I am writing to strongly support the comments of the Virginia Coalition for Students with Disabilities on the proposed regulations to implement IDEA 2004.

For someone who has been involved in special education in Virginia for 25 years, these proposed regulations represent an unfortunate repetition of the past. In 1993, the Virginia Board of Education released proposed regulations that would have stripped the Virginia regs of everything not explicitly required by the federal regulations. As a result, parents, civic group members, state legislators and others protested the changes through speaking at public hearings, written comments and the media. In the end, the Board directed the Superintendent to gather a group of diverse stakeholders and rewrite the regulations in a manner that did not reduce parental involvement or cut back on the rights of children and parents. The revised regs were then approved by the Board.

Why is this happening again in Virginia? Why do parents, citizens and policy makers once again have to speak up for children with disabilities and their families in this manner? Hopefully, the end result will be the same, with the regulations ultimately revised to retain the rights of children and parents and the involvement of parents. I served on the Superintendents committee to rewrite the regulations in 1993 and would be willing to serve again if this Board makes the same decision.

In the past 15 years since that regulatory revision, I have been very involved in special education at the federal level, with the reauthorization of IDEA in 2004, and as the Director of the Office of Special Education Programs, U. S. Deparment of Education, from 2002 to 2005. In that position, I had the opportunity to become familiar with the implementation of IDEA across the country. Virginia should be proud of the provisions in our regulations that support parent involvement and keep those provisions.

Virginia does have some catching up to do in the education of students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Allowing the use of the "developmental delay" definition through age 9, clarifying that inclusive education opportunities must be provided for preschool age children and clarifying that IDEA funds may be used to serve students who are 18-21 years old and still eligible for IDEA services in postsecondary settings would help Virginia improve services for these students.

The Virginia Coalition for Students with Disabilities has provided an excellent analysis and recommendations for the proposed regulations. I fully support their recommendations, with one exception. Assessments should not be modified in a manner that invalidates the assement. Instead, our assessments must be developed using universal design for learning principles.

Thank you for this opportunity to comment.

Stephanie Smith Lee