How is Section 504 Enforced?
The U.S. Department of Education enforces Section 504 through the Office for Civil Rights (OCR). OCR investigates individual complaints of disability discrimination, including complaints that a district is denying a disabled student FAPE. OCR also provides training and technical assistance to state education agencies, educational service districts, schools districts, and parents. OCR’s focus is on the process a district follows to identify, evaluate, and provide procedural due process to the student’s parent or guardian. Except in extraordinary circumstances, OCR will not review the result of individual placement and other educational decisions, as long as a district complies with Section 504’s procedural requirements regarding identification evaluation, placement and due process. The proper forum for pure educational disputes, in which a district has followed the correct process to make an educational decision but the parents or guardian disagree with the result of the decision, is a
