Request By:
Mrs. Douglas Riddell
237 Hawthorne Drive
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Robert L. Chenoweth, Assistant Attorney General
You have asked the Office of the Attorney General to consider a matter of great concern to you as a parent of a child born with cerebral palsy. You informed us that your daughter will be five years old on September 9, 1979. You stated you have been taking her to preschool classes in Lexington three days a week. You inquired from the Franklin County Schools whether your daughter could be enrolled in kindergarten next Fall. The new law (KRS 158.030, copy attached) was explained to you that a child who has not turned five by September 1 but who will turn five by December 31 may by petition and readiness testing be considered for early enrollment. You stated you believed the law to be discriminatory in that your handicapped child cannot be tested. We believe you are wrong. The law is not discriminatory and your daughter may be tested.
We are of the opinion that the application of KRS 158.030 by any school system in the state may not be such as would be discriminatory against exceptional children. Under KRS 157.200 et seq. and 20 U.S.C. § 1401 et seq. (P.L. 94-142), each exceptional child in the Commonwealth must be given an equal opportunity for an appropriate education possible for nonexceptional children. In that under KRS 158.030 early enrollment procedures are specified, those procedures must be nondiscriminatory in nature and available to all children in the age range established. Each school system must, by itself or in cooperation with other school districts, offer a nondiscriminatory type of readiness test and, in the situation of exceptional children, a readiness test with meaning geared to the specific category of exceptionality. The standards for readiness to be set by each board of education should be fair, nondiscriminatory and comparably equivalent for exceptional and nonexceptional children. See 703 KAR 2:015E, copy attached.
If you have further questions relating to this matter, please do not hesitate to contact us.