That you can’t fight city hall is a time-honored truism, but
how much harder does it become when different city halls join forces to fight
you? Parents in Orange County,
California unfortunately are discovering just this fact as they advocate for
services for their children with special needs.
Since 2005, 28 school districts plus the Orange County Department of
Education have formed an alliance, which among other functions, contributes
financially to school districts engaged in legal battles against parents.
The Orange County Special Education Alliance was
ostensibly formed to ally school districts in their ongoing campaign against parents. A single school district is a formidable opponent but fighting a coalition of districts that gives me a headache just to contemplate. Again lets remember they are not the victims of parents in the vast majority of cases.
But is the formation of such co-ops as the Orange County
Special Education Alliance the answer to the problematic finances of funding
special education? The alliance is
governed by a 12-member Review Committee comprised of five school
superintendents, three special education administrators, two attorneys in
private practice representing school districts, one attorney from the Orange
County Department of Education, and one “business official.” The official mission of the Alliance, per its
web site (2), is “to address the need for a countywide system with a focus on
special education, to provide staff development and training to school
employees, to provide leadership in advocating for legislative and
administrative change, to review decisions and rulings rendered by
administrative agencies, and to assist districts in the funding of litigation
and appeals of administrative and judicial decisions and rulings, where the
outcome of the decision has countywide significance or precedent setting in its
implications for all students.” And
therein lies the rub. . . what parents are discovering is that the largest
single item in the alliance’s annual budget is to provide funds to districts
involved in litigation against parents.
The alliance, which contributes to up to five lawsuits for member
districts each year, has budgeted at least $75,000 for litigation this year. Parents in Orange County who are involved
in litigation against their school districts may discover that there is an
array of school districts opposing them and not just their home district.
Although critics have deemed the alliance a “slush fund
to batter kids,” a member superintendent called it a “brotherhood.” The
alliance defends its necessity by claiming they are being “clobbered” in
litigation by parents, who view school districts as the “goose laying the
golden egg.” Their actions, the alliance
says, are protecting the educations of all students, not just special education
students. Although some districts claim
they concede services rather than engage in protracted legal battles, it is not
always the case. Special education
critics say that some school districts are so deeply entrenched against paying
for services that they will spend far more on legal costs than the amount of
the disputed service. And in Orange
County, this cycle is particularly vicious.
The amounts contributed by the alliance are almost pocket change
compared to the costs of some of the big-ticket lawsuits districts are engaging
in. Yet how much school districts are
spending is hard to tell because some districts refuse to disclose the costs of
their legal battles, even to their school boards. We
do know that the Los Alamitos Unified School District spent $783,000 to prevent
a Spanish-speaking family from videotaping an IEP meeting which would have
helped the mother to better understand what was happening. The Capistrano Unified School District was
forced to pay $117,000 of a family’s legal fees in addition to their own
attorney’s bill of at least $238,000.
The amount of services disputed for the child? Approximately $20,000. Another guardian engaged in litigation
against the Garden Grove Unified School District estimates that she has spent
in the past 5 years approximately $350,000; the district, which has refused to
disclose its legal fees, presumably has spent more. The most recent skirmish was over $14,000 in
disputed services. Orange Unified School
District has been compelled to pay $153,000 for legal fees incurred by a family
whom they sued; the district has not disclosed its own legal costs. One can only wonder if the outcomes of these
protracted lawsuits can possibly justify their expense.
So why are school districts not disclosing their legal
costs? According to a series of articles
from the Voice of Orange County, one of the attorneys on the alliance’s review committee, who is with a firm
that represents nine of the 28 member districts in the alliance, has advised
the alliance that school districts don’t have to disclose their legal
fees. This lack of transparency makes
the alliance seem almost like a cabal. And
it appears that parents aren’t the only ones who may be ignorant of the
alliance’s activities; it turns out that school board members from member
districts may also be in the dark. Board
members from at least two of the member districts acknowledged they were
unaware of the alliance. Additionally, there
is apparently no written record in the meeting minutes that the school boards
in Orange Unified or Garden Grove ever approved the lawsuits which cost their
districts so dearly. Almost from its
inception, there have been charges that the alliance has engaged in violations
of the open meeting act, which the alliance has denied.
Engaging in exorbitant lawsuits against
families seems to be a poor solution to the problem of containing costs in
special education. As is, parents often
feel extremely uneasy when going up against their school districts. But being paranoid doesn’t mean that school
districts, particularly those in Orange County, aren’t out “to get them.” Fortunately,
the alliance is the only one of its type in this country, according to
advocates. Although a smaller alliance
exists in San Diego, it is much less active.
It is time for school districts to sharpen their negotiation skills and stop demonizing parents.