Trump Administration Cautioned Against Changing IDEA Policy
July 22, 2019
By: Michelle Diament
Source: Disability Scoop
Disability advocates and former federal special education officials are warning of possible Trump administration moves to alter policy related to a central tenet of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
Advocates met with top officials at the U.S. Department of Education last week after receiving what they called “credible information” indicating that the agency planned to change or reinterpret policy on IDEA’s requirement that students with disabilities be served in the least restrictive environment, or LRE.
IDEA states that students with disabilities should be taught alongside children without disabilities to the “maximum extent appropriate.” Advocates said they are worried that the Trump administration is looking to change the law’s presumption that “all children with disabilities will be educated in the general education classroom; except in the rare circumstance that the student cannot get a satisfactory education in that environment even with supplementary aids and services.”