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.
Inclusion Does Not Exist for Many Children In Boston
IDEA has been a Federal law for the better part of three decades. From the beginning the concept of educating children in the least restrictive environment ("LRE") has been a cornerstone of the law. To combat wholesale segregation of children with special needs was one of the motivations for enacting the law. Even after all of these years, in Boston over 40 percent of children with IEPs are segregated from their neurotypical peers and not exposed to the general curriculum. Boston is the harsh reality that thousands of children face; not the fantasy world of Nanette Asimov’s imagination, or the false construction of the school side in Arlington Central v. Murphy–that experts and advocates are coopting parents into filing due process. As discussed below, the abject lack of inclusion in Boston’s special education system raises fundamental issues.
Parents Fight Back Against Propaganda in the Press
I recently posted on Nanette Asimov’s article in the San Fransico Chronicle entitled "Extra-Special Education at Public Expense." This article was an outrage and did an enormous disservice to families of children with special needs everywhere. I am happy to report that parents and have written to the editor in droves to attempt to set the record straight. The following is a small sampling of some of these letters. Bravo to parents and disability rights organizations like COPAA who have taken the necessary time to fight back against newspaper coverage that acts as an effective propaganda weapon for schools.
School Board’s Association Files Brief Opposing Recovery of Expert’s Fees
The National School Board’s Association ("NSBA") has filed an amicus [friend of the court] brief [Download NSBA amicus brief.pdf
] suppporting the school district’s contention that schools should not be required to pay expert’s fees to parents who prevail in due process. This post is a followup to an earlier one discussing the underlying case.
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.
Special Education Regulations On the Slow Track
At first there was much hype and expectation the new special education regulations were on the fast track. It now appears according to one group that the U.S. Department of Education may take until next Fall or later to promulgate the new regulations.
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.
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.
Service Dogs Support Children In School
A colleague of mine recently advocated for a child with autism to be able to bring his service dog to school. Predictably the school reacted negatively. The school staff’s response did not even consider the potential educational benefits for the child.
Putting Justice Alito’s Confirmation in Perspective
Justice Alito has been confirmed in the Senate in a very close vote, and is now the newest member of the Supreme Court. One of the unfortunate facts of the confirmation hearings is that legal issues effecting the disabled were largely overlooked. It is not possible to state with complete certainty what effect he will have on the jurisprudence regarding individuals with disablities in schools, at work and elsewhere Two commentators have put Justice Alito’s confirmation into perspective. One is Professor Sam Bagenstos of Washington University Law School and the other is from ADA Watch.
