Special Education Law Blog

Threat Assessment Plans and Students with Special Needs by Charles P. Fox and Marilyn Green-Rebnord

It has happened again--yet another school shooting in our country with multiple fatalities.  This shooting is the 16th school shooting this year, an average of about one every week.  Parents and teachers are terrified, students are marching, politicians are offering thoughts and prayers, and administrators are struggling with how to protect our nation’s students.  We can anticipate over the next few days that someone will proclaim that the latest violence is the result of a “sicko;” we could not, however, predict that incoming NRA president Oliver North would blame the shootings on a culture of violence and all of the boys who have been on Ritalin since “their early years.”  Comments such as this only serve to increase the stigmatization of students with mental health issues or special needs. We must not let this happen.  The purpose of this blog is not to address the need for commonsense gun laws.  Instead, it focusses on addressing other strategies that can help prevent school violence, such as threat assessment plans, and recognizes what does not work, such as profiling of students with special needs (a la Oliver North).  

Will New Tax Bill Result in Education Cuts?

The dust has begun to settle since the passing of last month’s tax bill, which is informally known as The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.  Being neither an accountant nor a tax specialist, It’s difficult to discern what remains in the final passed version of the bill, given that many of the Senators and Representatives who voted for the hastily passed legislation seem surprised by some of the contents. Yet, we must try to understand what the impact of the bill will be on educational matters. 

DeVos Voted In, But the Fight Goes On

Here is a statement just issued from COPAA on the vote for Betsey DeVos.

Today, in response to the U.S. Senate’s vote on the nomination of Elisabeth ‘Betsy’ DeVos as Secretary of Education, Denise Marshall, executive director for the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates (COPAA) issued the following statement:

“Today is a troubling day for our country and our children. The vote to confirm Mrs. DeVos as Secretary of Education leaves us deeply concerned about the future of our nation’s children with disabilities. In January, and throughout the process, COPAA has asked that the nominee be committed to: ensuring excellence in education for all children; safeguarding protections and enforcing State compliance and accountability in all federal education laws; combatting discrimination in voucher and charter school programs; and, curtailing the overuse of exclusionary disciplinary practices, especially seclusion, restraint. Unfortunately, the full commitment needed is not there yet. We stand ready to help the new Secretary to understand and implement her responsibilities under federal law and respect the true needs of students with disabilities and their families in every action she takes. Parents and families of students with disabilities are resilient and no strangers to doing whatever it takes to protect their children.”

 Marshall concluded, “COPAA will continue to fight to protect the rights of students with disabilities and we will work with Secretary DeVos and her staff to get the best possible outcomes for our children. They deserve this commitment and we will settle for no less.”

Defending Public Education under Secretary of Education DeVos

President-elect Trump offered few specifics about his education policy during the campaign other than promising $20 billion in federal money for school choice initiatives in response to our “failing government schools.”  Where this money is to come from is unclear, but the sum represents more than a quarter of the total budget of the department of education.   Educational advocates are fearful that the funds will be cannibalized from the $15 billion earmarked for low income schools through Title I funding in the form of school vouchers.  The use of the Title I funds for vouchers that follow students to expensive private and religious schools as well as charter schools will further deplete the scant resources currently allocated to poorly performing schools. This nebulous education policy will be overseen by President-elect Trump’s selection of Betsy DeVos as education secretary, which is sending more than shudders through the education community. Educational historian Diane Ravitch said of Ms. DeVos, “Never has anyone been appointed to lead [the Office of Education] in the past 150 years who was hostile to public education.”  Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, has decried Ms. DeVos as “the most ideological, anti-public education nominee” in the past 40 years. Ms. DeVos, a billionaire conservative educational activist who has never sent her own children to public schools, has laudably argued that a child’s zip code should not confine him to failing schools.  But her solution, unfortunately, is to embrace adoption of school vouchers, as well as the expansion of privately-operated charter schools, leaving critics fearful that our new education secretary will “gut” our public schools. This appointment may be one of the rare time where many parents of students with all abilities and unions and schools are all united.

Parental Guidelines for Access to Athletics, Field Trips and Extracurriculars

Parents frequently raise issues about schools denying access or failing to accomodate students who need support to participate in non-academic parts of the school experience including field trips. Frequently, children who require aides during the school day are told that staff is not available for after school activities, thus resulting in their exclusion from these school-sponsored events.  Similarly, parents of children with disabilities are often told that unless they accompany their child on field trips, the child cannot attend. (I have experienced this situation many times during my son's time in school) Some students who require nursing care during their school day as part of their IEP are also excluded from after school activities or field trips unless a parent accompanies the student or serves as the nurse.  In the event of a nurse's absence during the school day, some of these parents are even told that they are responsible for providing nursing care or the student will need to stay home that day.  These situations are predictable and schools need to make plans or they may be in violation of the law.  In fact, the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Education (OCR), which oversees and investigates discrimination complaints involving the rights of students with special needs in schools, found that the above listed incidents were in fact 504 violations—either of failure to provide access or denial of FAPE.

School Choice Not Protective of Students with Special Needs

The following is a press release from COPAA regarding a recent study of school choice regarding students with special needs. It confirms what I have suspected for some time that school choice is largely ineffective for students with special needs and requires serious changes to provide meaningful benefit to all students, including those with special needs. In my view, school choice is thrown around like a political slogan without full consideration of the systemic effects of school choice and the effect on individual students especially those with special needs.

The Debate on Reauthorizing NCLB

With a Republican controlled Senate and a Republican controlled House, it appears likely that the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), first enacted in 1965 and re-authorized as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in 2001, may finally again be re-authorized.  Sen. Lamar Alexander, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP) and Representative John Kline of the House Education and the Workforce Committee have both released new versions of the bill for consideration in this Congress.  But because these bills appear to be watering down many of the accountability provisions of NCLB and lowering expectations for students, civil rights groups and advocacy groups are very concerned about the effect of these bills on disadvantaged students or those with special needs.

Maintenance of Effort Maintained

Advocacy groups and special education students won a recent victory this April when the Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs rescinded its instructions to school districts from last June that would have effectively allowed school districts to make permanent reductions in their spending on special education. School districts, however, are not happy as they want flexibility to cut and reallocate funds from special education  budgets.

Virtual Law Office to Allow Parents Access to Legal Representation

I am proud to announce that today I have launched the first virtual law office that represents parents of special needs in the area of special education law and guardianship! (This virtual law office will be in addition to my bricks and mortar office in Northbrook, Illinois.) The access point for my virtual law office is my website foxspecialedlaw.com.

Just a few months ago I read about a new concept in the practice of law--Virtual Law Office ("VLO").  As I looked into VLO, I realized that this new way to practice would allow my office to more effectively represent parents nearby, and provide access to those families who are outside of more urban centers who otherwise have not had access to legal services at all. The concept is to offer full service, and more limited representation (the new term is "unbundled services") but still effective legal services (e.g. counseling prior to a meeting, reviewing letters and input statements). I have had numerous encounters with parents where I have given them some critical advice on the phone or reviewed a document that has changed the course of an upcoming meeting in favor of the parent. 

Announcing the National Forum on Disability Issues, featuring the 2008 Presidential Candidates/Surrogates

Here is the chance to finally have the candidates directly answer the questions that effect people with disabilities. Our issues generally are ignored or subsumed in other issues so now lets participate and have the candidate's flesh out their positions, at this decision-making time.

The American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), a national disability nonprofit, organized this event along with over 80 sponsoring national, state, and local disability organizations. The non-partisan forum commemorates the 18th anniversary of the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) and addresses the issues most important to the disability community in the current electoral cycle.