Special Education Law Annual Review 2020

David F. Bateman, PhD, is a Principal Researcher at the American Institutes for Research, and Professor Emeritus at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania. He is a former due process hearing officer for Pennsylvania for hundreds of hearings. He uses his knowledge of litigation relating to special education to assist school districts in providing appropriate supports for students with disabilities and to prevent and to recover from due process hearings. He has been a classroom teacher of students with learning disabilities, behavior disorders, intellectual disability, and hearing impairments, and a building administrator. Dr. Bateman earned a PhD in special education from the University of Kansas. Over the past 28 years he has either been a hearing officer or consultant on over 1,005 special education lawsuits. He frequently is a keynote presenter at principal and administrator conferences. He has recently co-authored the following books: A Principal's Guide to Special Education, A Teacher's Guide to Special Education, Charting the Course: Special Education in Charter Schools, Special Education Leadership: Building Effective Programming in Schools, Current Trends and Legal Issues in Special Education, and A School Board Members Guide to Special Education. He has also recently worked as the neutral fact-finder in the class action lawsuit involving the Oregon Department of Education. After the 2017 Supreme Court decision in Endrew F., the U.S. Department of Education reached out to him to develop a training module for administrators on legally compliant IEPs. He is co-author of the special education legal blog:SPEDLAWBLOG.com