school officials are accountable to the federal IDEA law and its IEP process, as Arkansas Department of Education officials well know.
The IDEA law's legal phrase, free appropriate public education (FAPE), determines how far your student's school must go in providing special education services to your student, presuming your student qualifies as disabled. The IDEA law also defines qualifying disabilities your student may exhibit to obtain an IEP and special education services. The IDEA law also lists the assistive devices and other equipment your student's school must offer if your student qualifies for an IEP, and the IEP team determines your student needs those services for a free appropriate public education. Let us help you enforce your student's federal IEP rights in any school district across Arkansas.
Other Federal Disability Laws Arkansas Department of Education Recognizes
The Arkansas Department of Education and its Special Education Unit recognize two other federal laws protecting students with disabilities, with which Arkansas public schools must comply.
Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act
The Arkansas Department of Education acknowledges that disabled students also have rights under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act or ADA. ADA Title II prohibits discrimination based on disability. If your student has a disability, your student's school may not use your student's disability to deprive your student of educational privileges and benefits other non-disabled students enjoy. ADA Title II can apply when a student does not otherwise qualify for an IEP and special education services because the student doesn't have the qualifying form of disability. Let our attorneys help you make these fine legal distinctions, evaluating your student's ADA Title II rights.
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973
The Arkansas Special Education Unit's Special Education Process Guide also recognizes Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as a source of student disability rights. Like ADA Title II, Section 504 prohibits disability discrimination in public schools. Schools may adopt a 504 Plan where a student does not qualify for an IEP but nonetheless has a disability against which school officials must not discriminate. Section 504 prohibits disability discrimination without specifying the qualifying disabilities. The Special Education Process Guide encourages schools to adopt 504 Plans when a disabled student does not qualify for an IEP but would benefit from instructional support. In Arkansas and other states, Section 504 disputes go through a civil rights rather than a disability rights proceeding.
Arkansas Department of Education IEP Administrative Rules
The Arkansas Department of Education has done more than just distribute detailed technical assistance manuals to local schools on their duties to comply with federal IEP mandates. The Department has also adopted administrative regulations for the Special Education Unit to monitor and enforce, having the force and effect of state law. The state IEP rules appear in Arkansas Administrative Code Rule 005.18.10-001, also identified as Rule 4.01 et seq. The rules are so detailed as to run to dozens of pages. They also include many forms for the local school or school district to use to carry out the rules' specific obligations. Our attorneys can use these administrative regulations to bolster your student's federal law authority for IEP rights.
Arkansas Administrative Code Rule 005.18.10-001 includes all the mandates described above as to identifying students potentially in need of an IEP, referral with parent consent for evaluation for an IEP, the qualifying disability definition for an IEP, IEP team composition, the frequency and conduct of IEP team meetings, and parent participation in and objection to IEP decisions. You and your student have no lack of detailed authority to support your student's substantive and procedural rights to special education services.
Arkansas Administrative Code IEP Dispute Resolution
Arkansas Administrative Code Rule 005.18.10-001 also details the procedure you and your student may follow, with help from our attorneys, when you disagree with an IEP team decision. You may appeal that decision outside of the school to the local school district. The district should appoint and train an independent decision-maker familiar with disabilities and disability law. The decision maker holds a hearing according to the state's Administrative Procedures Act. The Act guarantees you certain due process rights, including notice of the hearing and the opportunity to present your student's evidence while challenging the school's evidence. The rules also encourage the school and district to use a mediator to attempt voluntary resolution. Limited court review may follow if your appeal to the district does not reverse the adverse decision. Let us help you invoke and pursue these complex and daunting, but potentially effective, procedures. Don't go it alone or with unqualified representation. Your student has too much at stake.
Qualifying for Arkansas Special Education
The Arkansas Department of Education administrative rules, along with the Arkansas Special Education Unit's technical assistance manuals for local schools, adopt the IDEA law's criteria for determining whether a student has a disability qualifying for IEP support. Under the IDEA law, your student must need special education services because of a qualifying disability. The IDEA law generally recognizes only impairments having to do with hearing, speech, vision, cognition, emotions, orthopedics, autism, brain injury, similar health impairments, and learning disabilities. Remember that your student has the right to an administrative hearing to challenge an IEP team decision denying that your student has a qualifying disability. The IDEA law and Arkansas Administrative Code Rule 9.03 authorize an independent evaluation of your student's disability at school expense if the school's evaluator found no qualifying disability. We can help you locate a qualified independent evaluator and invoke a hearing for review.
Arkansas IEP Special Education Services
The IDEA law, Arkansas implementing regulations, and Arkansas technical manuals also list the special education services for which your student may qualify with an IEP. Those services include evaluating your student's needs to remain in the least restrictive educational environment, together with appropriate assistive technology devices such as text-to-audio readers, voice recognition for automated writing, and other assistive devices. Available services also include specialists to help the assistive devices achieve their functional purpose. Training for the parent, student, and others in the use of assistive devices and other technical assistance is also available. Adaptive furniture, adapted audio-visual instructional materials in altered formats, and communications and other technological aids and devices are also available, as are modified textbooks and other instructional materials. We can help advocate for the appropriate assistive devices, specialists, technical assistance, and materials your student's IEP authorizes or should authorize.
Premier IEP Representation Across Arkansas
The Lento Law Firm's premier Education Law Team helps hundreds of students nationwide on issues including disability rights, qualifying for IEPs, and obtaining special education services. Our attorneys are available whether your student attends school in Little Rock, Fayetteville, Fort Smith, Springdale Jonesboro, Rogers, Conway, North Little Rock, Bentonville, or another Arkansas city or town. Call 888.535.3686 now to tell us about your student's case, or complete this contact form.
