Ed. Dept. Gives Primer on IDEA Regulations

Meetings for the public in 8 cities will explain the 'user friendly' rules.

Washington

After two days of carefully outlining changes in federal special education policy wrought by recently unveiled regulations, Department of Education officials last week acknowledged that they weren’t ready to give an audience of special educators what it wanted most: answers to hundreds of specific questions.

The Education Department’s office of special education programs planned its annual leadership conference to give school, district, and state special education officials a primer on the regulations covering the 2004 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the federal law that governs the education of 6.7 million students in special education. The regulations were released Aug. 3 and were published in the Federal Register on Aug. 14. ( "Final IDEA Regulations Clarify Key Issues," Aug. 9, 2006.)

But to provide more details, OSEP said it is taking the regulations...