Court Opinion

ID: 9517518
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:19:33.117183+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:55:31.975633
License: Public Domain

McCown, J.,
dissenting.
Where institutional care of a child is required for *326all purposes because of a physical or mental condition, I see no reason why such expenses should not be allocated between educational purposes and other purposes rather than to attribute the entire cost to education and charge it to a local school district.
Prior to the federal act and federal aid, Nebraska could and did furnish such noneducational institutional care to children and paid all the costs. Parents who were financially able to contribute to such care were required by statute to reimburse the state for a portion of such costs.
The acceptance of financial assistance from the federal government and enactment of the Nebraska special education statutes have now shifted such costs to the local school districts on the theory that residential institutional care required because of the physical or mental condition of a child and necessarily required for all purposes is actually required only for educational purposes. Such institutional care is now classified as “an appropriate public education.”
The state appears to recognize some sort of duty to relieve the local school districts of some portion of the financial burden, but the federal act and regulations require that nonmedical care, and room and board incorporated as part of an appropriate educational program, must be at no cost to parents regardless of their financial ability.
The state generally excludes a right of reimbursement to school districts for residential care and allows it in specified cases only where the program has been previously approved by the State Department of Education. Parents are responsible only for medical and dental services. See Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 43-626, 43-645, and 43-651 (Reissue 1978).
Where the physical or mental condition of a child requires residential institutional care of the child in any event and for all purposes, and is the same condition which creates a right to special education, the total cost of institutional care ought to be allocated *327between educational purposes and other purposes. A rigid interpretation of the special education statutes may well be disastrous for a small local school district.