Bill Rossbach’s study of Education Law began with his first teaching assignment in the Los Angeles Unified School District, an alternative school whose students included delegates from as many as eighteen of L.A.’s street gangs. Although most of them had moderate to serious criminal histories, it was often clear that their difficulties with school owed at least as much to their learning disabilities as to their neighborhoods. In this and in every other school at which he taught in his twenty-two year teaching career, Mr. Rossbach found repeated instances of schools’ failure to properly address the special educational needs of students.

Not long after he began teaching, his role as stepparent, to a child whose chromosome anomaly manifested itself in autism and multiple physical and developmental disabilities, brought him in personal contact with teachers, administrators and school boards. The willingness of the latter two groups to ignore statutory requirements and written directives from state departments of education, ultimately led Mr. Rossbach to conclude two things: 1) the assistance of legal counsel is often necessary, and 2) the number of attorneys who are willing to represent parents, as opposed to school districts, is far too small.

Following retirement from teaching in June, 2007, he opened his law practice in downtown Traverse City on February 1, 2008. He invites anyone with questions about the practices or procedures of any agency serving individuals with special needs to call, write or email his office for a prompt response.