Gifted Student's Needs Not Entitled to Special Education

If you have a question or concern about special education law, school administration, federal standards, or the overall rights of a student, please feel free to call the expert education law attorneys at Maya Murphy, P.C. in Westport today at (203) 221-3100 .

In the Connecticut Supreme Court case of Broadly v. Board of Education, a gifted child and his mother appealed a superior court judgment that granted summary judgment, the preemptive decision by the court in favor of one party over the other, to a local school board. A summary judgment is a preemptive decision by the court in favor of one party over the other. The child filed for declaratory judgment, or a legal determination, of the child’s right to special education under Connecticut law.

The child's parents demanded that the school board provide him with a program of special education designed to meet his individual needs, but the school board refused to provide an individualized program of special education. In plaintiffs' declaratory judgment action, the trial court granted summary judgment to defendants, concluding that gifted children did not have a right to special education under the Connecticut Constitution. On appeal, the court affirmed. Under Connecticut law, the definition included gifted children as among those exceptional children who did not "progress effectively" without special education. However, state law manifest the unambiguous intent of the legislature that special education was mandatory only for children with disabilities and not for gifted students. Also, the denial of special education to gifted children did not violate the child's equal protection rights. There was a rational basis for the disparate treatment between gifted children and children with disabilities because the needs and abilities of the two groups were sufficiently different that the legislature could reasonably have decided to treat them differently.

The court affirmed the award of summary judgment to defendants. “[The student and his mother argue] that because the legislature has identified a characteristic common to both groups, namely, the need for special education in order to "progress effectively" in school, gifted children and children with disabilities are equally entitled to receive a program of special education under the state constitution” said the court. “This argument, however, ignores the concededly significant differences between the two groups of students that informs the legislative decision to mandate a program of special education for children with disabilities but not for gifted children. As long as the disparate treatment is, as here, rationally based, we may not judge the wisdom, desirability or logic of the legislative determination.”

If you have a child with a disability and have questions about special education law, please contact Joseph C. Maya, Esq., at 203-221-3100, or at JMaya@mayalaw.com, to schedule a free consultation.

Source: Broadley v. Board of Educ., 229 Conn. 1, 1994 Conn. LEXIS 84, 639 A.2d 502 (Conn. 1994)