In a decision that could help disabled students get needed services and cost school districts millions of dollars, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday that parents of special-education students may seek 
government reimbursement for private school tuition, even if they have never received special-education services in public school.The case before the court involved a struggling Oregon high school student, identified in court documents only as T.A., whose parents removed him from public school in the Forest Grove district in his junior year, and enrolled him in a $5,200-a-month residential school.While most of the nation’s 6 million special-education students attend public school, as T.A. did for many years, thousands of families with disabled children, convinced the public schools lack appropriate placements, avoid public schools altogether. Instead, they enroll their children in expensive private schools for students with emotional or learning disabilities, then seek reimbursement.Nationally, about 90,000 special-education students are in private schools, most of them referred by their public schools.In 2007-2008, the New York City schools, which filed a friend-of-court brief supporting Forest Grove, paid $89 million in private-school tuition for disabled students whose parents had placed them there, up from $53 million two years earlier.In 2007-2008, the city received 4,368 requests for reimbursement from parents who enrolled their children in private school; of those, more than half had not received services in public school
government reimbursement for private school tuition, even if they have never received special-education services in public school.The case before the court involved a struggling Oregon high school student, identified in court documents only as T.A., whose parents removed him from public school in the Forest Grove district in his junior year, and enrolled him in a $5,200-a-month residential school.While most of the nation’s 6 million special-education students attend public school, as T.A. did for many years, thousands of families with disabled children, convinced the public schools lack appropriate placements, avoid public schools altogether. Instead, they enroll their children in expensive private schools for students with emotional or learning disabilities, then seek reimbursement.Nationally, about 90,000 special-education students are in private schools, most of them referred by their public schools.In 2007-2008, the New York City schools, which filed a friend-of-court brief supporting Forest Grove, paid $89 million in private-school tuition for disabled students whose parents had placed them there, up from $53 million two years earlier.In 2007-2008, the city received 4,368 requests for reimbursement from parents who enrolled their children in private school; of those, more than half had not received services in public schoolFor further details visit at : www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2009/06/23/ruling_extends_special_education_funding/
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