Delaware joins other states to fight for students with disabilities

Delaware Attorney General Matt Denn is working with officials in other states to help out a disabled student in Colorado.

On Monday, a formal brief was filed with the U.S. Supreme Court which supports the appeal of a disable student claiming that the Colorado Public School District has not met the educational needs of the student under federal law.

This is the first Supreme Court brief that the Delaware office has authored since Denn took office in January 2015.

“We chose this issue to seek to be heard with the United States Supreme Court,” Denn said, “because it is fundamentally important to the future of every child with a disability in our nation’s public schools. We also sought to be heard because how the Supreme Court phrases its opinion could also have a direct impact on students with disabilities in Delaware public schools.”

Denn is joined by the Attorneys General of Massachusetts and New Mexico. Their goal is to get the United States Supreme Court to adopt a higher national standard for educational services that will be provided by all schools across the country. The recently filed brief also uses the standard reflected in Delaware state law as an example that should be enforced rather than the lower standard used in Colorado and many other states.

Delaware State Solicitor Aaron Goldstein and Deputy Attorneys General Patricia Davis and Laura Makransky assisted in writing the brief. The brief states that the three Attorneys General “implore this Court to find that the highest level of educational benefit for children with disabilities currently recognized by federal courts of appeal is the correct level for all of the nation’s children with disabilities in order to ensure that the [Individuals with Disabilities Education Act]’s ideals of equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency are fulfilled.”