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.
The challenges which confront siblings of children with special needs are often not well understood or fully recognized. To address these important issues, the group Special Kids/Special Families is sponsoring a free seminar (although they request contributions to defray expenses) on this topic. Dr. Richard Ney will discuss "Understanding the Siblings of Children with Special Needs" on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2006 at the JCYS Northwest Family Center, 1700 Weiland Road, Buffalo Grove from 7 to 9:00 p.m.
As a parent of a child with special needs, I suspect that some of my parental involvement may have been considered bothersome by the school district. However, it seems to me that most of the time, it is the district that is the real source of trouble. So in the quest for fairness, I’ve come up with some criteria (a la Jeff Foxworthy) that I hope will be helpful in identifying the real culprit. So use it wisely and feel confident in knowing that your school district may be a pain in the neck IF…
Autism is not a low incidence disability. The irony is that school districts frequently are unable or unwilling to implement quality programs for children with autism. Too often programs lack intensity, structure, low teacher to student ratios, a systematic curriculum, or supports like communication systems, behavioral reinforcers or visual schedules. None of these program components are novel, but when I bring them up at meetings I get a lot of blank stares as if I just invented these ideas.
The Supreme Court decided the "Death With Dignity" case, Gonzales v. Oregon [Download Gonzales_v. Oregon.pdf] , in favor of Oregon’s state statute that permits physician-assisted suicide. The Disability Law Blog has an excellent summary of the case and the newspaper coverage from around the country. The case was decided on the basis of federalism principles, and the lack of authority of the U.S. Attorney General to invalidate this statute. The decision does not address the fundamental clash of values between groups like Not Dead Yet which advocates against physician-assisted suicide on the basis that for the disabled a right to die will become a duty to die, and proponents of physician-assisted suicide.
In an apparent effort to chill parental advocacy, the Chicago Public Schools suspended Lillian Mosely’s son on at least 3 separate occasions in September 2000. Each episode of discipline coincided with Ms. Mosely advocating for her son’s rights in school. In March 2001, the police "arrived at the classroom and pulled [the child] out for questioning" because of a fight "notwithstanding the fact that the parent [of the other child] had spoken with Mosely and had told her that the problem had been solved," and she did not wish to pursue charges. It was later revealed that the other child was responsible for starting the fight. Moreover, in April 2000 the police, at the request of school staff, removed Ms. Mosely from a school meeting for handing out flyers.
Politically the National Education Association has never been a friend of special education students. The head of a the NEA, Reginald Weaver, recently spoke out in very strident terms against NCLB and President Bush’s cuts to education funding to pay for the Iraq war. See link for the story. While I am not in favor of cutting spending for education, leaders on behalf of children with special needs have noted that NCLB actually has been helpful.
A beautiful article came to my attention the other day about Chelsea the companion dog [Download Canine_Help_for Child.doc]. Miraculously, she can sense a seizure before its onset, thus warning her owner and protecting him from harm. I find this unselfish dog’s work tremendously commendable, and the trainers extraordinary. I think there are some days that I need a companion dog, albeit a different kind of companion dog, for myself; one that has unique talents that can be useful when you are a parent of a child with special needs.
There are myths that have grown up around school systems that are not deserved. One primary myth is that schools are altruistic organizations that have children’s needs at the top of the agenda. Instead, schools are tough self-interested political bureaucracies where children’s interests often do not top the agenda, and sometimes it is hard to discern where on the agenda children fit at all. I recognize and appreciate the vital role that schools play in our society and the devotion of so many teachers, staff and administrators across the country. School systems, however, should not be afforded immunity which does not allow real scrutiny. Their actions and omissions should not enjoy presumptive validity–a premise of the Shaffer case where the Supreme Court found IEPs to be presumptively valid. The following post will be part of an ongoing series to hold school systems up to the scrutiny they deserve when in too many instances they just behave badly.
In Ohio it was recently revealed that nearly 925 student’s tests were mismarked. The result of this mistake was that some of these students were denied graduation from high school. The State officials in Ohio apparently graded the tests correctly but Measurement Inc., a North Carolina company that helped create the test, mistakenly assigned failing labels to hundreds of passing grades. Local school officials acknowledged that such the errors have caused "emotional distress" and "it also plants a little bit of doubt in your mind." For the full text of this story–Download Tests Wrongly_Marked.doc
Parents have a need to observe in their child’s classroom especially when issues arise in school. Observations of candidate programs are crucial to making informed decisions on placement. It also can be important that private therapist or evaluators observe current and potential classrooms. Schools have, in my experience, thrown up a variety of obstacles to impede or prevent these observations. The one that appears to be in vogue at the moment is that the classroom observation would "violate the confidentiality of the other children in the classroom." When pressed for the underlying State or Federal law or even local school policy that they believe supports this claim, I have yet to see anything other than administrators posturing and pounding the table. This position usually unravels when it is pointed out that there is no confidentiality concerns when parents visit to assist in a room, read a book to the classroom or present on career day.