Special Education Law Blog

Illinois Issues Major Findings Against Chicago Public Schools

While I am still digesting the report that just came out, I wanted to share it more broadly. CPS is one of the biggest district's in the US and has huge problems that I see everyday far beyond the parameters of this report. Download Public_Inquiry_Final_Report. I most appreciate the fact that this report puts the problems and obstacles that CPS's computer system creates for parents and students. Another main focus are some of the issues with transportation in Chicago. The issue almost immediately becomes what happens in Phase II of this process which is remediation. Stay tuned.

Navigating the World of Social Security

While I do not represent families through the maze of social security benefits, it is an important issue that needs to be a factor in transition planning. Navigating the world of such social security entitlement programs as Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) is a byzantine process for parents of children and adults with disabilities.  It is challenging even for sophisticated or highly educated parents and requires tremendous amounts of time, patience, and fortitude.  Yet, parents shouldn’t have to re-invent wheels as they enter this labyrinth and try to comprehend the variety of regulations that may or may not apply to their child.  School IEP teams can provide a tremendous amount of support to both the student and the family by developing meaningful transition plans and goals that help shepherd the family through the process.  In particular, schools must be actively involved early in the transition process in identifying and assisting students who are or may become eligible for SSI or SSDI.

#MeToo and the Disability Community

Women across the world are embracing the hashtag #MeToo to publicly share their own experiences with sexual abuse and assault and to seek empowerment. The result of this movement has sent shock waves through our society as powerful figures in politics, journalism, and entertainment have been identified as abusers and suffered consequences.  Yet one group has been conspicuously absent from this conversation—the disabled.  And unfortunately, the disabled are among the most vulnerable in our society to sexual abuse and assault. Nancy Thaler, deputy secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, said, “If this were any other population, the world would be up in arms.  We would be irate and it would be the No. 1 health crisis in this country.” 

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. 

The Not So Neutral Effect of the End of Net Neutrality On Our Schools

The current round of tax "overhaul" legislation and repeal of net neutrality rules will have wide ranging and mostly negative effective on students with disabilities. This blog is the first in a series of blogs on the effects of these legal changes on students and others with disabilities. On December 14, 2017, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to repeal an Obama-era regulation that ensured net neutrality.  The Restoring Internet Freedom Order, which had been implemented in 2015 to prevent the blocking, throttling, or paid prioritization of content on the internet, was designed to ensure that use of the internet was a right and not a privilege. The effects of the net neutrality repeal have left many educators and advocates deeply concerned about its impact on education, both at the K-12 level as well as higher level education.  Shockingly, the FCC itself appeared to have not weighed these considerations.  Several senators noted by letter prior to the December 14^th vote that the 210-page proposal from the FCC never even mentioned the word “student” or “students.”

Mental Illness and Gun Violence--A False Fallacy

Mass shootings keep happening. Mental illness is the easy answer but not the cause.  Almost monthly we read about horrific shootings in Las Vegas, Orlando, or small towns in Texas and California.  The subsequent finger pointing continues as to why these shocking killings keep occurring.  Whether you are for additional gun control laws or against, we clearly need to have a reasoned discussion about the root causes of these shootings.  These discussions need to be predicated on one fact:  we must not equate these shootings with mental illness. It is too facile to claim as did the President that “mental health is your problem here,” or that “Guns don’t kill people—the mentally ill do,” as did Ann Coulter. These statements are inaccurate and fail to recognize how complicated and nuanced the intersection between gun violence and mental illness is, because data show that the nexus is actually quite small. 

Although the image of a lone psychopathic mass shooter is an easy narrative to adapt to understand gun violence, the reality is that persons with mental illness are far more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators.  According to the  Department of Health and Human Services, persons with severe mental illness are 10 times more likely to be the victims of violent crime than the general population. For instance, people with schizophrenia are 14 times more likely to be victims of violent crime than they are to be the perpetrator.  Convenient as it is blame the violence on mental illness, doing so risks further stigmatization of mental illness and subsequent failure for persons who need mental health care to seek treatment.

Giving Meaning to the the term "Meaningful Progress"

Special education advocates were excited with last March’s Supreme Court ruling on Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District and its determination that students must make “appropriately ambitious” progress in their special education programs under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Cases are now coming up that will hopefully begin to flesh out the pararmeters of Endrew F and give more defintion to the term "meaningful progress". The Rowley case, which was decided in 1982, provided some guidance on what constitutes progress, but Endrew further refines it and raises the standards of special education for students.   This past October, referencing the Endrew case, the Supreme Court remanded a special education case (E.F. v. Newport Mesa Unified School District) back to the lower court not because of the arguments in the case put forth by the parents, but because the Supreme Court wanted the district court to reconsider the case using the new Endrew standard. 

A is for Artist, B is for Belief by Lori Miller Fox

Milestones; what are they? We hear about them from the moment our children are diagnosed, for some, born. For most of us, they're not even mile"stones"; they're pebbles, fragments, grains of sand, achievements so small, so tiny, so minuscule that only we notice them. And we keep them to ourselves, afraid some "professional" "paraprofessional," "pseudoprofessional," or interfering busybody might discount them into oblivion. 

I myself,  have given credence to too many naysayers, too often, for too much. I've wallowed in the aftermath of the dream-stealers, driven to sitting in the corner with a can of Reddi Whip, jar of fudge, half-gallon of low-fat ice cream, a serving spoon, and no bowl, recalling the compilation of shortfalls, failures, and stagnations, silently crumbling. I have been robbed of the "bragging rights" so richly enjoyed by parents of the Gymboree, beauty pageant, geniuses, only to be replaced by a pity party award, from a contest I refuse to enter.   

Raising a child with a disability can be fraught with seemingly endless periods of hopelessness. You bargain away abilities, offering them up to the Universe, in exchange for some other certainty, only to realize there is no certainty in disability -- except for one: individuals with disabilities don't fit the mold. And because they don't, school staff, career counselors and even parents, oftentimes give up all hope of pointing them toward a happy, successful and fulfilling life. More importantly however, it is because individuals with disabilities are individuals, they should be seen, treated, and encouraged as such. Paths should fit the individual, and measures of success should be uniquely calibrated. 

This weekend, I hit a milestone of my own;  I experienced what it was like to be proud of my son. Pure pride! Not the kind of pride mixed with an apology, nor the kind of pride you need to over-explain, or over-justify, for an outsider to even try to pretend to validate, but the kind of pride with which I'd never expected my family and I would be blessed. It is because of this experience, and in hopes of inspiring other parents, especially those at the beginning of their journey, or wallowing at the local Dairy Queen, that I wanted to share my steadfast belief that we need to pound their outdated mainstream, traditional, milestones into rubble, and create non-conventional pillars of achievement of our own.

My son, now 25 years old, along with other highly-talented, edge-pushing, opinion-changing artists with disabilities, received recognition for  his art in an exhibit at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art. The exhibit, entitled A is for Artist, is not a "cotton balls and glue" "good job, Buddy," kind of art show. It is a legitimate display of artistic talent that validates just one of the alternate paths to success that individuals with disabilities are not often told they can take. 

Twenty-five years ago, I would never have envisioned that my son would one day have a career, as an artist or otherwise. I feared there was no valued place in society to which he could aspire. And certainly, no persons other than those in his immediate family who would celebrate his contribution to any community. Yet, to my glorious delight, a young woman at the exhibit opening, said the most beautiful, eye-opening, reality-changing words I'd ever heard: "I'm a fan of your son's work." If that's not a reason to change anyone's belief-system toward people with disabilities, I don't know what is.

I have to thank The Arts of Life, a studio for artists with disabilities, for breaking all the rules; for seeing artists as artists, and measuring success as success. And especially for demonstrating that all people are different, but the right to hopes and dreams is universal. 

I admit, I am not always a cup half-full kind of person; nor a half-empty either. In all honesty, most of the time, my cup's bone-dry. However, today my hope runneth over. So I wish the best for you and your family. And wherever you are on your journey, please lick your wounds and your spoon, and when you're ready, put one foot, or crutch, or wheel, in front of the other, trusting there will be a fork in the road that takes your child on his or her path -- and hopefully that path will be handicap accessible.

A is for Artist will be open at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art in Chicago through November 26.  It is an inspiring, uplifting, validating experience, one which you will never forget. 

 

 My son Cole and me with one of his three paintings in the foreground.

Another of Cole's paintings above our the heads of our proud family.

Hurricane Harvey and his Brethren Hit Disabled Hard

Hurricanes hit the most vulnerable the hardest and that applies without a doubt to people with disabilities. The death of Benilda Caixeta, of New Orleans tragically underscores this point.  Ms. Caixeta was found drowned in her apartment, next to her wheelchair, despite her repeated calls to 911 pleading for help. Ms. Caixeta’s death served to emphasize one of the many terrible lessons we learned from Hurricane Katrina.

Gender Identity and Special Needs

The Trump Administration’s February 2017 reversal of an earlier Obama decision ensuring that transgender students under Title IX should be allowed to use the school restrooms of the gender to which they identify has thrown school policies with regards to gender identify into flux. The February 22, 2017 “Dear Colleague Letter” stated that the earlier Obama position had wrested the primary responsibility of devising education policy from the states and local school districts. Despite its unhappy conclusion, the letter reiterated the need for protecting transgendered students from both bullying and harassment. It is highly questionable, however, if those words have any actionable meaning.