You know what would help is having anyone at their convenience and desire to do so, take on the SD's perspective and argument. In addition to that take every worst scenario or stumper thrown against a parent on reasonable. I'm after airtight and concrete shoring up the '93 letter for 2014+ under current climate where reasonable is piling up through extremely credible sources including OCR staff.
Making notes.
1. Provision of FAPE requirements
2. Inapplicability of limitations in postsecondary and employment on FAPE, voluntary nature vs. mandatory
3. Adjustments may be
substantial. Substantial does not equate unreasonable or not necessary (an unauthorized extension of obligation). It is
only when they go beyond necessary to eliminate discrimination against an otherwise qualified individual does it become an extension (i.e. not reasonable, not necessary)
4. 504 compliance to deliver FAPE does not require any changes beyond necessary to eliminate discrimination
5.
Where a school district is meeting needs of students w/o disabilities to a greater extent than students w/disabilities discrimination is occurring. 6. Even substantial modifications are not extensions of obligation to eliminate discrimination.
7. "reasonable" coincides with modifications that do not alter fundamental nature. It does not define the degree of modification.
8. Section 504 prohibits discrimination by removing barriers to existing programs-- it does not constitute affirmative action, there is no special selection conferring additional benefit to overcome disability. It merely requires adjustments, without pronouncement on
degree of adjustment, necessary to eliminate discrimination. (See 5 above).
9. Title II applies but does not weaken existing Section 504 standards.
Expressio unius est exclusio alterius ("the express mention of one thing excludes all others") Unless Title II has adopted a different standard Title II is interpreted to adopt Section 504 standards. FAPE is specified standard.
Short history
Constitution
USC subordinate to Constitution -> Congress (laws)
CFR subordinate to USC -> Departments (regulations)
No alterations to FAPE by courts or Congress that have changed standards since . Necessary to eliminate discrimination. Discrimination happens when student w/o disability needs are met with greater extent than needs of students w/disability. Eliminating discrimination may mean a substantial adjustment. "Reasonable" does not define a degree nor does it oppose necessary, as long as a fundamental nature is not altered. FAPE is not limited by standards of employment or postsecondary, nor is Section 504 weakened by Title II.
And the argument against
http://www.mbm-law.net/newsletter-articles/fape-under-section-504-on-solid-ground/2704/
Lyons v. Smith, 829 F. Supp. 414, 419 (D.D.C. 1993), foreshadowed Mark H. In Lyons, the federal district court affirmed a hearing officer’s decision that a child with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) did not fit in the IDEA category of “other health impaired.” At the same time, it reversed the hearing officer’s decision declining to order that the child be given special education pursuant to section 504. The court declared that the child was entitled to “an education designed to meet his individual educational needs as adequately as the needs of nonhandicapped persons are met.”
Lyons is precisely parallel to the situation that is likely to become common in the wake of IDEA eligibility cutbacks and section 504/ADA coverage expansion: a claim by a non-IDEA-eligible child, not for damages relief, but rather for prospective creation and implementation of a program providing appropriate education under the section 504 standard. Lyons cautioned that section 504 does not require anything more than preventing discrimination on the basis of disability and expressed doubt that the interventions required to serve a child who is not eligible under IDEA in a nondiscriminatory manner would include special education, but it placed its emphasis on the regulation mandating that the needs of the child be met as adequately as the needs of others. In response to a request for interpretation of the duties that public schools owe students covered by section 504 but not IDEA, the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education stated that the section 504 appropriate education duty does not incorporate any cost or other limit as may be conveyed by a “reasonable accommodation” standard but instead that precedent imposing such a limit in some education cases applies to post-secondary institutions only. “Letter to Zirkel,” 20 Individuals with Disabilities Educ. L. Rep. 134 (1993). Thus, in the view of the Department of Education, the section 504 appropriate education duty may in fact be more exacting than the Lyons court envisioned.