Delaware House Bill 365 (Prior Session Legislation)

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Completed Legislative Action
Spectrum: Moderate Partisan Bill (Democrat 14-3)
Status: Passed on August 9 2012 - 100% progression
Action: 2012-08-09 - Signed by Governor
Text: Latest bill text (Draft #1) [HTML]

This Act allows parents and guardians who successfully challenge the denial of services to their children with special needs to recover the costs of expert witnesses that they needed to hire to advocate for their children. Prior to 2006, many courts held parents were entitled to recover such costs under the IDEA, but a divided U.S. Supreme Court reversed the holdings. Arlington Cent. Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Murphy, 548 U.S. 291 (2006). Since that time, many families have been unable to pursue appeals for their children due to the prohibitive cost of retaining expert witnesses, resulting in many children receiving special education services that their parents and treating medical professionals believe to be inadequate. Only parents and guardians who prevailed in their appeals of service denials would be entitled to recover the costs of their experts.

An Act To Amend Title 14 Of The Delaware Code Relating To Education And Exceptional Children.

Sen. Catherine Cloutier [R]	Rep. Debra Heffernan [D]	Rep. Earl Jaques [D]	Rep. Quinton Johnson [D]
Rep. Helene Keeley [D]	Rep. John Kowalko [D]	Sen. Gregory Lavelle [R]	Rep. Valerie Longhurst [D]
Sen. Harris McDowell [D]	Rep. John Mitchell [D]	Rep. Edward Osienski [D]	Rep. Teresa Schooley [D]
Rep. Bryon Short [D]	Rep. Melanie Smith [D]	Sen. David Sokola [D]	Sen. Liane Sorenson [R]
Rep. Rebecca Walker [D]

2012-06-26 - Senate - Senate Third Reading (Y: 20 N: 0 NV: 0 Abs: 1) [PASS]
2012-06-07 - House - House Third Reading (Y: 39 N: 0 NV: 0 Abs: 2) [PASS]

Date	Chamber	Action
2012-08-09		Signed by Governor
2012-06-26		Passed by Senate. Votes: Passed 20 YES 0 NO 0 NOT VOTING 1 ABSENT 0 VACANT
2012-06-20		Reported Out of Committee (EDUCATION) in Senate with 3 Favorable, 3 On Its Merits
2012-06-13		Assigned to Education Committee in Senate
2012-06-07		Passed by House of Representatives. Votes: Passed 39 YES 0 NO 0 NOT VOTING 2 ABSENT 0 VACANT
2012-06-06		Reported Out of Committee (EDUCATION) in House with 11 On Its Merits
2012-06-05		Introduced and Assigned to Education Committee in House

Type	Source
Summary	http://legis.delaware.gov/LIS/lis146.nsf/2bede841c6272c888025698400433a04/a060646f286f99ab852579ff0075fccc?OpenDocument
Text	http://legis.delaware.gov/LIS/lis146.nsf/vwLegislation/HB+365/$file/legis.html?open
Roll Call	http://legis.delaware.gov/LIS/lis146.nsf/7712cf7cc0e9227a852568470077336f/46c6d0539ca1b93985257a16007566ff?OpenDocument
Roll Call	http://legis.delaware.gov/LIS/lis146.nsf/7712cf7cc0e9227a852568470077336f/cf77655eb5cd589285257a290074fb18?OpenDocument