daisy, you know I'm not a lawyer and therefore we never consider my posts legal advice, right?
Now that I've repeated that I might have something interesting for your upcoming mediation with OCR. I'm betting you're already hitting the right notes otherwise you wouldn't have OCR flexing at least a little muscle here.
I'm going to link to something at the GPO (Government Printing Office) re: 504 and FAPE with specific attention to
related aids and services. The GPO is considered the gold standard of regulations so anything on even the Dept of Ed wouldn't supersede it. GPO doesn't make the regulations they're just responsible for holding the most accurate version of them.
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2010-title34-vol1/xml/CFR-2010-title34-vol1-sec104-33.xmlCode of Federal Regulations
Title 34 - Education
Volume: 1
Date: 2010-07-01
Original Date: 2010-07-01
Title: Section 104.33 - Free appropriate public education.
Context: Title 34 - Education. Subtitle B - Regulations of the Offices of the Department of Education. CHAPTER I - OFFICE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION. PART 104 - NONDISCRIMINATION ON THE BASIS OF HANDICAP IN PROGRAMS OR ACTIVITIES RECEIVING FEDERAL FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE.
Subpart D - Preschool, Elementary, and Secondary Education.
§ 104.33Free appropriate public education.
(a) General. A recipient that operates a public elementary or secondary education program or activity shall provide a free appropriate public education to each qualified handicapped person who is in the recipient's jurisdiction, regardless of the nature or severity of the person's handicap.
(b) Appropriate education.
(1) For the purpose of this subpart, the provision of an appropriate education is the provision of regular or special education and related aids and services that (i) are designed to meet individual educational needs of handicapped persons as adequately as the needs of nonhandicapped persons are met and (ii) are based upon adherence to procedures that satisfy the requirements of §§ 104.34, 104.35, and 104.36.
(2) Implementation of an Individualized Education Program developed in accordance with the Education of the Handicapped Act is one means of meeting the standard established in paragraph (b)(1)(i) of this section.
(3) A recipient may place a handicapped person or refer such a person for aid, benefits, or services other than those that it operates or provides as its means of carrying out the requirements of this subpart. If so, the recipient remains responsible for ensuring that the requirements of this subpart are met with respect to any handicapped person so placed or referred.
Transportation by itself can be troublesome because it can be at times exempt from ADA. In this case transportation is a
related service to FAPE and in order to benefit from that service as adequately as it is for non-disabled peers his 504 accommodation to have a responsible adult ready to administer epinephrine is a necessary and effective accommodation.
Notice I'm staying away from "reasonable", stick to necessary, effective, appropriate. One thing I learned from a webinar recently is if it's a surprise that the SD's attorney is there see if you can postpone until you can have your own attorney.
This is my next attempt at digging further into transportation as it relates to FAPE because this seems to be a battle ground for accommodations especially with regard to epinephrine administration. It's a lot of raw thought and drawing on different references so hopefully I can come back to refine this over some time.