Free Appropriate Public Education

Defining Appropriate

The IDEA'S language and legislative history provide little guidance regarding a definition of the term FAPE. According to the IDEA'S implementing regulations, an appropriate education consists of special education and related services that are provided in conformance with an IEP (34 C.F.R. § 300.17). Another regulation further defines special education as “specially designed instruction, at no cost to the parents, to meet the unique needs of a child with a disability …” (34 C.F.R. § 300.38). Where all of these terms and definitions are open to interpretation, it is not surprising that much litigation has ensued over the meaning of the term appropriate as used in the IDEA

In 1982, in Board of Education of the Hendrick Hudson Central School District v. Rowley, the U.S. Supreme Court, in its first case involving a dispute under the IDEA, defined the term appropriate as used in the act. The Court proclaimed that a school board satisfies the IDEA'S requirement of providing a FAPE when it provides “personalized instruction with sufficient support services to permit the child to benefit educationally from that instruction” (p. 203). In addition, the court found that IEPs must be formulated in accordance with the IDEA'S procedural requirements.

In order to provide additional clarification, the Court indicated that other provisions of the IDEA are pertinent in evaluating whether proposed IEPs are appropriate. Specifically, the Court noted that educational programs must be provided in the LRE, and that related or supportive services that may be required to assist children in benefiting from special education programs also need to be included in the child's overall program. The Court reiterated that all services must be furnished at public expense and must meet state educational standards.

Although Rowley provided greater clarification, it did not end the legal debate over what constitutes a FAPE. In the immediate aftermath of Rowley, most lower courts wrote that IEPs and the educational programs that they called for were appropriate if they resulted in some educational benefit to students, even if that benefit was minimal. Most lower federal courts initially concurred that Congress only intended for the IDEA to provide students with disabilities with access to educational programs.

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