Vouchers restrict disabled transfers

The Pinellas schools attorney's ruling applies only to public school transfer vouchers.

By STEPHEN HEGARTY

© St. Petersburg Times,
published August 18, 2001

With the start of the school year just four days away, the Pinellas County schools attorney is notifying parents of 66 disabled children that they cannot send their kids to a different public school under the state's newest voucher program.

Those transfers, attorney John Bowen wrote, would violate the school district's desegregation agreement, which calls for student assignments based on geographic attendance zones.

"Parents cannot choose to attend another school within the district pursuant to the McKay Scholarship Program for Students with Disabilities until the 2003-2004 school year," Bowen wrote in a letter Thursday to the Pinellas School Board members. In 2003-2004 the district will have its school choice plan in place, and only then will the district be able to allow parents to make those transfers, Bowen said.

The board attorney's decision does not affect disabled students who choose to take a state voucher to attend a private school. Nearly 500 Pinellas students have expressed an interest in participating in that part of the program.

The decision only applies to disabled students who want to transfer to another public school under the program named after its primary sponsor, Senate President John McKay of Bradenton.

"The issue is, we can't do it under our choice plan until we have a choice plan, and that happens in 2003," Bowen said Friday.

A spokesman in McKay's office said members of the Senate education committee would be notified of Pinellas' stance on the program and would try to determine whether the district is complying with the law. McKay could not be reached for comment.

Bowen said that despite his personal opposition to the vouchers, he is intent on complying with the law.

Pinellas recently was released from its federal desegregation order, which governed student assignments for nearly 30 years. The district currently is handling student assignments according to a mutual agreement with the Legal Defense Fund, an agreement that was approved by the federal judge who oversaw the case. The agreement calls for the implementation of an ambitious school choice plan in 2003.

The voucher law says the transfers should be done in accordance with the district's school choice plan. Bowen argues that Pinellas couldn't allow the transfers until its choice plan is implemented.

Though the Hillsborough County schools also are facing the end of court supervision in a desegregation case, the district is not allowing that to affect its handling of the new voucher program.

Although Bowen's reading of the law does not prevent parents of disabled children from receiving vouchers to transfer to private schools, this week he sent a letter to those parents as well.

The letter warns the parents that if they transfer their child to a private school, they forgo their rights under the federal Disability Education Act. Bowen sought an opinion from the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights on that issue. The department agreed.

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