DATE:             February 4, 2008

TO:                  Special Education Regulations Revision Process

EMAIL:            ReviseSpedRegs@doe.virginia.gov

FROM:            The Executive Board of the Fairfax County Council of PTAs (FCCPTA)

On behalf of the Fairfax County Council of PTAs (FCCPTA), which represents PTAs in approximately 200 Fairfax County Public Schools, the following comments are submitted by the Executive Board of the FCCPTA to the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) regarding the revision of the Regulations Governing Special Education Programs for Children with Disabilities in Virginia.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) ensures that children with disabilities have a free appropriate public education available to meet their unique needs and prepare them for further education, employment and independent living.  We believe the current Regulations Governing Special Education Programs for Children with Disabilities in Virginia are superior in many ways to the proposed regulations.  We further believe that the existing regulations do not merit the wholesale revision that is being proposed in order to comply with the 2004 amendments to IDEA.

Virginia has been in the forefront of promoting and protecting the necessary parent-school partnership that ensures children with disabilities are properly identified and served by our local school divisions.  The proposed regulations represent a step backwards in Virginia’s historic guarantee of parental rights in special education.  The Virginia Board of Education must not allow this roll back of civil rights in Virginia for children with disabilities and the parents who advocate for them.

Virginia’s important parent protections

The FCCPTA supports Virginia’s long-standing commitment to the right of parental consent in three basic areas:  (1) identification to determine the existence of a disability and a child’s eligibility for special education and related services; (2) initial implementation of and changes to a child’s Individualized Education Program (IEP); and (3) termination of a child’s special education eligibility or services.  IDEA requires parental consent to initiate services as a matter of ensuring parent involvement; the rights of consent to changes in a child’s IEP and for termination of services are Virginia-specific, and were added to promote a greater level of partnership between parents and schools.

VDOE’s stated argument for the proposed deletions of Virginia-specific parental rights and protections from the current regulations is "to respect the intent of Part B of the Act [IDEA 2004] to minimize the number of rules, regulations and policies to which local educational agencies and schools are subject."  However, minimization of state regulations is a common theme in federal legislation and not a specific mandate for IDEA.

Regulations promulgated by the federal government are considered the minimum standard that states must follow.  States can, and regularly do, exceed federal regulations because they respond to the needs of their particular citizens, as is their right.  The effort to minimize differences between the federal and state special education regulations must not mean the elimination of long-standing Virginia-specific rights currently guaranteed to our state's citizens.

The priorities listed below reflect the FCCPTA’s position on select areas of the proposed Regulations Governing Special Education Programs for Children with Disabilities in Virginia which significantly impact Virginia’s historic guarantee of rights to children with disabilities and their parents.  These specific areas are important to continuing the existing civil protections in Virginia that are essential to the free appropriate public education (FAPE) of children with disabilities:

FOR THE COMPLETE VERSION OF THE FCCPTA's WRITTEN COMMENTS ON THE PROPOSED REGULATIONS, SEE www.fccpta.org.