Winkelman ex rel. Winkelman v. Parma City School District

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (2005) contains an extensive set of procedural due process safeguards for parents and their children. Yet the IDEA was unclear about the rights of nonattorney parents of students with disabilities who wished to file suit on behalf of their children. Consequently, there was a split among the federal circuits over whether nonattorney parents could intervene on behalf of their children in disputes with their school boards over the delivery of a free appropriate public education (FAPE), which culminated in the Supreme Court's hearing an appeal in such a dispute, Winkelman ex rel. Winkelman v. Parma City School District (2007).

Winkelman began when parents in Ohio sued local school board officials in a fight over the educational placement of their ...