Special Education Law Blog
A special education legal resource discussing case law, news, practical advocacy advice, and developments in state and federal laws, statutes and regulations. Postings include insight and sometimes humor from Charles P. Fox, a Chicago, Illinois attorney who is also a parent of child with special needs, and other guest authors.
Here is the continuation of the last post to help guide parents and advocates through the testing process:
In this age of RtI where testing is claimed to be a "thing of the past," even though that position is hogwash, it is even more important to fully understand the language and process of testing. This posting is part 1 of a two part blog post on testing.
Over this past year I have increasing represented families whose children need residential placements. While I have no illusions that simply placing a child in residential is the answer to all prayers, it is almost always a the final culmination of years of trying less restrictive placements. Despite what too many school personnel think, residential placements are not an effort to rid the family of a troubling child, but rather to save the child so he or she can have a life and a real connection with the family. One family I represented the student was openly homicidal, but according to the school that was only at home so there was no educationally-relevant need. Unfortunately the majority of cases (and I have researched this topic thoroughly) do not consider home-based issues of primary relevance in making a residential placement decision. I think of this case often and hope not to see his name in the paper in connection with a homicide at school or at home. Remarkably the private day school where was placed described him as sterling citizen in the school. This description and the overall stance seemed to be about keeping him in the private day school […]
The following is derived from several presentations that I have made over the last few years. I follow these steps as a matter of course. It has been my experience that following these steps will significantly increase the potential of reaching successful outcomes for your student/child.
This cartoon would be very funny if it were not so true. Maybe school personnel should check it and see themselves especially in this era of RtI.
AbleLink Technologies today announced the release of Community Sidekick, an innovative iPhone application designed for individuals with special needs who wish to provide automated location updates to friends and family members as they travel in the community. Sidekick can provide travelers that sense of security that comes from knowing "someone is watching over you," as well as peace of mind to their caregivers.
A number of year ago I represented Matt as he fought for reimbursement and payment for PACE, a high quality transition program, run by the teaching university at National Louis in Skokie. While we won a partial victory at hearing, Matt's and his family's dedication and his winning personality has allowed him to accomplish great things, as the video clip below shows. He is managing a local deli, has lots of friends, is an integral part of the community. He is even in a position to hire other students with special needs and has done so. What a wonderful world when all the pieces come together, in spite of the school system that had a very unformed and limited concept of transition programming. Hurrah for Matt, his family and all the dedicated staff at PACE that made this great outcome a reality! Here is a link for the video.
Dr. Andrew Wakefield, the doctor who originally published a study that linked MMR to autism, was called to task by the British Medical Journal. The Journal is set to publish a series of articles by an investigative journalist who spent seven years uncovering the nature of Dr. Wakefield’s research. The BMJ called the study and Dr. Wakefield’s research “an elaborate fraud that has done long lasting damage to public health.” That proclamation goes one step further then the retractions and denouncements that have come before. CNN reporter Anderson Cooper had Dr. Wakefield on his show last night. Mr. Cooper aggressively questioned Dr. Wakefield and called out others, such as Jenny McCarthy, who have supported him and his findings. Some might say that the efforts spent researching the findings in Dr. Wakefield’s study could have been spent focusing on new advances in autism research and trying to uncover innovative treatments and therapies, instead the public is still spending time on his discredited study. Hopefully, the focus on interventions and research for autism can now move past Dr. Wakefield onto real and data-driven research that will make meaningful differences in the lives of people with autism.
A recent study revealed that children with disabilities are rarely, if at all, featured in children’s books. In the last 35 years less then 24% of children’s books honored with the Newberry Medal had a main, or even supporting character with a disability. Children often read books seeking characters that they can identify with. Students with disabilities are left to look in most cases. The study found that “characters with disabilities were most likely to be supporting characters and were often used to boost the emotional growth of those without disabilities rather than to develop in their own right.” Among the concerning themes the researchers found are: The representation of characters with disabilities in Newbery books is not proportionate to the current school population of students with disabilities. White school-age characters with disabilities were overrepresented, black and Hispanic characters with disabilities were underrepresented, and Asian/Pacific Islander and American Indian/Alaskan Native characters were not present at all. In some of these books, authors eliminated characters with disabilities through death, being sent away or discovery of miraculous cures. There have been recent movements though to create more inclusive literature. The Percy Jackson & the Olympians series follows Percy Jackson who is a […]
This fall Apple started to develop a technology that could help prevent sexting . This technology would allow parents to block incoming or outgoing texts containing certain words. Considering the recent incidents of sexting in the news, this would allow parents to put up one more line of defense against sexting.