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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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COPAA is pleased to collaborate with TASH as an outreach partner for the Breakthrough in Inclusive Education Awards. The Awards honor important and courageous contributions of individuals and school districts in advancing inclusive education and equitable opportunities for students pre-school through 12th grade, particularly those with the most significant disabilities and support needs. Applications are due September 20, 2008. More |
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The 10th Anniversary COPAA Conference was attended by one third of members, with 385 advocates, attorneys and parents from across the country present. COPAA Compendium of materials and audio tapes now available for purchase. More |
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COPAA celebrated its 10th anniversary in March! Thank you all for this wonderful
decade. We
have created a webpage in honor of this
special occasion. More |
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COPAA has created the Stan Appell-Jean Alpert Restraints and Abuse Education Fund, to help practitioners combat restraints, seclusion, and abuse of children with disabilities. Learn more about the fund, or make a donation. More |
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Support the IDEA Fairness Restoration Act! H.R. 4188 restores to parents the right to recoup expert witness fees when they prevail in a hearing because the school district violated the IDEA. The bill restores Congress' original intent in 1986. Few parents can afford the thousands of dollars needed to hire expert witnesses. More Our thanks to the 100 organizations that joined COPAA in asking Congress to support the IDEA Fairness Restoration Act. More |
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COPAA supports Civil Rights Act of 2008 introduced by Senator Kennedy and Congressman Lewis. The bill allows prevailing parents to recover expert fees and override Buckhannon, permitting recovery of attorneys’ fees when parents’ cases settle but caused the school district to change its conduct and provide relief. More |
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Amicus Requests: 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. Please read the following link for instructions about submitting amicus requests. More Read more about COPAA's Amicus Activities here including
briefs filed with the United States Supreme Court in 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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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 here.
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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