View FileMarch 21, 2003 to Louisiana Department of Education Director Virginia Beridon (MS Word)
Dated March 21, 2003Virginia BeridonDivision of Special PopulationsOffice of Student and School PerformanceLouisiana Department of EducationPost Office Box 94064Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70804-9064Dear Ms. Beridon:I am writing in response to your January 10, 2003 letter to the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) seeking clarification concerning the expenditure of funds under Part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) as amended (20 U.S.C. 1400 et. seq.). You requested a clarification on the use of funds for payments for international travel for a group of students with physical disabilities and their teachers to Windsor-Ontario, Canada to participate in an international athletic competition for individuals with disabilities. The state set-aside portions of the IDEA Part B Grant award funds were utilized to pay these costs. See: 34 C.F.R. 300.602. You stated that in previous correspondence with the Department you requested clarification on this expenditure, but did not received a reply. I regret that you did not receive a response to your January 14, 2002 letter. A possible explanation for this failure to respond is the fact that during the early months of 2002, OSEP experienced extreme difficulties with outside mail delivery, resulting from the October, 2001 anthrax contamination at the main postal facility in the District of Columbia. There were a number of instances where incoming letters were not delivered to OSEP.In your correspondence to OSEP, you indicated that the travel costs in question were part of a Statewide-specialized physical activity program sponsored by your office for the past eleven years. Louisiana G.U.M.B.O. (Games Uniting Mind and Body) offers students with physical or visual disabilities an opportunity to participate in an organized interscholastic program of athletics and to successfully integrate into community athletic even/s/ Patricia J. Guard forStephanie S. LeeDirectorOffice of Special Education ProgramsPage NUMPAGES 2 Ms. Virginia Beridon
