The Education Wars: Another IDEA Goes Out the Window

or, in this case, the poor kid is booked as a juvenile for something that is part of his disability and can't help it.

If even one tenth of this story is true, the school district is in deep, deep, deep doo-doo.

Carole Reynolds is desperate to help her eleven year old autistic grandson, Zakhqurey Price, who has been charged with multiple counts of felonious assault against two school district employees. The school is Beard Elementary in Fort Smith School District, Arkansas.

Reynolds says, "On August 18th, my 11 year old grandson started the school year, and we requested an evaluation be done as he was returning from another district that recommended he have an aide with him at all times. We tried to get an IEP together before school started in July and were refused and told to wait until school started."

Reynolds has been refused access to Zakh's records in spite of repeated requests. She said, "We have made requests to receive a copy of his evaluation/assessment results before the October 15th temporary placement IEP meeting and were refused because they said it was not allowed by state law."

The guardian has the absolute right to see the records or get copies; this is a no-brainer.

What the fuck is the matter with that district?

More here and here.

Spec ed is a landmine for lawsuits, which is one of the reasons teachers don't stay in it long as a rule. Teachers are also vulnerable to being pressured to break the law by unscrupulous principals.

Here is more about Arkansas law regarding special education:

Zakh’s current home-school placement resulted from a disciplinary removal and he has been suspended for 12 school days this year. This constitutes as a change of placement pursuant to Arkansas regulations. This makes the need for a functional behavioral analysis mandatory at this point.

If an FBA was conducted previously but failed to result in a positive behavior intervention plan, then the family could disagree with the district’s FBA and ask for an Independent Educational Evaluation (“IEE”) in the area of behavior as a corrective remedy. Clearly any assessment of his behavior performed failed to result in a legitimate offer of FAPE since it failed to produce a positive behavior intervention plan. It’s more likely, however, that the FBA hadn’t been done. If it remains outstanding, then the family may be stuck with a District assessment at this point, though it’s long overdue if so.

The fact that this family has a court date on January 12, 2010 on the felony assault charges means the charges obviously haven’t been dropped and Fort Smith schools are prosecuting handicapped children for manifesting the symptoms of their handicapping conditions rather than providing them with a FAPE. What is more, in addition to the claims that this family most likely has under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”), they probably have actionable claims under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 for discrimination on the basis of handicapping conditions. While the IDEA claims can only pursue remedy in the form of special education services, the 504 claims can pursue monetary damages.