Montana was one of the last states in the nation that allowed schools to disenroll students with disabilities once they turned 18, according to nonprofit Disability Rights Montana. Advocacy director Tal Goldin says the organization sued the state earlier this year to end that policy. It won this month when Montana opted to settle the suit.
The nonprofit argued that federal court precedent and law made Montana’s policy unconstitutional. Goldin says kicking students with disabilities out of school at age 18 never made sense.
“Here, we’re creating a program to serve people with significant intellectual disabilities, who, by definition, learn more slowly, and we're not going to give them any more time to learn,” Goldin told MTPR in a phone interview. “So now we’ve fixed that, and you get these four more years.”
Under the settlement, the state now allows all students with disabilities to stay in school up to age 22. It also requires schools to contact students who had been disenrolled and offer them the chance to return.
In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for the Office of Public Instruction says the agency will “continue working with local school districts to ensure every student exits high school prepared to succeed.”
