A Huge Problem in Special Education: Teachers' Unions

There have been many recent, well-publicized incidents of teachers and school staff doing horrible things to kids - and not just any kids, special needs kids.  Here are just a few examples:

• In Cherry Hill, NJ, a dad of a special needs child wired his kid for sound and audio recorded verbal abuse by the teachers and aides in a special education classroom

• A 14 year old special needs girl was being bullied by her teachers in Ohio

• An Orange County, CA teacher was accused of abusing his special ed students

This is just a representative sample of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of incidents of abuse of special needs kids.

Unfortunately, the teachers are rarely fired in these cases and in some of them not even removed from the classroom in which the abuses take place.  You probably wonder WHY?

The answer is sadly simple: teachers' unions and their contracts.  Most unions have negotiated contracts with the school districts requiring a thorough investigation (which the unions usually control) before any disciplinary action can be taken against an accused teacher.  The basic principle behind this is a good one: you don't want to fire good teachers who are being falsely accused.  The unfortunate reality behind this is that bad teachers are protected and the investigations are suspect.

In many cases, the schools (working with the unions) try to cover up these events because of the negative publicity and the potential loss of funding.  Saying that developing evidence to prove these events (beyond a reasonable doubt, which is the criminal standard) is difficult is a huge understatement.  School personnel and school district administrations are more adept at cover ups than those involved with Watergate.  After all, whose word are you going to believe?  The teacher or principal who denies the incident or the special needs kid who probably can't even express what really happened because of the trauma or their social skills (many children with Autism are unable to explain a traumatic event to a parent or anyone else).

In fact, this is why there is a huge battle raging on across the country between parents of special needs kids and schools as to whether to permit audio and/or video recording equipment in special education classrooms.

• Maine family fighting to allow audio recordings of school day for child with autism
  

Even when there is overwhelming evidence of the abuses (sometimes surreptitiously obtained because there was no other option), the schools will shortshrift the investigation (or something more heinous, like destroy the evidence) and transfer the offending teacher or staff member to another school in the district.  All to prevent a huge legal battle with the union.

I won't get too political here and discuss whether unions are useful in ANY industry, but they are a huge problem in properly dealing with abuses by teachers and staff in the education industry.  Tragically, many parents don't have the resources to push the issue (attorneys are expensive and the legal system is not set up well for non-lawyers to understand how the battle works - I'm working on a solution to this) and therefore the unions "win".

Until we as a society realize that we need to put our children - especially our children with special needs - FIRST, these abuses will continue and the unions will continue to protect the bad teachers and the ones who abuse the system or their students.  Unions are not there to protect the good teachers and the highly qualified ones, because they don't need protecting; they do their jobs expertly and with care and compassion.  The teachers who don't do their jobs well or who don't treat their students with care and compassion and who violate the children's rights are the ones who should not be protected and should not only lose their jobs, but be placed into a system that alerts future potential school employers as to prior violations (if you want to call this "blackballing", so be it), and potentially face criminal charges.

Questions about Special Education Law Please . . .

I am in the process of putting together a Special Education Law workbook for parents, advocates and lawyers.  It is intended to be a useful resource to guide you through the process of getting a "free appropriate public education" for your child (or client) with a disability.  It will have forms, discussions, explanations of the law, practical tips, and links to further resources.

The workbook will be in a logical order of the special education process, so you can turn immediately to the chapter that is most useful to you or in the part of the process that you find yourself.  It will also be easy to read and "user friendly" unlike other similar books.  The goal is to have a hard copy version to ship out as well as an electronic version which can be downloaded or sold with the hard copy version.

You can help!  If you have a question that you want answered or think it might be a topic that is useful to many people, please submit that question to me via email at info@schoolkidslawyer.com.  Please note that by submitting any question, you release all rights to me to use that question or a modified version of it in the book.

I also hope to have a free downloadable chapter and some forms on my website soon.

I hope to have the full workbook finished and ready for publication and purchase within the next few months (or sooner).  It will be available for pre-purchase very soon!

Also, if you have any feedback or other suggestions regarding the book, please send them to the same email address listed above.

Thank you and I look forward to providing this resource to you all!

TJ

What's a FERPA letter?

For those of you who are new to education law or are in a battle with your school district to make sure your disabled student is getting a "Free Appropriate Public Education", you may have heard the term "FERPA" or been told to send a "FERPA letter".  And you're probably wondering "What the heck is a FERPA letter?" but are too proud / afraid / embarrassed to ask.  Well, now you'll know!

FERPA is an acronym standing for the "Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act" [a U.S. federal law located at 20 U.S.C. §§1232g and 1232h and with regulations located at

34 C.F.R. §99.1 et seq.]

Now, that doesn't tell you much, but it is a VERY powerful law.  The most important part of this law is that you, as a parent of a minor student (regardless of whether the child is disabled or not; the law applies to EVERY student), are entitled to see and make copies of EVERY document that is in your child's educational records file.  This means, any document that is generated about your child as a student in your school district MUST be made available to you to review and copy.

• If a teacher writes a note about your child, you get to see it.
• If they test your child, you get to see the test, the results of the test, and the testing methodology.
• If they evaluate your child, you get to see the evaluation, the credentials of the person who did the evaluation, the results, and the methodology.
• If a disciplinary report is made about your child, you get to see the report, the investigation (if any), and any notes made (including those by witnesses, etc.)

In other words, every scrap of paper that has something on it about your child, you get to see it.  There are some limitations, but not many.

As a lawyer, I have sample FERPA letters that I use in nearly every case.  Because it is critical to know what is in your child's file.  Here are some tips if you do this on your own (but I do recommend that you at least consult with an attorney who knows this law and its limitations and, more importantly, how the school's try to circumvent the law or misinterpret the law):

• Do NOT write on the original documents or your copy of the document.  Why? If you need this document later in a legal battle, you need to preserve it exactly as how they have it (otherwise, they can say you altered the document to your benefit)
• Make sure you ask for EVERYTHING.  You may not know what "everything" is (another reason to consult a lawyer), but when in doubt, ask for it anyway.  The worst they can do is say no (and they may be flat out wrong, which gives you a reason to contest them later).
• They can charge you for copies, but the charge must be reasonable.  And they can't block you because it is too expensive or takes too much time to copy.  If you need more than one visit to review or copy everything, make as many visits as possible.

If you are interested in a sample FERPA letter or want a consultation on how to conduct a FERPA review, please contact me at schoolkidslawyer.com.  (This is federal law, so it doesn't matter where you are located to discuss this with me).