Opinion ID: 2590262
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Special Education Act, Chapter 28A.155 RCW

Text: The analysis and arguments regarding whether the special education act, chapter 28A.155 RCW, applies to the inmate class parallels those regarding the basic education act above. Like the basic education act, the special education act is stated in broad terms and does not specifically address the education of juveniles in DOC facilities. The special education act's purpose is to ensure that all children with disabilities as defined in RCW 28A.155.020 shall have the opportunity for an appropriate education at public expense as guaranteed to them by the Constitution of this state. RCW 28A.155.010 (emphasis added). Children with disabilities includes individuals between the ages of 3 and 22 [9] who are: in school or out of school who are temporarily or permanently retarded in normal educational processes by reason of physical or mental disability, or by reason of emotional maladjustment, or by reason of other disability, and those children who have specific learning and language disabilities resulting from perceptual-motor disabilities, including problems in visual and auditory perception and integration. RCW 28A.155.020. In addition to not specifically including DOC inmates, the special education act is reasonably read as actually excluding them. The special education act's section titled Superintendent of public instruction's duty and authority states that the superintendent is, among other things, required to: Promulgate such rules as are necessary to implement the several provisions of [the basic and special education acts] and to ensure educational opportunities within the common school system for all children with disabilities who are not institutionalized. RCW 28A.155.090(7) (emphasis added). When reasonably read, this provision excludes from the special education act children with disabilities not within the common school system. If the superintendent is not responsible for ensuring the educational opportunities of a certain group of individuals, it is reasonable to conclude that the group is not covered by the act. Otherwise, we would have the anomalous situation where the special education act applies to a group of individuals, but instructs the superintendent, the individual in charge of implementing the act, that he or she is not responsible for educating these same individuals. Finding that the special education act creates an exception for individuals not within the common school system, we must now determine whether the inmates fall under that exception. The basic education act defines the common school system as that term is used in Title 28A RCW. See RCW 28A.150.020. As we have already held, individuals incarcerated in DOC facilities are not covered by the basic education act. Thus, by definition the inmate class is outside the common school system. Relying on the rule of statutory construction that when similar words are used in different parts of a statute the meaning is presumed to be the same throughout, we find that the special education act's common school system is the same as that in the basic education act. See State v. Akin, 77 Wash.App. 575, 580-81, 892 P.2d 774 (1995) (citing De Grief v. City of Seattle, 50 Wash.2d 1, 11, 297 P.2d 940 (1956)). Consequently, we are constrained to find that the inmates are not  within the common school system under the special education act, and thus fall under an exception to the act. Based on the special education act's silence regarding DOC inmates and its exclusion of students not within the common school system, we hold that the special education act does not apply to the inmate class. Because we do not favorably resolve the inmates' claims to basic or special education on statutory grounds, we next analyze the inmates' constitutional rights to basic and special education under article IX of the Washington Constitution. Within this next section we also determine whether chapter 28A.193 RCW is constitutional under article IX.