What are the disability education laws that apply to students in the K-12 education system, and how do they impact pupils in the classroom and beyond? Joe Zesski answers this and more in this edition of Ask About the ADA! For a transcript of this episode, please email northeastada@cornell.edu.
What are the disability education laws that apply to students in the K-12 education system, and how do they impact pupils in the classroom and beyond? Joe Zesski answers this and more in this edition of Ask About the ADA! For a transcript of this episode, please email northeastada@cornell.edu.
Disability Education Laws Episode 5
JOE ZESSKI: Hello. Welcome to Ask About the ADA, the podcast where we answer your questions about the Americans with Disabilities Act and how it applies to your everyday life. I'm Joe Zesski, the program manager here at the Northeast ADA Center. On today's episode, we're going to go back to a webinar that the Northeast ADA presented on May 31, 2023. The webinars title was Transition from K-12 to the Post-secondary Environment.
In the webinar we talk about how things change as a student with a disability moves from the school system, elementary, secondary, to the college and university environment. The laws that protect their rights change, and other things change for them as well as students progress. In today's episode, we're going to focus on the first portion of the webinar. We're going to focus on what laws apply in the K-12 environment. They include the Americans with Disabilities Act, section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, as well as the IDEA, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
While some of these laws, the ADA and section 504, continue to apply to students as they move into college, IDEA does not. And we'll talk about what this means and what impact that has on the educational rights of students with disabilities. It also will discuss what are the basic concepts that each law protects, or establishes in terms of protection. With that being said, let's get into the webinar.
Let's begin first with before college and before university. In other words, the K through 12 environment. What laws apply in terms of disability rights? And there are several that apply. I'll note here that I'm going to be focusing on national laws. There are in many states different non-discrimination laws that may touch upon education and impact education, both in terms of access and in terms of what is often termed special education. I am just going to focus on national laws in general, just so everyone is aware.
But so when a student is in the secondary environment, they may be in high school, what sort of laws are relevant to them? The three that are most notable are section 504, of course, and many of you who are joining today are probably familiar with 504 plans and what that means. The IDEA, is for Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and the ADA itself. And they apply in different ways, of course, and they mean different things. Section 504, which we'll talk about in more detail in a bit, tries to ensure access for any individuals with disabilities to places that receive federal financial assistance, and in the school environment that can mean making academic accommodations and adjustments.
IDEA is notable because it is a law that contains funding and supports, financial support to implement the law, where schools are required to actively seek out students with disabilities to make sure that they receive a free and appropriate public education, in the least restrictive environment possible. In other words, the schools have an active requirement to make sure that students with disabilities are receiving appropriate and necessary supports for their educational opportunities.
The ADA, of course, also applies. This could be entitled to for state and local governments and charter schools, and Title III as well, which would cover private schools. And we have the requirements here to provide equal access as defined under the ADA.
So this is in the K to 12 environment. And realize that when we transition-- students with disabilities transition from high school to the college environment, the laws that are relevant change, because IDEA is not meant and does not cover the post-secondary environment. It is meant to establish a free and appropriate public education for through K-12. So IDEA as a law goes away. And so section 504 and the ADA still apply in the post-secondary environment, but that means that there are going to be changes.
Well first, without IDEA one has to realize that the financing or financial support for accommodations and supports goes away. That being said, it doesn't mean that there's, well, no financial support. Now colleges, universities don't have to implement or abide by section 504 or the ADA. That's definitely not the case. In fact they very much do apply, however there's no funding from the federal government that supports implementation of the ADA or section 504. They are in effect civil rights laws, which impose certain nondiscrimination requirements, as opposed to IDEA in the prior environment, education environment through high school, also provided financial funding from the government.
It's also important to realize this transition, this changing of coverage, because the students must recognize and must understand that they're moving from more of an entitlement environment. As I said, IDEA places responsibilities on schools to be proactive in terms of serving students with disabilities, to a rights-- more of a rights and responsibilities model, where they need to take greater initiative and greater ownership of ensuring their rights.
The section 504 and the ADA are there to guarantee rights for individuals with disabilities, including students with disabilities. However, a student must be more proactive in asserting their rights, and understanding their rights, and knowing what their rights are and how they need to be protected. So that's an important transition for students to be aware of, and to prepare for, and to understand that now, while there are non-discrimination requirements, they must be much more active, if they were not before, in their educational process in terms of ensuring their rights and trying to secure any disability related supports that they may need for an equal opportunity in their education.
Quickly I will go over the requirements for Section 504 in the ADA. First, as many of you who are joining today probably already know, section 504 essentially requires that programs or activities receiving federal financial assistance not discriminate against people with disabilities. People with disabilities cannot be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination. So section 504 is tied, again, to programs, services, activities that receive federal financial assistance. And so almost every-- not quite, but almost every college or university would fall under this law and be covered by it through student loans and other such programs.
A further requirement under Section 504, besides the general non-discrimination requirement, is that an organization, an agency that receives the financial assistance must take steps to guarantee that students with disabilities, in the cases of college and university, not be denied benefits or excluded from participation in programs, including that it may require that such programs' activities ensure auxiliary aids and services for the education setting. What we have on this slide is a very long quotation from the law that puts that in more formal legal language. And what's important to note is that it requires auxiliary aids and services for students with sensory, manual, or speaking, quote unquote, "impairments."
So again, this is requirement for auxiliary aids and services that we'll see again literally in just a moment under the ADA. And this is addressing Title II of the ADA. Of course, there are five titles to the law. Title II of the law, as I mentioned earlier, deals with public schools. And actually Title II covers state or local governments and all related agencies and instrumentalities. That includes public and charter schools in the K-12 environment, but it does also apply to colleges and universities. For example, if you think of state universities, community colleges, any college or university that is primarily controlled by a state or local government is going to be covered still under Title II.
And this part of the ADA extends the Section 504 non-discrimination requirement, and the requirement to provide auxiliary aids and services into the ADA. So again, these Title II schools are required to make sure that their programs, services, activities are accessible to students with disabilities. They must ensure that communication for students with disabilities is as effective as that provided to and with students without disabilities. And of course Title II does require that a covered entity, such as a college or university, make reasonable modifications to their policies, practices, and procedures. In other words, they have to make changes to make sure that students with disabilities have equal opportunity and access to those programs, services, and activities.
We have a similar requirement under Title III. Title III of the ADA, however, deals with private institutions. The term in Title III is actually public accommodation, which applies to one of 12 very broad categories of places that affect commerce, and are open to the public. One of those 12 categories are places of education, and so private colleges are going to be covered here under Title III of the ADA.
There is exceptions for religiously controlled institutions. So it's possible that a college or university that is controlled by a religious entity may not be covered in terms of Title III of the ADA, but again, section 504 likely would still apply if they receive federal financial assistance, and other aspects as well. So under Title III it's important to note that the requirement is for entities to ensure access to their goods and services, including colleges and universities that fall under this part of the law.
And again, the focus is on providing-- there's requirements to provide effective communication, and to make reasonable modifications of policies, practices, and procedures. Later on in the webinar towards the end we will briefly discuss facility access, and I will come back to that in a moment.
That's it for today's podcast. On our next podcast you'll be able to hear more from that webinar. The discussion will move from talking about the K-12 environment to how the laws apply in the college environment, and what exactly is covered in the college process. Once again, I'm Joe Zesski, the program manager of the Northeast ADA. You can contact us at the Northeast ADA by visiting our website, NortheastADA.org, by calling us at 1-800-949-4232, or you can visit us on social media. Just look for @northeastada. Thanks as always to Will Warren, our student producer, and thank you as well to Peter Quinn of the Yang Tan Institute who does a final polish on these podcasts, and thank you for listening and being a part of the conversation.
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