Sunday, June 30, 2013

Why special needs families stay in fight mode. | Support for Special Needs

Why special needs families stay in fight mode. | Support for Special Needs

In a recent story, a private club with a swimming pool will not allow a child with autism to use a floatation vest causing, obviously, the family not to join the club. Officials at the club say they don’t allow anyone to use floatation devices of any kind, and “if an exception was made for one, an exception would have to be made for all, and that was not possible.” Why is it hard for the pool board to say yes to this family and no to others who many complain?
Every. Single. Day. There is a reminder of how families with a child (or more) with differences has to fight and sometimes for the simplest of things, like the right to attend events and the right to live in the community and productive.
During the time that my kids were at their local public school they were really sick. My son was on hemodialysis (at the hospital three days a week) and they both had kidney transplants at age eight. They were out for recoveries from multiple surgeries, procedures and illnesses connected to their health condition. Many times I had to run in and get the kids right before the end of the day. Technically I should have picked them up 45 minutes before dismissal. But because they also wanted the kids to be able to be in school as much as possible given their delays (and I wanted to be at work as much as possible), they let me pick them up right before dismissal, sometimes by just a few minutes. Seeing me approach the door, the staff in the front office often called for the kids before I opened the office door. They made an exception. Because it was best for the kids and for the family. I’m nothing special, they would have done it for any family in our situation.
Exceptions sometimes need to be made. We’re a world of different people and different situations and some people need exceptions.
We need extra time to arrive and leave and sometimes we need extra space. We need patience and understanding by people in front of us, behind us, next to us. We need a little bit of a break with things that make life easier like a better parking space, a fast lane at the E.R., a frequent flyer program at our pharmacy. We sometimes enjoy the perks of an attraction open just for us (free!) to help with the crowds making it the only way we could/would attend. We need people to help clean up the aisle in the store and not give us “the look” when our day falls apart (sometimes a lot of days in a row). We need the exception of floaties and harnesses without judgement, we need to help our kids by keeping them in strollers past the “acceptable” age. We appreciate the financial breaks we get and it makes it possible for us to do other things like donate to causes or to buy equipment our kids need to function at school and home. We need people to accept our kids and work with us to help build friendships and social skills.
We need exceptions all the time.
I think people wonder why special needs parents stay in fighting mode. It’s because if we let our guard down even for a day, we miss something. Sometimes it’s something big. Or something as simple as our family getting to swim together in a community pool with our son safer by use of a floating vest. Our “fighting” isn’t fighting as much as it is just doing what we do. Or doing what we have to do.
To me, this kind of “fighting” doesn’t even feel like fighting at all. It feels normal.

Friday, June 28, 2013

Kan. Gov. to sign anti-bullying bill named for KC student | fox4kc.com

If only we could find legislators in Missouri that would be willing to take this stand. Bullying by school district personnel is far more damaging than bullying by peers.

TOPEKA, Kan. — Kansas Governor Sam Brownback will sign an anti-bull...ying bill into law Friday morning. The bill, named for Shawnee student Loren Wendelburg, strengthens the anti-bullying statue by protecting students from being bullied by school personnel.

Wendelburg’s parents said five years ago when their son, who is autistic, was a 5th grader at Rising Star Elementary School, he was verbally and physically abused by a teacher.

Wendelburg testified before the house education committee in February, saying, “I had nightmares because I worried about going back to school and the teacher harming me.” He also said he was afraid to say anything because he thought it was so unbelievable for a teacher to treat a student so poorly.

Wendelburg’s parents said the teacher continued teaching at the school without consequences, so they pulled him out and home schooled him.

Wendelburg, now 15 years old, will be on hand in Topeka with the governor as he signs the bill. His parents say they hope it will prevent any further students from being bullied by school personnel.

Kansas family seeks law against teachers who bully kids | Local News - KMBC Home

SHAWNEE, Kan. —A Johnson County family is pushing for a new Kansas law that would make it illegal for a teacher to bully a student.

Loren Wendelburg, 14, said that when he was 10 years old and a fifth-grade student at Rising Star Elementary School, he had a teacher who would single him out in the cruelest way.

"She grabbed me by the wrist, took me in the hall and yelled and screamed that I would never amount to anything," he said. He said he remembered other incidents at the school that year.

His mother, Lisa Wendelburg, said she found out about the problem that had been going on for months from another parent.

"We knew something was wrong because he complained about not wanting to go to school," she said.

She said until the incidents started, her son liked going to school. Loren's grades never suffered, but he still has strong feelings about the teacher.

"I would like if she would get fired," he said. "Because what she did was awful and wrong."

A child abuse investigation ruled that the claim was unsubstantiated, but the report said some of the teacher's actions "inflicted emotional injury."

Loren is now homeschooled and shows talent as an artist and puppeteer. His family is pushing for Kansas to change its school bullying law.

The family is supporting a bill in the House Education Committee that would make it illegal for a teacher to bully students.

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Lee's Summit R-7 School District: A Race To Remember

Lee's Summit R-7 School District: A Race To Remember

LS Tribune Saturday, April 12, 2008
A Race to Remember
Matt Bird-Meyer
Tribune Editor

Voters had an option Tuesday of four board candidates for three seats. Maybe the outcome was indicative of lazy voting habits, where the candidates at the top of the ballot get the most votes. Check, check, check and move on. But maybe the outcome was indicative of growing displeasure with the entrenched members of the board. Whatever happened, newcomer Sherri Tucker came close. She was just 2 percent shy of overcoming incumbent Jon Plaas, who won 5,065 to 4,679.

Plaas had a slim 386-vote separation from Tucker. However the top vote getter, Jeff Tindle, had 2,246 more votes than Tucker, and Jack Wiley had 1,878 more votes than the newcomer. Tindle was listed first on the ballot, followed by Wiley, Plaas and then Tucker. The top two candidates were so far ahead of the bottom two that it appears voters were gravitating toward Tucker. I like to think the people who make time to visit the polls are going in there knowing how they will vote, or at least with some knowledge of the candidates. Personally, I would never vote for someone I know nothing about. Sherri Tucker never hid the fact that her only platform was special education. She is the mother of a special-needs son and is part of a group of 40 people who feel the R-7 district is not providing adequate services for their special-needs children.

Tucker didn't go about this alone. Members of the Lee's Summit Autism Support Group picked Tucker to run against the three incumbents. This was her first time running for office, and she's pledged it's not her last. Plaas and the others circled the wagons during the campaign, supporting one another and alienating Tucker as a single-issue candidate. Plaas said single-issue candidates belong on the other side of the podium from school board members.

And to an extent, he's right, Candidates should be savvy enough to know that and campaign accordingly. That doesn't mean the candidate should never hold a single issue close to their heart. To me, that's how the system works. If you think government isn't working, then run for office or at least get involved. And when voters respond like they did here, we should all take them seriously. I can't say whether there's a problem with special education services in the R-7 district, but there's a growing movement of families out there who are saying that. "I don't feel like we lost," Tucker told me during a telephone interview. "We got our message out there and to me that's a win."

I agree, and to run up right against sitting school board members in Lee's Summit is admirable. The incumbents here are typically strong candidates with almost instant support from community leaders. The topic of special education is an emotional and complex one. These students have different needs and different individualized education programs. Some students have to find some services outside of the district and some are able to stay in regular classrooms. The bottom line is they are students, and they deserve as much attention as anyone else.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

dese.mo.gov/se/compliance/complaint/DP0607_7_Lees_Summit_R-VII.pdf

http://dese.mo.gov/se/compliance/complaint/DP0607_7_Lees_Summit_R-VII.pdf

For the beginning of the school year 2003-2004, encompassing the time frame from August 20, 2003 to September 23, 2003, the District did not afford the Student with FAPE.

Her access to educational materials in the Room was deminimis and there was no credible evidence of educational benefit during this time frame. Although the six (6) days of suspension

did not constitute a change of placement, coupled with the nine (9) full days the Student spent in the Room, the Student went without any meaningful education on at least fifteen (15) days of the twenty-four (24) attendance days. The District accounts for this partially by asserting that it needed at least a month of collecting data to formulate a meaningful plan. However, the compilation of data garnered during this time period did not appear to constructively address the Student’s behavioral issues, and there was no movement from the District to reconvene the IEP team to address the problems - - many of which had been brewing the year before.

LIST OF SCHOOLS WITH OVERUSE OF RESTRAINTS

Missouri

1. Underwood Elementary School, Lee’s Summit R-7 School District, Lee’s Summit, MO (Seclusion: Child kept in closet for most of a month)

Setting Special Education Plan Without Parent Input Violates IDEA, Court Rules

Education Week

Setting Special Education Plan Without Parent Input Violates IDEA, Court Rules

MARK WALSH JUN 13, 2013

Call it the case of the hard-to-schedule meeting with a parent that may cost a school system some $28,000 in private school tuition.

A federal appeals court has ruled that a school district's failure to include the parent of a special education student in an individualized education plan meeting that changed the student's school placement was a denial of a free, appropriate public education under federal law.

The father of an 18-year-old Hawaii student with autism wanted to be included in the IEP meeting for his son. But after one rescheduling and some inflexibility on the part of the Hawaii Department of Education (the state's singular public school district), members of the student's IEP team went ahead with the meeting without the father. They also changed the student's placement from a private special education school to a workplace-readiness program at a public high school.

The school system said in court papers that it had tried to work with the parent to come up with an agreeable date and its participants had busy schedules and it faced a deadline before the student's existing IEP lapsed.

The father, identified in court papers as Doug C., was sick on the day in November 2010 of a much-rescheduled IEP meeting. He declined district officials' suggestions that he participate by phone or the Internet, saying he wanted to be there in person.

After the IEP team went ahead without him, and changed the son's school placement, the father rejected the new IEP and sought a due-process review. He also kept his son in the private school, the Horizons Academy of Maui, and sought tuition reimbursement.

Both a hearing officer and a federal district court ruled for the school system, saying that not including the father in the IEP meeting did not deny his son a free, appropriate education under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

In its June 13 decision in George C. v. Hawaii Department of Education, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, in San Francisco, unanimously reversed those lower rulings.

"Echoing the Supreme Court, we have held that parental participation safeguards are among the most important procedural safeguards in the IDEA and that procedural violations that interfere with parental participation in the IEP formulation process undermine the very essence of the IDEA," the 9th Circuit court said.

"The fact that it may have been frustrating to schedule meetings with or difficult to work with Doug C. (as the department repeatedly suggests) does not excuse the department's failure to include him in [the son's] IEP meeting when he expressed a willingness to participate," the court added. "We have consistently held that an agency cannot eschew its affirmative duties under the IDEA by blaming the parents."

The appeals court stopped short of granting tuition reimbursement to George C.'s over his decision to keep his son at Horizons Academy. (It's not clear whether only one year of tuition is at issue, or the exact amount, but according to the academy's website, base annual tuition is $28,000.) The appeals court left it up to the district court to decide whether Hawaii would have to reimburse the tuition under applicable precedents.

School ignores advice from learning disability experts - Class Struggle - The Washington Post

School ignores advice from learning disability experts

By Jay Mathews E-mail the writers

Stacie Brockman is the Prince George’s County mother of lively twin 9-year-old boys. Her sons were born two months premature. She has done everything possible to deal with the disabilities that often impede the progress of such children.

She took them to the developmental pediatricians at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, one of the top U.S. providers of care for children with learning disabilities. They gave the boys many tests. They diagnosed mixed expressive/receptive language disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dysgraphia (a writing disability) and dyslexia (a reading disability).

The doctors told Brockman that her sons need to be in small classes with research-based reading instruction and intensive math and language remediation. As the law requires, administrators at Potomac Landing Elementary School set up an individualized education program (IEP) team, which meets with Brockman.

As sometimes happens, these meetings have not gone well, Brockman said. Learning disability issues appear to be one of the greatest sources of friction between parents and schools. Brockman’s account reveals how clumsy educators can be in communicating to parents what they are doing with their children, and why.

Both boys have IEPs, Brockman said in an e-mail, but the team chairperson dismissed some Kennedy Krieger assessments, “saying that all of KKI’s reports say the kids are dysgraphic and dyslexic, thus suggesting that the reports have little or no validity.”

“Although the state assessments given to the boys throughout the year show that they remain below grade level in reading and math, the IEP team feels they are making progress based on their observation of my sons in the classroom,” Brockman said. “They say this even as they inform me one son has dropped even lower since the beginning of the year and is now ‘at-risk.’ ”

“Yet when I received their third quarter report cards, the boys are doing fine — they received all passing grades! I was amazed, and disappointed because I know my sons aren’t prepared. The school is moving them forward to the fourth grade, although my children are unable to add or subtract three digit numbers, let alone know how to multiply and divide. I work with them daily but they are unable to comprehend more than two paragraphs of reading.”

She asked: “How are they to be successful in fourth grade when the teachers refuse to even admit that a learning problem exists?”

It is a good question. A. Duane Arbogast, Prince George’s deputy superintendent of academics, said he could not comment on specifics because of privacy rules, but he emphasized that county educators are supposed to take public and private assessments into consideration, including information from Kennedy Krieger. Learning disabilities are complex, Arbogast said, and teams must weigh all available sources of information.

There’s no excuse for telling a mother that some of the nation’s leading diagnosticians of learning disabilities don’t know what they are talking about. If teachers think the Brockman twins have made enough progress to be promoted to fourth grade, that’s useful information. But it seems the school could have done a better job of explaining how that, and the cheery report card, fit with one twin dropping to at-risk status. Arbogast agreed that IEP meetings require “very careful communications and relationship building.”

The mixed messages have left Brockman thinking that school officials are unable or unwilling to have a candid conversation about her sons. That’s not good. They should create a new IEP team led by someone who knows how to talk clearly and kindly to parents so they can be part of the team, too.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Feds Allege Transition Program Amounted To Sweatshop - Disability Scoop

The U.S. Department of Justice is cracking down after an investigation found that students with disabilities were unnecessarily segregated and forced to work for little or no pay for years in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

In a 17-page letter sent to local officials in Providence, R.I. this month, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said that students with developmental disabilities were paid 50 cents to $2 per hour, and in some cases nothing at all, to do tasks like bagging, labeling, collating and assembling jewelry. They did the tasks as part of a sheltered workshop while participating in a vocational program at Mount Pleasant High School.

Records for the workshop were poor and wages did not correlate to the jobs students performed or how productive they were, federal investigators found. In addition to school days, the workshop sometimes operated on weekends and at least one student said she was required to spend all day there at times in order to meet production deadlines.

Meanwhile, students were not offered opportunities to try competitive employment placements even when they requested to do so. And, once the students left high school, they were then funneled to segregated, sheltered workshops, the Justice Department found.

Nearly all high school-age students with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the Providence Public School District are part of the vocational program, federal officials indicated.

The report said that the city “planned, structured, administered and funded its transition service in a manner that imposes a serious risk of unnecessary segregation” in violation of the ADA. Moreover, the investigation found that the city developed and maintained a “direct pipeline” to a third-party provider of sheltered workshops and facility-based day services where students were directed once they finished school.

Providence Mayor Angel Taveras told the local television station WPRI that he was not familiar with the sheltered workshop until learning about the federal investigation earlier this year. He called the Justice Department findings “outrageous,” adding that the students “deserve better.”

The sheltered workshop has been shut down as a result of the investigation and under a settlement reached with the city and state, federal officials said Thursday that individuals who were directed to segregated placements after attending the vocational program will now be provided with supported employment services to “find, get, keep and succeed in real jobs with real wages.” Current students will be provided transition services with internships, trial work experiences and other offerings so that they can ultimately move into community-based jobs when they leave school.

Under the agreement, individuals with disabilities will work in supported employment for at least 20 hours per week, on average. When they are not working, they will be provided access to integrated, community-based recreational, social, educational, cultural and athletic activities, federal officials said.

The plan calls for those with disabilities to be supported with a 40-hour work week, according to Eve Hill, senior counselor to the assistant attorney general for civil rights. The agreement is the first between the Justice Department and any public entity to ensure what Hill called a “full-time integration” standard.

“For far too long, people with disabilities who can and want to work and engage in all aspects of community life have been underestimated by public service systems that have had limited or no expectations for them. Under this agreement, things are now changing,” Hill said.

Share Your Story | Stop Hurting Kids

Share Your Story

Personal stories have a tremendous impact on raising awareness and gaining allies in the movement to end restraint and seclusion. If you or a loved one have experienced restraint and seclusion in school, and would like to share your experience, please use the form below. Your personal story will help shed light on this issue and ultimately end restraint and seclusion abuse in schools