| Special education, encompassed by special education law presents one of the major challenges facing school administrative leaders in this era of comprehensive school reform today. It is critical that the administrators have adequate knowledge of special education law to provide appropriate services to children with special needs. Administrators must stay abreast of the legislative statutes defined by Congress to remain compliant within the laws to provide free and appropriate public education to all children with special needs (FAPE). Ongoing training and the stream line for accountability will keep getting wider and more complicated as time goes on. Properly adhering to the principles and guidelines of procedural safeguards must be followed. School administrators must provide students with disabilities appropriate access to equal educational opportunities. Research suggests that an administrator's role is pivotal in the special education process; however, few school administrative leaders are well prepared for this responsibility. The purpose of the study is to determine the level of perceived knowledge of special education law among administrators in a single inner-city Ohio public school district. The goal of this study is to assess by means of a survey, the overall level of knowledge of special education law among individuals licensed as administrators in a single mid western urban district in the state of Ohio. The survey will reveal whether administrators have the fundamental legal knowledge of special education law needed to comply with federal and state guidelines. The survey will serve to determine the difference between individuals' perceived and actual knowledge of special education law. The balance of this chapter will restate the nature of the problem to be studied, present the hypotheses, describe the methodology for obtaining the data to test the hypotheses, and set forth the analytical methods to be used in conducting the hypothesis tests. The nature of the study is a non-experimental quantitative design. The quantitative study will be a potential method for examining the knowledge of special education law among administrators in a single Ohio urban school district. |
