Principals have performed many tasks which either promoted or hindered facilitation of the learning process for all students in their schools. One of these tasks has been compliance with federal and state legislative procedural requirements for special education. Though there has been relative progress in special education, compliance has not been 100% in program visits performed by State Department of Public Instruction. The purposes of the study were to: (a) determine the relationship between the level of administrative knowledge of compliance requirements with the degree of application of legislative regulations of special education (b) identify the constraints or factors which prevented total compliance in a local education agency. A two-part study was designed to fulfill the researcher's purposes. The initial phase of the study consisted of an opinionnaire to determine the amount and source of administrative knowledge of state and federal procedural legislative requirements. The second phase of the study involved individual interviews to identify the constraints to compliance with special education legislative requirements. Major conclusions were (a) knowledge did not make a difference in the school system's compliance with state and federal procedural legislative requirements (b) there were numerous constraints six of which permeated the study as knowledge understanding of regulations, excessive paperwork, money, time, parent/community awareness and maintenance of records (c) local educational agencies who were in 100% compliance did not differ significantly from schools who did not comply in the identification of factors which prevent compliance with state and federal legislative procedural requirements. / Ed. D. / incomplete_metadata