Varying implementations of FAPE

Changes within the act have affected the local and federal implementations of FAPE. FAPE is regarded as being met if the child is making educational progress. However, inconsistent Supreme Court rulings regarding FAPE have brought attention to the varying implementations of FAPE across the United States. In the first FAPE or IDEA case to make it to the Supreme Court, Board of Education of the Hendrick Hudson Central School District v. Rowley, the Supreme Court voted against hiring an interpreter for a deaf student. The student and her parents argued that without an interpreter the student was being denied a free appropriate public education. The courts voted that a free appropriate public education should provide access to specialized instruction and if the child is passing on to the next grade within an inclusion classroom then FAPE is being met and the state does not need to "maximize each child's potential". The case brought to the surface the question of how far do the parameters of FAPE extend.