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![handle is hein.sag/sagct0015 and id is 1 raw text is: Attorney General's Opinions
Attorney General's Opinion
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal
March 6, 1996
Honorable Linda D'Amario Rossi
Department Of Children and Families
505 Hudson Street
Hartford, CT 06106
Dear Commissioner Rossi:
You have asked for our advice in interpreting Public Act 95-237, An Act Concerning Special Education Due Process,
The Cost of Special Education And A School Construction Project. The principle questions you pose relate to the
special education of children placed by the Department Of Children and Families.
To understand the public act, it is helpful to examine the statutory scheme governing responsibility for the special
education of DCF-placed Children prior to amendment by Public Act 95-237. General Statutes § 10-76d(e)(2) formerly
provided that
[w]henever a Public agency, other than a local or regional board of education, the State Board of
Education or the Superior court acting Pursuant to Section 10-76b, places a child in a foster home, group
home, hospital state institution, receiving home, custodial institution or any other residential or day
treatment facility, and such child requires special education, the local or regional board of education under
whose jurisdiction the child would otherwise be attending school or, if no such board can be identified,
the local or regional board of education of the town where the child is placed, shall: (A) Provide the
requisite identification and evaluation Of such child in accordance with the Provisions of this section; and
(B) be financially responsible, except as Provided in this sub-division, for the reasonable costs of special
education instruction.
In essence, then, when children who required special education were placed by a state agency, the responsibility for
their education--for developing their programs (programmatic responsibility) and for funding the programmed
education (financial responsibility) -- was borne by the town where the child would have been otherwise attending
school. This is typically the place of the parents' residence and is referred to as a child's nexus school board of
education. Some children who come into the state's care do not, however, have a nexus school district. This could be
because both parents are deceased, have disappeared, live out of state, or have had their parental rights in the child
terminated. When a child has no nexus school district -- no nexus status -- then the town where the child was placed
would have had responsibility for the special education (programmatic and financial). For example, if a child requiring
special education, living with parents in New Haven, was removed from the home and placed by a public agency in a
foster home in Branford, New Haven would have remained responsible for the special education. If, on the other hand,
the child was residing in New Haven, but had no legal tie to a living parent in Connecticut (in other words, no nexus),
then Branford would have become responsible for the education.
The same statute, again prior to amendment, established a reimbursement scheme for district providing special
education to children place by a public agency. For both nexus and no-nexus placements, the State Department of
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