A bipartisan bill that would make it easier for parents in Louisiana to win special education disputes has the full backing of the House education committee.
When a parent believes their child’s public school isn’t providing them with an appropriate education — what federal law requires — the burden of proof is on the parent.
It comes as parents must rely on state-level complaints due to federal cuts by the Trump administration.
At Wednesday’s committee meeting, lawmakers and parents spoke in favor of HB 342, which would transfer the burden of proof to schools, as some states have already done. No one spoke against the bill.
“The school districts hold all the power and all the information,” the bill’s author, Rep. Alonzo Knox, D-New Orleans, told lawmakers.
Knox described the bill as a grassroots effort, “from the parents and kids themselves.”
Several mothers of students with special needs spoke in support, including Christina Martin of Jefferson Parish.
“It ensures that decisions are based on the child, not on convenience, not on staffing, and not on a system that is already overwhelmed,” said Martin, who has a 9-year-old who has multiple disabilities and is non-speaking.
“It gives power back to us as parents who are too often dismissed when we speak up,” she said.
Last school year, out of more than 40 special education due-process complaints, only one was successful. It belonged to Kathryn Hart of Baton Rouge.
“This imbalance is not just unfair. It prevents valid claims from ever being brought,” Hart said at Wednesday’s meeting.
She told lawmakers families like hers are forced to weigh the cost, time and emotional toll against the likelihood of success.
“Many simply can’t move forward even when their child has been denied services,” she said.
Knox’s bill has bipartisan support and a Republican co-author, Kathy Edmonston, who previously worked as a parent advocate in Ascension Parish.
The bill advanced unanimously on Wednesday.
