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On April 17, 2006, thirty five members of the Ohio General Assembly's minority caucuses, the state's largest teachers' organization, and the coalition that originally brought the DeRolph school funding case filed friend of the court (amicus) briefs in support of the Ohio Legal Rights Service's (OLRS) special education funding lawsuit. The state defendants had moved to dismiss the case, and in response OLRS filed a memorandum opposing the motion and arguing that under federal law the case should be allowed to go to trial.
The case is Doe v. State of Ohio, No. 2:91-cv-464 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. OLRS represents eight students with disabilities, their parents, and a plaintiff class of over 250,000 Ohio students with disabilities. OLRS brought the case to ensure that state officials were meeting their obligations of ensuring that children with disabilities receive a free appropriate public education (FAPE) under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and because of the impact that inequities in Ohio's school funding scheme have on the education of these children. The plaintiffs and the class seek relief under the IDEA and the U.S. Constitution because Ohio has failed to adequately fund the special education services to which the students are entitled.
The members of the Ohio House and Senate minority party caucuses, the Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy, and the Ohio Education Association each filed a brief supporting the plaintiffs' case, specifically the claims based on the U.S. Constitution. The briefs focus on the failure of the State to remedy the unconstitutional over-reliance on local property taxes and the vast disparities in educational opportunities provided to Ohio's public school children, including the children with disabilities in the plaintiff class, as mandated by the Ohio Supreme Court in the DeRolph litigation. All urge the federal court to deny the State's motion to dismiss the Doe case, with one brief describing the case as "the last best hope for Ohio's school children."
The State filed its reply brief on June 16, 2006. No trial date has been set.
The following is a list of links to documents that have been filed on behalf of the case. All documents are PDF files. To view and print PDF documents, you need to have Adobe® Reader®, a free software program, installed on your computer. Download Adobe® Reader®