Parents Need to Fight Hostile Amendment to State Special Education Law

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. 

The bitter lessons learned from these meetings extends beyond Illinois.  Consensus and negotiation over legislation is even more charged and polarized than in years past.  The prevailing arguments from the school side as discussed in my earlier posting is that parents have run amok in their desire to bring due process and schools are being victimized; powerful rhetoric with no substance.  Schools are seeking every advantage and attempting to limit parents' rights wherever possible. In Illinois, the special education regulations are also to be amended to the detriment of children. Download Illinois sped regs .doc.  [This download is from ourchildrenleftbehind.com and also needs immediate attention.]

Parents in all states need to be following their State's legislature.  Bulletins from the local parent advocacy center or disability rights organization like the ARC or TASH allow parents to stay apprised of urgent proposed changes in the law that are frequently at the prompting of schools.

For those in Illinois the TIME TO ACT is now on SB 2796 which recently passed the Illinois Senate.  The key changes which are designed to limits parents' rights and in many instances go far beyond IDEA 2004 are as follows:

• Cutting down the appeal period from 120 days to 90 days after an adverse due process decision.  This appeal period has been in place for many years with no apparent adverse consequences for any party. For parents who too often are not represented at the due process hearing, this loss of a month may be the difference in finding a lawyer to handle an appeal and effectively forgoing appeal rights. This change results in harm to parents and the status quo which is not harmful to schools should be maintained.
• The most radical change is limiting due process cases to 5 days unless good cause is shown.  Parents need sufficient time to develop the record in the event there is an appeal. Schools often spend large amounts of time burning the clock which would effectively box parents out from presenting their case at all.  Hearing officers have the authority to regulate the length of hearings and certainly do not require a statutory presumption.  In the Federal and State Codes of Civil Procedure there is no such limitation on the number of days of a hearing. Every hearing is different and to legislate limits is an unwarranted intrusion.  This provision goes far beyond anything in IDEA 2004 and may be a novelty among the various state provisions for due process.
• I had put forward a modest proposal for hearing officers to allow liberal amendments to the due process complaint provided it was done early in the process.  The schools' attorneys furiously rejected this change even though the Federal Code of Civil Procedure, and most, if not all, States permit liberal amendments.  Allowing liberal amendments of due process complaints allows the hearing officer to hear all issues, so there will not be piecemeal litigation. Subsequent issues come up or are clarified as the case progresses, and complaints need to be changed. Frankly, schools argue that there is too much litigation; liberal amendments would actually cut down on followup hearings on issues that were barred from the original case.  Even reasonable proposals of this kind that would benefit the process and all parties could not get any traction in the current charged environment.

For interested parties in Illinois contact Representative Giles: phone number in Springfield is 217-782-5962; his fax number is 217-782-2779.  The website for the Illinois legislature to track this bill and for the email addresses for your representative is http://www.ilga.gov  This bill has not become law and can still be set aside. We need to act now to fight against these egregious changes which are calculated to give schools an unfair advantage without improving the special education system in Illinois at all.

For those outside of Illinois, make no mistake the school-side attorney are gathering for a conference sponsored by LRP in late April and they will certainly compare notes. Illinois's anti-parent/child amendments may be adopted in your state as well.  As suggested above stay vigilant and in the loop on these issues.

Comments

[Mark Weber]

Thanks for alerting people to this serious threat to families' rights. At the present time (3/6/06), the legislators to contact are families' own House representatives and those on the House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee. Most state legislators should be home this week, so contact at district offices should work best. All the contact information is on the Web Site for the Illinois General Assembly.

[linda moran]

I am writing to ask you if you can possiblly read a friends blog at carmen4kids.livejournal.com

She could use all the help and support she can get. I forwarded your url to her.
Thanks

[Pablo]

Special education is an unfair waste of resources.
It is like betting on the slowest horses in a race, who would do that. Yet, we waste a lot of money on special education.