Each month in 2025, we are highlighting an ELC milestone or success as we mark our 50th anniversary. See our timeline of ELC milestones here. 

ELC’s Helpline – 267-436-6095 (Eastern and Central PA), 412-258-2120 (Western PA) – has been a feature of ELC services throughout ELC’s history and played a key role in this story.

A phone call to the Education Law Center’s Helpline nearly four decades ago spurred litigation that has benefited Pennsylvania students with disabilities, including medical conditions and physical impairments.

As a result of ELC’s lawsuit and court settlement with ELC in 1997, the Pennsylvania Department of Education instructed local districts to provide such children with the services they need to attend school “safely and successfully.”

The lawsuit was Elizabeth S. v. Thomas Gilhool, Secretary of Education, filed in 1986.

Elizabeth’s parents had enrolled the child, a 5-year-old with Type 1 diabetes, in kindergarten in the Williamsport Area School District.

They asked school officials to train the classroom teachers and other staff to monitor the child’s blood-sugar levels and to provide her with snacks and/or medicine during the school day. But the district refused, telling her mother that she needed to come to school each day to support her child, and the family called ELC.

ELC filed a class-action lawsuit against the district and the state education department, alleging districts across Pennsylvania were violating students’ rights under federal law which prohibited discrimination on the basis of disability. And we were successful.

The legal theory relied on Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, requiring schools to provide accommodations for people with disabilities. Our case made those accommodations a reality: As a result of the lawsuit, Pennsylvania adopted Chapter 15,  state regulations that implement Section 504 for students with disabilities who need school-based supports but do not require special education services. 

The resulting settlement aided children with such health impairments as diabetes, heart conditions, asthma, and epilepsy as well as children with mental health issues and physical impairments including spina bifida and cerebral palsy. School districts are required to evaluate students’ needs: Some students need only minimal support, such as special transportation, while others need physical or occupational therapy or medication administered by a nurse.

When the settlement was announced, Theresa Glennon, the ELC attorney who filed the case, characterized it as a big win for a large swath of students in Pennsylvania –30,000 at the time – who had health impairments but were not in need of special education services and had been often overlooked.

“Children like Elizabeth, who can succeed in a regular education program if provided proper supports and services, will now have the equal opportunity the law requires,” she said at the time.

Contacted recently, Glennon, now professor emerita of law at Temple University Beasley School of Law, recalled the far-reaching impact of what we now commonly call 504 plans. The state ultimately implemented a system for developing 504 plans, now covering tens of thousands of Pennsylvania students.

However, Glennon warned that Section 504 is currently under attack; Texas and 16 other states have filed a lawsuit asking the court to declare it unconstitutional. The lawsuit seeks to ensure that gender dysphoria does not qualify as a disability.

ELC is committed to continue defending and effectuating the rights to services and accommodations under Section 504, enabling students to fully participate in school and thrive.

Education Law Center and Public Interest Law Center commented on Gov. Josh Shapiro’s Feb. 4, 2025, budget address and the steps needed to remedy Pennsylvania’s unconstitutional school funding system.

The statement notes: “A child’s time in school is a precious resource that we cannot afford to waste. We urge the General Assembly to take the baton from the governor, shorten the timeline for closing the adequacy gap, increase the basic education and special education line items, enact the cyber charter reform, and commit to a plan to bring our state into compliance. The Constitution requires it.” Read the statement here.