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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
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State
Rep. Barb McIlvaine Smith
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McIlvaine Smith chairs hearing on bills to help special-education students
WEST CHESTER, Oct. 2 – State Rep. Barb McIlvaine Smith, D-Chester, chaired a public hearing today of the House Subcommittee on Special Education on legislation designed to help parents get the best possible education for their special-needs children.
House Bill 2536 would create an independent board to oversee the adjudication of disputes between parents and school districts on the appropriate education of special needs students. House Bill 2438 would return the burden of proof to school districts that an individual education plan created for a special-needs student was appropriate for meeting the needs of that student.
House Speaker Dennis O'Brien, R-Phila., who introduced the bills, addressed the committee on their importance.
"The bills would promote fairness in decisions about education services for individual children with special needs," O'Brien said. "These questions are complicated and it's important that the burden should be on the school district to justify a given educational plan. School districts have far more resources than parents to back up their position. We also need an independent office, separate from the Department of Education, to settle the disputes."
McIlvaine Smith, a co-sponsor of both bills, agreed that accountability in ensuring an individual education plan, or IEP, is followed for special-needs students.
"Education should be a three-way partnership between parent, student and teacher. Yet time and again I hear from parents who say their child's IEP is not being followed," McIlvaine Smith said. "These bills are tools that would help to hold districts more accountable, and to level the playing field for families of all income levels."
Both bills have wide bipartisan support and are currently under consideration in the House Education Committee.
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