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.
Just a few months after the December 2012 Sandy Hook shootings, a school safety project funded by the National Rifle Association urged the arming of trained school staff to protect against future school shootings. Although many of us scoffed at this proposal, we failed to recognize that this recommendation was already being implemented in our schools with the increasing utilization of law enforcement officers. So how is the presence of these law enforcement officers affecting our schools and children? Courtesy of cell phone video taken by a student in a classroom, we witnessed in October an incident in a South Carolina high school where a white school resource office put a choke hold on an African-American student, flipped her out of her chair, and then dragged her across the floor. The 16-year-old student was later arrested for “disturbing the peace” as was the student who made the video. It is not clear what led to this ugly incident, and frankly it doesn’t really matter. The crime here is that it did happen. The executive director of the South Carolina branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, Victoria Middleton, stated, “There is no justification whatsoever for treating a child like this. […]
In these days of mass media, we all wince whenever the dreaded words “Breaking News” flashes across our TV or computer screens because we know somewhere there has been a tragedy, accident, disaster, attack, or some other dreadful event. And when we hear the words “shooter” and “school,” parts of us, that we thought already numb, are once again shocked as we hear of new losses and new sorrows. I suggest that those of us who are parents of children with special needs, particularly those of children who are on the spectrum, may have additional reactions that cause us to brace inwardly. In addition to the pain we feel for the victims of these shootings, we tense as we wait to hear more information about the shooters. Fairly quickly we begin to hear neighbors describing the alleged shooters as loners, bullied oddballs, or quirky kids who never could make eye contact. By the time the news pundits begin their evening television rounds of opining, we begin to hear the speculation that this shooter had Asperger’s syndrome or that shooter had autism. And as parents, we fear for our own children on the spectrum, not because we believe they are potential […]
The IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) pretty carefully lays out the ground rules for a special education assessment. Among the various regulations related to administering a case study evaluation are that assessments “are used for the purposes for which the assessments or measures are valid and reliable; are administered by trained and knowledgeable personnel; and are administered in accordance with any instructions provided by the producer of the assessments.” We bring this up because the fifth edition of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), one of the mainstays of cognitive testing for children, was released this past fall. So does the existence of a newer edition of such a standard battery render the previous edition of the WISC no longer valid? It’s a good question, because not even professional psychological organizations appear to agree on at what point a previous edition of an exam becomes obsolete. Moreover, as a practice point, we have won cases based on the fact the district knowingly or carelessly made decisions based on outmoded test instruments.
This post is the third in the series related to employment for people with disabilities. All too many of the students I represent have unrealistic career goals. Students who have never been on a Little League baseball team think they are going to play in the major leagues, and students obsessed with their electronics blithely think they will be video game designers although they have no idea of how competitive and challenging the field is. No one wants to torpedo a child’s hopes, but we need to help them develop realistic and attainable goals that will lead to a meaningful life and hopefully self sufficiency. But what are the jobs that will help them achieve these goals? We’ve already established in other blogs that persons with disabilities are either frequently unemployed or underemployed. We also know that disabled workers earn less money than their non-disabled counterparts. (According to the 2006 American Community Survey the median income for persons with disabilities was $17,000 versus $28,000 for workers without disabilities.) The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has identified the 10 largest occupations in which 21% of the labor force work as well as the mean incomes in these fields: Retail […]
This post is the second in the series related to employment. Springtime graduations are exciting times in a family’s life. Whether the student is exiting high school or receiving a college degree, the family’s pride follows their loved ones as they venture out into young adulthood where they either begin post-secondary education programs or step into their careers. Yet it is still an anxious time for parents, even when their child is “typical” and appears to possess both the academic and social savvy to progress through young adulthood. How much more fraught with angst is it when parents know that their child is not ready even though the diploma has been awarded and dutifully framed in the family home. Parents know that the deck is stacked against their children with disabilities, even when they are higher functioning, such as those students with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs).
This post is the fourth and final in this series of posts related to employment for people with disabilities. Most of us are familiar with the grotesque inequities which confront persons with severe disabilities in sheltered workshops where due to federal waivers employers are allowed to pay sub-minimum wages of as little as 22 cents an hour. According to the National Disability Rights Network, more than 400,000 disabled workers are in sheltered workshops where they earn on average only $175.00 per month. These workers are segregated with other persons with disabilities and receive little to no training to enable them transition to more meaningful work. Many of these sheltered workshops are no more than daycare. However, different disability groups are tackling head on ways to change what some advocates deem outright exploitation of disabled workers in sheltered workshops. Employment is also challenging for persons with moderate to mild disabilities who wish to engage in competitive employment. Whether because of outright discrimination or employer fear, persons with disabilities are often overlooked in the hiring process. But this situation may be slowly changing as different corporations are exploring ways to hire the disabled and creating win-win situations for everyone. What these corporations […]
I am publishing a series of blogs on employment related to people with disabilities. This is the first of 4 posts. The Code of Federal Regulations states that the purpose of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004 is to prepare students with disabilities for further education, employment, and independent living (CFR 300.1[a]). So what happens for students with disabilities once they either receive high school diplomas or complete their transition programs? Are they employed? Are they under-employed? What kind of incomes are they earning? We, and our children with disabilities or those students for whom we have advocated, have all worked too hard, exerted too much energy, and shed too many tears to have everything we’ve struggled for end when the school bus no longer picks up our children. We need to look at what we are preparing our loved ones for once they no longer receive special education services. With these thoughts in mind, we are exploring in different blogs what the employment outcomes are for persons with disabilities. Although some of the data is extremely discouraging, there are bright spots that we can all hope will translate to rewarding careers/work lives for our loved ones with […]
A sad story came out of California in 2012 regarding developmentally delayed adults living in residential centers. Over a four-year period, 36 patients at California’s “board-and-care centers” for the developmentally disabled had claimed they had been raped by caretakers. And yet, their reports were ignored by the Office of Protective Services–the state police force tasked with protecting residents of group homes–and were never referred to the local police for investigation. Officers failed to order even a single rape examination, which is critical for successful prosecution of alleged offenders. At least one alleged offender was accused of later raping yet another patient. Additionally, hundreds of cases of abuse and unexplained injuries among the state’s 1500 patients who live at the five developmental centers have been reported, but few arrests have been made. This report highlighted a particularly ugly truth: individuals with disabilities, both children and adults, are at a far greater risk of physical or sexual abuse and neglect than are non-disabled persons.
Although I am a special education attorney and not a criminal defense attorney, occasionally I receive phone calls from parents who are angry and concerned because their child has been questioned or searched by school officials for disciplinary infractions or worse. Occasionally these incidents involve school resource officers or police, particularly when drugs or alcohol are involved. Fundamentally, these parents want to know: were my child’s legal rights violated? Can my child be questioned by the school or police without my knowledge or consent? Can my child or his or her possessions be searched? This issue comes up a lot and all too often with serious consequences for the student. Schools play on their authority and make false promises to induce "confessions" even from student with language-based disabilities. Criminalization of school students especially those with special needs is large issue that has not been effectively addressed.