Recently a group of parents’ attorneys (including me), school attorneys and SEA officials in Illinois sat down in what was supposed to be a collaborative effort to amend the due process provisions of the Illinois School Code. The process quickly degenerated to the point where even the most modest proposal from the parents’ attorneys side was derided and vetoed. In the end, the official position from the government folks on the committee was that the Illinois amendments were not to go any further than the Federal law. Unfortunately, the true meaning of that phrase was that the State law could not be more protective of parents’ rights than IDEA 2004 mandated, but it could and should be more protective of school interests.
IDEA 2004 Rights In Danger
Wrightslaw has put out an urgent bulletin regarding implementation of IDEA 2004 that is against parents’ interests and requires immediate calls and emails to your Congressperson and Senator. Congressional email addresses can be easily found in this directory.
Since the postal anthrax contamination of a few years ago email is the most effective way of contacting your Federal representatives.
Guidelines for Parents to Select an Evaluator
A high priority item for successful advocacy in special education is to have a good quality data based evaluation from a private evaluator. Such evaluations are not required in every situation; typically,however, when a parent calls an attorney or advocate it is time to seek private evaluations. These evaluations can be from a doctor, therapist, consultant or psychologist, but they all must hit the mark to be of any real value. The following are my highlights of the criteria to evaluate the evaluators.
Propaganda War Carried Out in the Press
Parents victimizing schools is the premise of this long winded article from the San Fransisco Chronicle. This article furthers the propaganda war against parents of children with special needs and fosters the notion that schools are being victimized. Among the many failings of this article, it fails to even mention the low standard of FAPE set out in Rowley. The article claims that "the law does not define appropriate–an omission that has lead to escalating disputes about what public schools must pay for." Ignorant of the law that the Supreme Court gave meaning to this term in Rowley over 30 years ago, and cases have been refining it ever since. The article misconstrues the power disparity between well funded schools with attorneys on their payroll, and parents who are forced to take significant risks to fight for their child’s education, usually when all else fails. The article misses this essential point. The article even misstates the entitlement of IDEA being to the age of 22 when it ends at 21.
Schools Waging Propaganda War
The propaganda that school district’s effectively convey in the media, in legislatures, and at hearings is that parents are somehow victimizing poor hapless school districts. To me it is like Goliath complaining about his back hurting because he has to bend over so far to smote his opponents. The advantage is on one side; it is real chutzpah to assert that parents are the ones doing the victimizing.
It is an amazing assertion that deserves to be called propaganda since it is a Big Lie ! Schools viciously fight parents sometimes over very small and obvious issues to "make a point" and to "set an example." The Deal case in Tennessee is a perfect illustration. [Download deal_case.pdf
]. The school district’s attorney spent well over a million dollars in attorney’s fees to oppose the parents’ request for an aide for their child with autism, when the need for this service was obvious. The parents prevailed in that case after years of litigation. While such hard ball tactics may have a place in the private legal arena they are not appropriate in the "warm and fuzzy" settings of school that are supposed to be about the student’s educational needs.
Guidelines for Evaluating Placement for Children with Cochlear Implants (Part 2) by Deborah Pergament
In this posting, my colleague Deborah Pergament will detail the factors to allow parents to determine if a placement is indeed an aural/oral setting for a child with a cochlear implant, and the necessary criteria to determine the appropriateness of a placement.
Guidelines for Evaluating Placement for Children with Cochlear Implants (Part 1) by Deborah Pergament
The following is the first of a two part posting from a colleague of mine. Deborah Pergament is an attorney in Chicago, Illinois who has dedicated her professional life to serving the needs of children in the area of special education, family law and juvenile justice. She has successfully tried and won a recent case on behalf of a child with a cochlear implant and has several more pending. This posting should enable parents to make more informed decisions in determining the appropriateness of a school placement for their son or daughter who has a cochlear implant ("CI").
School Files for Restraining Order Against Child With Downs Syndrome
A Maryland School District filed for a restraining order in court against a young child with Downs Syndrome seeking to have him placed in a totally self contained school for children aged 3-21. While it is hard to discern the total facts of this case from the news story, it appears that the child has communication issues and was restrained in school. If his communication issues were not appropriately addressed, and staff did not have proper training or applied restraint when it was not needed, these factors certainly could have lead to the child’s behavioral escalation.
Charles P. Fox Presenting on Changes in the Law
I will be presenting on changes in IDEA on March 8, 2006 see details below:
The “E” in IEP is More Than Grades
Schools refuse to accept the fact that "education" as used in an I’E’P is not just grades. This issue comes up in the context of arguments over whether FAPE has been provided, and whether a child should be eligible for an IEP. The argument frequently turns on whether a child who earns good or even exceptional grades can be eligible, and whether good grades insulate a district from charges that FAPE has been denied. Schools view the scope of their responsibility narrowly to include only academics, frequently to the exclusion of equally important issues such as emotional and social well being. Two new cases have squarely addressed the issue of eligibility, and an old case that I successfully tried answered the question as to FAPE.
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