The U.S. Supreme Court is asking the Obama administration to weigh in on whether or not school districts should be liable for failing to identify a child’s special needs.
On Monday, the high court asked the U.S. solicitor general for input on a case involving a California high school student whose disabilities went unidentified by her school district for years.
The student, known as Addison in court papers, went without special education services as teachers reported that the 10th-grader “colored with crayons at her desk, played with dolls in class and urinated on herself.”
Even after an outside mental health counselor recommended that the girl be evaluated for learning disabilities, the Compton Unified School District instead promoted her to 11th grade.
Finally, in 2004 Addison’s mother requested an educational assessment. At a subsequent individualized education program, or IEP, meeting it was determined that the girl qualified for special education.
The mother then took action against the school district for failing to spot Addison’s needs sooner. The claim: under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, schools have an obligation to identify students who may have special needs under what’s known as the “child find” clause.
An administrative law judge sided with Addison’s mother, granting the girl services designed to compensate for the fact that educators didn’t recognize her needs earlier.
The school district appealed arguing that the ruling would expose schools to claims of “educational malpractice,” but lost its case before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals last year, paving the way for the matter to come before the Supreme Court.
The mother wants to sue the school district? Why? IF the article is correct; she waited until her daughter was in the 10th grade … before she asked for a assessment. And for this she blames the school district? Is it (if the article is correct) the School district’s fault that SHE was in denial as to her daughter’s disability?
Sorry but if she wants to sue the school district, then she needs to sue HERSELF as well.
I have Aspergers, and I’m raising two kids with Aspergers so I do understand this situation. The only difference being, is I didn’t wait until my kids’ were in high school to acknowledge that they needed help.
This is pathetic. Yeah, the school should be held accountable. So should the parent: an evaluation should’ve been requested. So should the pediatrician, for that matter.
It is imperative to remember that many school districts have a culture of denial and refuse request after request from parents for testing. The parent would not have won this case if the school had actually tested this child. Considering that parents tend to loose 80-90% of cases in California, the case must have been especially agregious. It is only in the past 4 years or so that parents are ALLOWED to refuse services for children before that, schools could force parents to put the child in special education. This parent very likely DID ask for help and was denied.
I find it interesting that both of the comments want to blame the parent. As a person who has been involved in every aspect of special education it has been my experience that when parents are asking for help they often don’t make a formal request (in writing) either because they don’t know they should, they don’t have the skills, or are afraid of the ramifications for their child if they push against the system.
There are many fine educators who do the “right thing” every day but let’s face it, as in every profession, there are those who do not.
For families who are not part of the disability community in any way, knowing the steps to take to get assistance for their child can be frustrating. In some situations, schools provide parents with their rights, written in 8 point font in language it takes a lawyer to understand, and say that parents have been given (and understand) their rights.
As with any short article, readers do not have all of the facts. The only fact I am sure of with this article is that the district has a legal obligation to do child find. Do I think the district should be sued? I don’t know but it is the right of the parent to do so. Do I think that the situation should be investigated further, yes! I will be following this case and reading everything I can get my hands on to gather the facts of the case not a reporters summary of the facts of this case.
Fifty years ago parents chose how to raise their children, but the government has taken the lead. Congress passed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which places the responsibility for identifying and treating learning disabilities on the schools.
In the case of the girl in question, a 10th-grader who “colored with crayons at her desk, played with dolls in class and urinated on herself,” was quite obviously in need of SpEd services, yet the professionals failed to notice. The parents knew their daughter needed additional help, but the school chose to push her through.
Why sue? Because it’s the only way to assess responsibility. The individuals are protected, so the district pays. Hopefully it will make the district want to mend their ways and not do it to others.
Of course the district should be held liable. This girl wasn’t evaluated despite clearly displaying developmental delays (coloring….can she write? wetting oneself?). Learning Disability doesn’t seem to begin to cover this girl’s problems.
While I’m convinced the courts will support the parent in this case, I also don’t understand the mother’s response to her daughter’ long-standing problems in school. Didn’t her pediatrician tell her what was considered typical development? Why didn’t she request an evaluation? That’s scary.
If you read the court document linked under the word ‘lost’ it is very enlightening. It is the judgement on the school’s appeal. They outline the history of the case which seems to indicate that the girl just began to have issues in 9th grade. The school ignored or ‘excused’ that as ‘transitional issues’. After Addison failed every subject, a mental-health councelor reccomended assessing her for a learning disability, yet the school did nothing, instead promoting her to 11th grade when the child failed every class and exhibited the behaviors noted above. The mother formally requested an evaluation in a letter and they set the IEP for two months later.
The opinion outlines that there are obligations the school must meet both under IDEA and California law to make every effort to identify individuals with special needs.The schools arguments come down to ‘well, choosing to ignore it is not that same as refusing to provide something, and since we never initiated the process therefore we didn’t need to meet the standards set in law on how to do that process.’
I think the mother was suing to recieve the additional services they failed to give her daughter and court costs – not to get a huge settlement.
I personally see too many schools with a top down mentality of ‘lets turn a blind eye because special education costs money’ – Yes, parents should be involved, but not all parents are college educated individuals with access to an abundance of resources, some are single parents, some got ‘passed through’ themselves or failed to graduate, some work full time and are just trying to get by. I know that the skills my son has at home are not at all reflective of how he might be doning in the classroom, and so I have to trust the teachers to bring issues to my attention, because he may not be having any issues at home.
I would like schools to think twice before they just pass a child on to the next grade! You wouldn’t believe how many children come out of highschool having never been given the services they need and that is a missed opportunity. They accept the funding, they accept the responsability to not turn a blind eye in my opinion.
As a special education teacher with many years experience, I weep for this child. I have lost count of the number of children that I and my fellow mainstream teachers have identified for testing for special needs, only to be told by a district administrator that we lacked the resources for testing and any special services or accomodations that the child may require. Under IDEA schools are obligated to test a child when there is the suspicion of a disability that may effect the child’s ability to learn. Many…many school districts have ignored this over the course of many years to their own peril and to the detrement of countless special needs children who sometimes with just a modicum of consideration and accomidation are capable of becomming independant, productive and happy lives. The saddest thing about this and many other similar law suits is the fact that many of the windows of developmental opportunity for this student have long passed, and it is likely that no amount of money (or intervention services) awarded this late in her development can make up for this.
Addison’s problems didn’t start in 9th grade, I’m betting. How did she perform in Elementary and Middle School? California has standardized testing throughout those grades too. Most high schools depend on the middle school to inform them of problems when they transition to high school.
Although I know that there are school districts that look at the cost before the student, I know there are many more that work to help the student first and deal with the money issues later.
The blame for Addison’s lack of support started a long time ago. No one entity is wholly responsible – the high school is just the last one. Pediatricians, parents and previous teachers should have recognized that she was struggling.
I think this is happening more often than people know. My son is on an IEP, I am suspecting this is happening to him. He is now in the sixth grade. He is already in a program, but I don’t think he is learning up to his capabilties. The school has almost quit their pace in his education.
This is a very sad story that breaks my heart, but at the same time makes me made. As the parent of a special needs child I know how hard it is to get teachers and administrators to listen to you. This article doesn’t really say if the mother tried to get help for her daughter prior to 10th grade. However, with this severe of behaviors, it would be hard for me to believe that as a mother you wouldn’t notice problems. I do know that schools will use the ignorance of parents on he special ed system to their advantage very single day including Sundays. I actually had a special ed teacher tell me that she was not bound to any federal, state or district curriculum even if is was in the IEP. Really? You hope that educators are going to be honest with you, but there are no guarantees. Unfortunately, too many parents are overwhelmed with life, their child’s disability, etc to be able to advocate for their child.
Addison’s mother was reluctant to have the child “looked
at,” and School District officials decided not to “push.”
Instead, the School District referred Addison to a third-party
mental-health counselor. The third-party counselor recommended that the School District assess Addison for learning
disabilities. Despite the recommendation, the School District
did not refer Addison for an educational assessment, and
instead promoted Addison to eleventh grade.
According to the court document, teachers did report concerns, but “Addison’s mother was reluctant to have the child ‘looked at,’ and School District officials decided not to ‘push’.” The court document also mentions the school counselor “did not consider it atypical for a ninth-grader such as Addison to perform at a fourth-grade level.” When I worked in California in the 90s, urban districts were concerned about appearing racist, especially given the disproportionate number of kids in special education, so they would not “push” if there were no safety concerns. The high school I worked at had a lot of chaos, violence, and many unengaged students who behaved like Addison. The reality was that by the end of the senior year, almost 50% of the kids would have disappeared or dropped out.
I may be wrong, but Compton is a lower income area of CA. The mother may have a disability herself or be unaware of her child’s rights due to lack of education. The school absolutely had an obligation to provide FAPE for this child, regardless of any other extraneous factors – by that I mean income of the family, race, immigration status, etc.
So, now, in order to prove a point, Compton USD is malisciously spending taxpayer money to fight a case which has already been properly adjudicated. This money should be spent on Addison, not lining the pockets of the school system’s lawyers.
I am the single parent of a child who has a disability. I myself have the same disability, but in my “day” they did not label you for your disability, so how was I to know, why I struggled in school. As a parent who is very “active” in her childrens life and needs, I attempted everything to obtain an appropriate evaluation to identify her disabilities and her individual needs as the IDEA process mandates. My child’s identification under child find were ignored and intentionally neglected. i didn’t stand by, but researchered as best I could. Theschool district did not say the word FAPE, or that IDEA was a federal law, or even mention section 504. Thery ran me in circles, hoping I would give up. I started in Kindergartem and followed through the best I could with trying to advocate and exercise my parental rights, to no avail. The provision of FAPE is the schools responsibility, obligation, and legal responsibility. The blame game of the “parent” and the “child” is used universally in every educational setting, to avoid accountability. How came the Supreme Court ask Obama administration, if the School districts job is to idenity disabilities? That is part of the public school employee’s job and that is what they are getting paid for and are trained to do, not the parents. For those who blame the parent for the child’s lack of progress, she is not a special education teacher or a SPED attorney. If noone explained “informed consent” to her that FAPE is a consitutional Right for a child with a disability, then she had no foundation to base her knowledge and understanding of the process she was to follow to seek “help”. It is not the parents job to provide a FAPE, it is the paid professionals, who we trust to advocate and do their jobs. It is the district employee’s responsibility to “refer” the child for the appropciate assessments and evaluations, to meet her individual educational needs, from Kindergarten up. I believe that if a parent does not know their “Rights” as spelled out in their “Procedural Safeguards” which is their “vehicle” to enforce under the IDEA and Section 504, then how can they understand how to exercise their Parental Rights in the Special Educational system/process. Do not rely on the “district” to educate the parent’s, even throught it is their job, we as parents must educate, share, and make knowledgable each other, to help our children learn how to advocate for themselves, for disabilities are a like long struggle. Stay strong and speak out, for their futures sake. I lost everything, in my quest for a FAPE, for my daughter, due to ignorance of the “process” to enfoce my parental rights.
In my experience, most teachers don’t know what their obligation is under child find, and most know pretty much nothing about IDEA and the process and could not give parents any kind of advice. My child has been in special ed for about 10 years now, and most school administrators don’t know that much either, routinely setting up school practices and policies that violate rules and regulations under IDEA.
But despite this grave gap in knowledge and responsibility, most school personnel in my experience very confidently blame special needs children and their parents for any and all problems and inconveniences to them and their one-size-fits-all programs (which are the opposite of what is prescribed by an Individual Education Plan.)
I am a mother of a child with ADD, cerebral palsy, developmental delay since premature birth, etc. My child in 7, was retained in Kindegarden (dispite my letters asking not to retain), failing first grade, and I have asked IN WRITTING 3 TIMES for an evaluation at which all were denied. I have 3 private evals and MULTIPLE letters from Duke, pediatricans, Chapel Hill, eye doctors, phsyciatrists, etc. stating he needs an IEP – and yet, my child has NO IEP, and NOT even an evaluation done by the school! I have been fighting for 2 1/2 years – I have done my part – where is the school system and there half? So – the mother should not be judged as there is a point where the schools need to be held accountable as well. Each and every child is entitlted to a free and appropriate education – weather the parent knows that or fights for it or not – that is not to much to ask.