Title 17. Education

Chapter 8. Education of Students with Exceptionalities

Part I. Educational Opportunities for Students with Exceptionalities

17:1945      Special schools and school districts

A. The Special School District shall be considered an educational service agency administered by the Department of Education, subject to the limitations of such units which shall include no authority to levy tax. The Special School District shall have the responsibility and authority to create and fill positions to serve the students in the district subject to the availability of funds. 

(1) The state superintendent of education shall be the governing authority for the Special School District. 

(2) The Special School District includes: 

(a) Louisiana special schools. 

(b) Special School Programs. 

(3) The services of the Special School District shall be available to all eligible students as described in this Section, regardless of their place of residence within the state. 

B. (1) The Louisiana Schools for the Deaf and Visually Impaired, referred to as Louisiana Special Schools, are residential schools established to provide such academic, vocational, and other related services as may be required. 

(2) The Louisiana Special Schools shall establish an annual enrollment deadline for admission to each of the respective schools. After a school’s deadline, any other children with hearing, visual, or orthopedic impairments may enroll at the request of their parents, guardians, appointed custodians, or other legal surrogates if the school, as applicable, determines that there are sufficient resources to meet the needs of these children as well as the needs of the children enrolled prior to the enrollment deadline. 

(3) The Louisiana Special Schools may share services and functions, including but not limited to fiscal, human resources, maintenance, security, physical plant, food, transportation, admissions, diagnostics, and health services, to the extent that sharing such services and functions is not in conflict with federal laws and rules applicable to the education of students with exceptionalities. 

C. (1) Special School Programs shall be established to provide: 

(a) Special education and related services to any eligible student with exceptionalities who is in any state-operated facility that provides only a general education program. 

(b) Appropriate educational services to any eligible student in a state-operated facility that does not provide an educational program. 

(2) Special School Programs may provide appropriate educational services at facilities where public agencies place students who are in the care or custody of the public agency or students whose education is the responsibility of the public agency. 

(3) Special School Programs may provide the services authorized in this Section to students until their twenty-fifth birthday and may provide the services authorized in this Section to students regardless of age, pursuant to an agreement between Special School Programs and the facility or the public agency that placed the student. 

(4), (5) Repealed by Acts 2012, No. 441, § 3. 

Acts 2008, No. 376, § 1. Amended by Acts 2010, No. 325, § 1; Acts 2012, No. 441, § 1; Acts 2019, No. 411, § 1, eff. June 20, 2019.