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What is COPAA?
The Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, Inc. (COPAA) is an independent, nonprofit, §501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization of attorneys, advocates and parents. Our primary mission is to secure high quality educational services for children with disabilities.
COPAA is premised on the belief that the key to effective educational programs for children with disabilities is collaboration -as equals- by parents and educators.
Learn More |
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Expert Witness Fees. Support the IDEA Fairness Restoration Act, H.R. 2740. It will allow prevailing parents to recover their expert witness costs in due process and litigation under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. This bill will help level the playing field for parents of children with disabilities, most of whom cannot afford to pay thousands of dollars for expert witnesses. More |
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COPAA releases report asking Congress to stop the use of restraints, seclusion, and aversives upon children with disabilities in school. The report entitled, Unsafe In The Schoolhouse: Abuse Of Children With Disabilities, details 143 incidents of the use of abusive interventions against children with disabilities in school. The report also includes suggested legislative remedies. More
COPAA submitted a letter for the record to the House Education Committee as part of its hearings on Examining the Abusive and Deadly Use of Seclusion and Restraint in Schools. More |
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COPAA announces Webinar Training Series on Reading. The COPAA Training Committee is pleased to announce COPAA’s Inaugural Webinar Training with a four part series on Reading with Dr. Elaine Holden and Dr. Melissa Farrall beginning June 25th. More |
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Combat the abuse of students with disabilities with a donation to the Stan Appell-Jean Alpert Restraints and Abuse Education Fund. The purpose of the fund is to create legal educational publications to enable practitioners to combat the restraint, seclusion, and abuse of students with disabilities. Restraints, seclusion, and abuse are neither effective nor educational. More |
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COPAA has filed an amicus brief in Forest Grove Sch. Dist. v. T.A., a pending Supreme Court case that involves the important legal question of how the courts should interpret the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and whether a school district may avoid its obligations under the IDEA when it fails to identify a child as having a disability and as a result fails to provide the required free appropriate public education. COPAA's brief focuses on the need for the Court to interpret the IDEA broadly. More |
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COPAA Releases Voluntary Code of Ethics for Special Education Advocates. The purpose of this Voluntary Code of Ethics for Special Education Advocates is to provide a set of principles which Special Education Advocate members of COPAA can use as a guide for their work, conduct, and decision making. This Code is voluntary and is intended only as a guide. |
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The 11th Annual COPAA Conference, hosted in our Nation’s capital, on March 5-8, 2009 was a great success. Purchase audio files and the conference materials. |
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Visit COPAA's
new Public Policy Action Center with tools to contact Congress
and read major policy objectives. |
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Recent COPAA Amicus Activities: including briefs filed with the United States Supreme Court in Richardson Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Michael Z., Schaffer v. Weast, Arlington C.S.D. v. Murphy, Winkelman v. Parma City School District, and Board of Educ. of New York v. Tom F. |
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COPAA issues Declaration
of Principles Opposing the Use of Restraints, Seclusion, and Aversive
Interventions upon Children with Disabilities. COPAA believes that no child with a disability should be subjected to neglect, abuse, or risk of death in the name of treatment or under the guise of providing educational or therapeutic services, regardless of the setting. |
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Amicus Requests: COPAA welcomes requests
for Amicus Briefs for cases that present an issue or issues consistent with our mission statement, have a precedent setting value and affect the educational welfare of school age children with disabilities. |
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IDEA 2004: IDEA
2004 information and resources, including the statute, complete
legislative history, regulations, comparison of IDEA 2004 and IDEA
'97, and more are available. |
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Find State regulations and due process hearing decisions here. COPAA also offers guidance for advocacy on State regulations implementing IDEA 2004 More |
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For information about how to find
special education advocates and special education attorneys to represent students with disabilities, click here. |
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(*PDFs require Acrobat Reader
for viewing. If you don't have Acrobat Reader installed on your
computer, you can download
a copy for free.) |
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