Author Archives
David Bateman
David Bateman, PhD, is a nationally recognized expert in special education dispute resolution and legal compliance. He has ten-years of experience as a due process hearing officer and complaint investigator and has since served as a second-tier hearing officer in multiple states. In addition, over the past ten years, he has worked as a mediator in seven states and one U.S. territory. Dr. Bateman is the lead author of one of the primary books on special education dispute resolution (Bateman et al., 2023) and is the co-author of one of the most widely visited blogs on special education legal issues. He restructured the special education complaint system for Guam. He is a frequent keynote speaker for not only state special education administration conferences, but also conferences for families of students with disabilities.
After the Endrew F. Supreme Court decision in 2017, Dr. Bateman developed a module for administrators on legally compliant IEPs for the U.S. Department of Education which received its “stamp of approval” as legally compliant. He also provided extensive guidance for the module developed for classroom teachers. He recently (2024) co-authored the fourth edition of the leading textbook for principals related to special education. He coauthored the leading textbook on IEP development (Yell et al., 2022), coauthored the recent special edition of TEACHING Exceptional Children on legally compliant IEPs (Yell & Bateman, 2020), and has helped rewrite and lead the trainings on new IEPs and procedures for multiple states and U.S. territories. He authored a document on how to write a 504-plan that is being used in 48 states and two territories. He was the lead author on the American Association of School Administrators policy brief Rethinking Special Education Dispute Resolution at IDEA’s 50th Anniversary. Recently, he was the neutral factfinder in the class action lawsuit against the Oregon Department of Education relating to special education services.
He is a former special education classroom teacher and building-level administrator, and the parent of two adult children—one who had an IEP in school and the other who had a Section 504 plan.
INDIAN EDUCATION: Actions Needed to Ensure Students with Disabilities Receive Special Education Services GAO-20-358: Published: May 22, 2020. Publicly Released: Jun 5, 2020. Found at: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-20-358 In a recent Government Accounting Office (GAO) report, the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) did not provide or could not account for almost 40 […]
Supreme Court Update May 26, 2020 The first case was McMillen v. New Caney Independent School District, (5th Cir. 2019), had similarities to the Fry case from three years ago. In McMillan the 5th Circuit ruled the exhaustion provision, which requires a parent to seek relief in a due process […]
Given the current situation with just about all schools across the nation shut down, along with expectations of social distancing, what should we reasonably expect out of extended school year (ESY) programming for students eligible for special education and related services? This post will seek to remind readers of the […]
