TEXAS AFT LEGISLATIVE HOTLINE--WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24, 2009
(copyright 2009 Texas AFT)

* Participate in Virtual Lobby Day on Health Care Tomorrow
* U.S. High Court: When Must Districts Pay Private Tuition for Students With Disabilities?

Lobby Congress Tomorrow on Health-Care Reform: Tomorrow thousands of union members and allies from across the nation will gather in Washington, D.C., to rally on Capitol Hill for a comprehensive health-care reform bill. Although you may not be able to show up in person, you still can make your voice heard by taking part in AFT's "Virtual" Lobby Day.

The idea is to flood the switchboards on Capitol Hill with thousands of calls to coincide with the rally sponsored by the Health Care for America Now coalition. If you want to take part, you can still sign up tonight at http://www.aft.org/e-activist/. Or you can plug into the process at a moment's notice tomorrow by going directly to the "click to call" AFT Web site:
http://www.aft.org/fight4america/click2call_june25.cfm.

Remember you also can e-mail a letter on health-care reform from the AFT Web site at http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/HCreform060809. The message to your two U.S. senators, whether by phone or by e-mail, is that Congress must:

--Reject any new taxes on the employer-provided benefits many Americans currently receive;
--Provide a comprehensive public-plan option that will reduce health-care costs and guarantee high-quality, affordable coverage for more Americans;
--Invest now in reforming health-care so we can get our economy on secure footing; and
--Ensure safe-staffing standards in health-care facilities.

Parsing the U.S. Supreme Court’s Ruling on Private Services for Students With Disabilities: The U.S. Supreme court voted six to three Monday that parents of a special-education student could tap their school district's budget for the cost of private-school tuition, even though their child was never enrolled in a public special-education program found to be inadequate.

The general rule has been that a school district must pay only if it is determined that the district's services fail to meet the student's needs. However, the facts of the case that led to Monday's ruling suggest why the court felt compelled to make an exception to that general requirement. The case involved an Oregon school district that refused to provide any special-education services to the student, deeming him ineligible for services for students with disabilities. He was only later determined to have a disability, after his parents had already enrolled him in a private residential school.

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote: "It would be strange for the act to provide a remedy, as all agree it does, where a school district offers a child inadequate special education services but to leave parents without relief in the more egregious situation in which the school district unreasonably denies a child access to such services altogether."

The ruling has to be read in light of the "egregious" facts of the case. It seems unlikely that it will be applied automatically to more typical situations where a district does offer its special-education services to a student with a disability. In other words, the six-to-three ruling should not be read to give license to parents to bypass the public schools, never seeking public special-ed services, and still claim public reimbursement.