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Special education-related lawsuits are a concern to school systems. They are time-consuming, expensive, and contentious. School and parental relationships become strained when litigation is involved. This study analyzed data from the Virginia Department of Education's due process database over a 12-year period of time to note common disabilities involved in special education litigation. Specific characteristics from each case were noted to determine if there was a trend in the frequency of due process cases: the sex, grade, age, disability, and outcome. The data was obtained from the Virginia Department of Education's Office of Dispute Resolution and Administrative Services. The purpose of this descriptive content analysis study was to see if the total frequency of types of disability due process cases and outcomes were the same over the last 12 years in the state of Virginia among K-12 public school students. The types of disabilities examined came from the 13 categories of special education as defined by IDEA. The categories were autism, deaf-blindness, deafness, emotional disturbance, hearing impairment, intellectual disability, multiple disabilities, orthopedic impairment, other health impairment, specific learning disability, speech or language impairment, traumatic brain injury, and visual impairment, including blindness. The data collected was in the form of frequency counts that were analyzed using a frequency tables and trend charts. Results showed that parents were less likely to win their due process case than the local education agencies. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

School attendance officers play a pivotal role in the public school system. They verify the residency of students, assist homeless families in seeking community- and school-based services, and help students to enroll in the General Education Development (GED) high school equivalency testing program. Their primary role, though, is that of ensuring that all students comply with the compulsory attendance law by attending school on a regular basis. In an effort to meet the graduation and attendance requirements of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), also known as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), school administrators rely heavily upon the services provided by the school attendance officers. This dissertation explores the impact of legislative acts, such as No Child Left Behind and the Virginia's governor's mandate entitled the Children's Services System Transformation (CSST) Practice Model, as well as the effect that the school division size, number of attendance officers employed, and geographic locations of the school divisions have, upon the roles of school attendance officers in the Commonwealth of Virginia. An electronic survey of supervisors of attendance officers and interviews of attendance officers were used to collect data for the research study. This information was compared to information collected through a review of literature on the roles of attendance officers throughout the United States. The research study concludes with an evaluation of the data collected as well as with recommendations for future research studies. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]