Law & Courts

Educators Say Ruling Could Drain Budgets

By Mark Walsh — March 10, 1999 6 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Some school administrators fear a dramatic increase in special education costs in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last week that districts must pay for individual nursing help needed by students with severe medical disabilities to attend school.

“The potential impact of this is going to be tremendous,” said Lewis Finch, the superintendent of the Cedar Rapids, Iowa, school district, which had fought requests to pay for a nursing aide for a paralyzed boy who is dependent on a ventilator and other assistance to attend school.

Anne L. Bryant, the executive director of the National School Boards Association, estimated that as many as 17,000 children nationwide have severe disabilities that could require continuous, one-on-one help.

“The question is, ‘How do we pay for it?’ ” she said.

But disability-rights advocates said the court’s 7-2 ruling in Cedar Rapids Community School District v. Garret F. (Case No. 96-1793) was a narrow interpretation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the federal law guaranteeing a free public education for children with disabilities.

“I don’t think there are going to be floodgates that will open,” said Curtis Decker, the executive director of the Washington-based National Association of Protection and Advocacy Systems.

The group filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of 16-year-old Garret Frey, the Cedar Rapids student who has depended on a ventilator since he was paralyzed in a motorcycle accident at age 4.

The Supreme Court on March 3 held that the IDEA requires districts to pay for continuous, one-on-one care of the sort required by medically fragile students such as Mr. Frey to attend school.

“This case is about whether meaningful access to the public schools will be assured” for students such as Mr. Frey, said the majority opinion by Justice John Paul Stevens.

The law makes districts responsible for special education and “related services” for students with disabilities. Related services include transportation, counseling, and support services such as speech pathology.

But under the statute, districts are generally not responsible for “medical services.” The question for the court was whether continuous, one-on-one nursing care for a medically fragile student is a covered related service or an excluded medical service under the law.

The majority said that the care required by Mr. Frey was a related service that was necessary for him to benefit from school. It endorsed the Clinton administration’s interpretation that only services that require the participation of a physician fall under the medical-services definition.

“Under the statute, our precedent, and the purposes of the IDEA, the district must fund such ‘related services’ in order to help guarantee that students like Garret are integrated into the public schools,” Justice Stevens wrote.

He was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Antonin Scalia, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen G. Breyer.

Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, wrote a dissent that expressed fears about the costs that districts will now face in providing care to students with severe disabilities.

“Congress enacted IDEA to increase the educational opportunities available to disabled children, not to provide medical care for them,” Justice Thomas wrote. The majority’s approach “blindsides unwary states with fiscal obligations that they could not have anticipated,” he said.

Motorcycle Accident

Garret Frey was riding on the back of a motorcycle with his father in 1987 when his blanket caught in the cycle’s drive mechanism. His head was jerked back and his spinal cord was severed.

Paralyzed from the neck down, the boy must use a wheelchair and a ventilator. But his mental abilities did not suffer.

He entered kindergarten in the 18,000-student Cedar Rapids district in 1988, and he is now a sophomore at Jefferson High School there.

During Mr. Frey’s early years in school, an aunt attended to his medical needs. He requires periodic catheterization of his urine, suctioning of his tracheotomy once during the school day, and constant monitoring for any trouble with his breathing.

Later, his family used the proceeds of a settlement with the motorcycle manufacturer to pay for a licensed practical nurse to attend to him in school.

In 1993, Charlene Frey, the boy’s mother, asked the district to begin paying for the health aide.

The district refused, contending that it was not obligated under the IDEA to provide continuous, one-on-one nursing services. The district does provide a full-time educational aide for Mr. Frey.

The district has argued that it could cost as much as $30,000 to $40,000 a year to provide the student with an individual nurse. But there has been considerable disagreement about the potential costs to the district.

The Frey family has argued that a properly trained individual could attend to both the boy’s health and educational needs at an annual cost to the district of less than $20,000.

Mr. Finch, the district superintendent, disagreed last week.

He said the district would need to provide a well-trained aide, probably a licensed practical nurse, for Mr. Frey’s health services. And the health aide would not also be able to serve as a teaching aide, according to the superintendent, so the cost to the district would be at least $30,000 a year.

The NSBA argued in a brief filed in support of the district that the costs of providing an individual nurse to a student would be particularly difficult for smaller school districts.

Ms. Bryant said last week that multiplying the estimated 17,000 students with severe disabilities times $30,000 a year on average for an individual aide would result in added costs to districts of some $510 million.

Jim Bradshaw, a spokesman for the Department of Education, said the agency had no figure available on the number of medically challenged students who might require one-on-one nursing services.

Federal Boost Needed?

Underlying school districts’ worries about the ruling is their long-standing argument that the federal government has failed to provide full funding for the entitlement to special education granted by the IDEA.

Jay Diskey, a spokesman for the Republicans on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, said the ruling was being widely discussed last week by members of Congress concerned about the funding levels for special education.

“This demonstrates once again the tremendous expense associated with this federal mandate,” he said. He added that GOP lawmakers would like to increase funding for special education, while the Clinton administration has proposed level funding in its fiscal 2000 budget.

Perry F. Zirkel, a professor of law and education at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., said the high court has consistently interpreted the IDEA as imposing a clear obligation on districts to make education available for all students.

He said he doubted there were a huge number of medically fragile children who require continuous, one-on-one care.

“If there is a strong backlash of school districts, then they could go to Congress” and seek changes in the law, he said.

Mr. Decker of the disability-rights group argued that most school districts have assumed they were responsible for nursing services for students with disabilities at least since 1984, when the Supreme Court ruled in Irving Independent School District v. Tatro that the clean intermittent catheterization required several times a day by a student with spina bifida was a related service covered by the special education law.

The Tatro ruling endorsed a test formulated by the Education Department for interpreting the “related services” provision of the special education law. If a service had to be performed by a physician, it was a medical service excluded from district responsibility under the law, according to a department regulation. If it did not involve a physician, it was a “related” service.

Related Tags:

A version of this article appeared in the March 10, 1999 edition of Education Week as Educators Say Ruling Could Drain Budgets

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Reading & Literacy Webinar
(Re)Focus on Dyslexia: Moving Beyond Diagnosis & Toward Transformation
Move beyond dyslexia diagnoses & focus on effective literacy instruction for ALL students. Join us to learn research-based strategies that benefit learners in PreK-8.
Content provided by EPS Learning
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Teaching Webinar
Cohesive Instruction, Connected Schools: Scale Excellence District-Wide with the Right Technology
Ensure all students receive high-quality instruction with a cohesive educational framework. Learn how to empower teachers and leverage technology.
Content provided by Instructure
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
School Climate & Safety Webinar
How to Use Data to Combat Bullying and Enhance School Safety
Join our webinar to learn how data can help identify bullying, implement effective interventions, & foster student well-being.
Content provided by Panorama Education

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Law & Courts What's Ahead for Education This Supreme Court Term? Trans Rights, E-Rate, and More
The justices have one major case on transgender medical care on their docket and others pending on gender-identity issues in schools.
10 min read
The Supreme Court on Wednesday afternoon, April 19, 2023, in Washington.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday afternoon, April 19, 2023, in Washington.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
Law & Courts Biden Administration Asks Supreme Court to Spare Huge E-Rate Funding Source
A lower court ruling has jeopardized more than $2 billion in annual funding for internet connectivity for schools and libraries.
3 min read
FILE - The Supreme Court is seen under stormy skies in Washington, June 20, 2019. In the coming days, the Supreme Court will confront a perfect storm mostly of its own making, a trio of decisions stemming directly from the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
The Biden administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court—shown here in June 2019—to reinstate a funding mechanism that distributes $2 billion annually for the E-rate program that supports internet connectivity in schools and libraries. A federal appeals court ruled that the mechanism was unconstitutional in July.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
Law & Courts Court Revives Asian-American Groups' Challenge to New York City Selective Admissions
New York's program has sought to increase representation of Black and Latino students in its selective high schools.
5 min read
Image of a gavel
iStock/Getty
Law & Courts The New Title IX Regulation and Legal Battles Over It, Explained
The Biden administration's regulation that interprets Title IX to protect LGBTQ+ students faces multiple legal challenges.
5 min read
Claudia Carranza, of Harlingen, hugs her son, Laur Kaufman, 13, at a rally against House Bill 25, a bill that would ban transgender girls from participating in girls school sports, outside the Capitol in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2021.
Claudia Carranza, of Harlingen, Texas, hugs her son, Laur Kaufman, 13, at a rally for transgender rights in Austin on Oct. 6, 2021. The U.S. Department of Education's new Title IX regulation, which adds gender identity and sexual orientation to the definition of sex discrimination, has been challenged in multiple lawsuits and blocked in 26 states and at individual schools in other states.
Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman via AP