My fight with the Public School District is finally over!

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Yesterday was the end of a long drawn out battle with the school. I enrolled my daughter in public school kindergarten one and a half years ago. My daughter had been recently diagnosed with AS and Dyspraxia and I naively walked into the school with the paperwork, believing they would do what needed to be done to properly educate my daughter. When she arrived at public school she could read simple books with one sentence per page, knew all her letters, could write them and painstakingly wrote in all neat capital letters. The school started the bureaucratic evaluations which drug on forever, and consisted of such inaccurate and ridiculous tests such as the HTP test. Everything they could do to contest the medical evaluations done by a large University Medical Center, they did. Wow! She gave a high five! That's shared joy. Can't be AS. Anyway, I suppose in hindsight the denial of services was a godsend, because they warehouse the Sp Ed kids here, and not in a good way. So, next was 504 which they sidestepped for a whole year, doing everything they could to avoid implementing one. Matter of fact, I knew of NO kids below third grade with a 504. Slowly throughout the year I started to realize their methodology-take a "wait and see" approach, letting these kids fly under the radar until time for standardized testing, at which time exemptions were made and by then, the precious intervention windows had passed.

Meanwhile, my daughter was clinging to me each morning, falling on the floor and BEGGING me not to leave her there. Every afternoon when I picked her up she was exhausted, and many times I could tell, with her red puffy eyes, that she had been crying. All of this was made worse when they moved her up to first grade three months in because she was too bright for K. And they used that fact to always support how she didn't NEED any educational supports. She fell apart in assemblies, with the rest of the school able to gawk at the "weird girl" who was always crying. The school refused to allow me to observe the class, which I requested due to my increasing fears that something was REALLY WRONG with the school. They always patted me on the back like a hysterical mother and said "leave the educating to us". I even doubted her dx, and went back to the medical center to make them explain to me why they gave those dx. Everyone suggested I get an advocate.

I played the games for a whole year. Half way through my daughter's anxiety was so clinically significant that she was medicated. She began pulling out her eyelashes. My daughter stopped reading and wouldn't even read the preK books she was reading a few months before. Her writing turned to giant, angry scratches on the paper. Her drawings, once geometric and colorful became black scribbles. She began saying, at age 6, that she wanted to die. And she said it often. She violently attacked another girl and was frequently in a rage. I was a wreck! Who to believe???? The educators SAID they knew best, that she was fine, that she was manipulating me and they made me doubt my own motherly intuition and my own daughter's pleas for help. I was an idiot. And I'll never get that year back!

That summer, my daughter slowly started returning to the child she was before entering school. She seemed lighter, happier, less depressed. It started to become clear to me that the school had been damaging her. The next year I resolved to make things different. I requested meetings which were denied. I requested exemptions and modifications which were denied. And 5 days into the school year I lost it. This happened in a meeting with the principal where she stated my daughter's "differences" were due to problems in the home. I withdrew her that day and filed a federal Civil Rights complaint.

I thought the complaint would go nowhere. I had calls from the federal investigator periodically and had forgotten about it. My daughter moved to a private school and started to thrive educationally again. She's starting to read again. She's excited she can read billboards. She has a friend in her class. Her teacher likes her and is focused on getting her anxiety down.

I received a call that the district wanted to make me a "settlement offer". I was confused. Why would they want to meet with me when my daughter no longer attends the district?

I went to that meeting yesterday and listened as the attorney for the district apologized and assured me everything was different now. They fired the old people, hired new people, did training, etc etc etc. It was a whole new school. They sat there for 2 hours doing everything they could to convince me to drop my complaint. They had 2 five inch binders with my daughter's name on them on the table. They had been under investigation and answering to the feds questions and slowly coming to the realization that they were in trouble. A federal finding is not good, although I don't know why or how. The DOE had a rep there that told me basically that I could name the terms of the settlement.

I am not good with conflict. Do I trust them and agree to a resolution agreement to get them out of their trouble? Have they repented enough? Do I even care when my own daughter is no longer there? What about the kids still there? What did I want? Did I want revenge?

We ended up with an agreement that the district implement and conduct training on all campuses on the disability laws. I was also able to get the agreement to be made part of the federal record of the school. This new training has a timeline and I am able to observe and must be sent a record of the training. They also made certain assurances for my daughter, should she ever return to the district (snowball’s chance in hell).

Did I roll over? Awakening after sleeping on this I was panicked, and wanted to call and void the resolution agreement. That principal didn’t change her tune, she didn’t learn it was “wrong” to tell a parent that they caused their child’s autism, on the contrary-she WON. She once told me she had never had a successful complaint waged against her and perhaps she can still say that.

But at what point do we have to disengage from the negative fighting and move on? I NEED to move on. And I do feel that this chapter is behind us. All I can do now is hope that this experience shook the school a little, at least enough that they will carefully consider their responsibilities with regard to students in their district with disabilities.

Thanks for letting me tell our story.

IMHO, the only thing you left on the table is that you probably could have gotten the school district to pay for your daughter's private schooling. They probably would have done that just to keep you quiet. Other than that, you did fine. Yes, the school staff and principal was horrible but if you managed to get them fired, there could have been someone worse. At least here, you can monitor the training and progress within the district.

It is too bad that parents have to get this far and take so long to get results. Hopefully this improves things for your daughter and other children with disabilities at this particular school district.

I am sorry that you have been through all of this. We are in the public school system, and so far we have had a good experience. We do live in an area that seems more in tune with autism/AS though. Hopefully, like you said, you shook the school up enough that they will get on board and get themselves up to speed with ASD which is not that uncommon these days.

I too wish that you could have gotten some form of monetary compensation to go towards your daughter's education, since you are having to pay this out of pocket. But, I am happy that you are now able to put this behind you and that your daughter is doing so much better. And that is all that really matters!

I was told that I could get a monetary settlement but I felt that that would be basically hush money and would be immoral. I felt that if I took money to drop the complaint that I would be part of the problem. At least this way I was able to get it in their record, which was the hardest point of the settlement agreement. DOE assured me that other parents might use this case for ammunition in the future and there was an admission of fault in the agreement. In the agreement they admitted that my daughter was a child with a disability pursuant to federal standards and that they had failed to properly identify her as such. The agreement outlined how they agreed to remedy this fault in return for the resolution of the complaint and closure of the investigation.

Not directly related to education but in cases where I have been discriminated against and a settlement was being negotiated and I did not want hush money I have had them make quite large dontations to charities of my choice of related issues to do with what the complaint was about. A disability discrimination lawyer suggested it, they now suggest it quite regulary and we have been able to even say what we want the charities to direct the money towards, ie. community education. It has proven to be extremely beneifical. They are more likely to agree to pay a charity than us, they get on the charities mainly list and are then sent out educational information anyway and the charity is able to do more educational campaigns, because of the donation made, so hopefully there will really be less people put into the postion that we were placed in. I even had as part of the agreement that the education was done by a specific charity, etc, so that I really did know what education was being presented and was in charge of that education.

But I am pleased that you have been able to find a school that is working well for your child, and that you have at least been able to have your say and to put things in place that will hopefully make it better for future parents in your area.

Mama, if it's done then I think you did well. I am always thinking about the other kids out there, the ones whose parents don't have access to the internet and have only the schools as a resource - what you did holds the school accountable for their actions on behalf of those kids.

If you still have a window to ask that they pay for your daughter's private school, I think that's only fair, provided you don't have to give up holding them accountable on behalf of those other kids. The school is responsible for providing your child an appropriate education and if they can't do it themselves, it's only fair that they use your child's portion of tax dollars to ensure she gets educated. Some districts handle all SPED this way.

I think what you did is really important, much more so than the money for private school if it's possible for you to handle that yourself. Thank you for making that sacrifice.

You handled things very well.

mamatograce, don't beat yourself up over what more maybe you could have done with the settlement; there are no perfect agreements, and one can drive themselves crazy trying to get to that kind of point. I think you did super well. I am really proud of you. You stood up for your daughter and for your values, and have forced people to look at the issues in their system and work towards improvement. All that is HUGE. So be proud of what you DID get accomplished, and move on with the job of staying focused on your daughter.

Thanks for sharing and congratulations! Can I ask how do you do this?

What a story! Well, first of all, as I was reading about how the school was treating your daughter, I was thinking "Please tell me you removed your daughter from this school..." and then I got to the part where you said you'd changed her to a private school. What a relief! I think you did enough just by removing her from that dreadful school. It wouldn't have been an easy adjustment changing schools and having to deal with private school expenses. So well done on making that decision! I think the fact that the school got into so much legal trouble, that the feds were brought in, etc. afterwards is just a big fat bonus on top of that. It would have been nice if you could have got some compo money but at least the school has a well-deserved black mark against their name now. And if it's any consolation, I bet the principal had weeks of anxiety and sleepness nights and stomach aches from the stress of being investigated - even if she technically "won" the case in the end.

That's a sad story, but also an encouraging one. It's sad that you had to go through this and your child suffered because of a screwed up system, but it's also encouraging that you fought for your child and that because of you, some change occurred. It's sad that we have to threaten lawsuits and file complaints to get people to do the right thing, but a lot of people only see right and wrong when there's a $ attached to it. It's encouraging that these people aren't always allowed to win. You might have held their feet to the fire for money or gotten the principle fired, but it was very gracious of you to take your victory without vengeance. I don't know if they'll think twice next time, but that's not something you can control either way. The next principle might have been worse, and the money they'd be paying you would come out of the resources they have to educate children. My guess is that they will think harder next time.

Make no mistake, the principle did not win, even in the technical sense. The implementation of the plan and the concessions made to your daughter represent an admission of their error. It's rather like a plea bargain, where when a defendant knows they're going to lose, they plead guilty so the DA will go easy on them. This is essentially what they did. Their lawyer told them they were going to lose, and spend a lot of money losing, so they cut their losses and rolled over. They can save a bit of face by not having the actual verdict hanging over them, and not being dragged through the mud by local and possibly national media. That's the advantage they get from settling out of court. The advantage you get is that the fight is over, and you won. Enjoy your well earned victory.

I've been doing my share of dealing with schools in the past couple of years, and I laughed at the end portion of your story... I could just see them... here you file a complaint and then kinda forget it, move on with your life, and they call you in to witness a very uncomfortable public school who's been getting the third degree while you thought the whole thing had been forgotten! It's just a beautiful thing... I think I'm being a little vindictive, enjoying their suffering so much, but dang did they ask for it. They were being so stinking typical! Downright poisonous.

I'd agree, they should pay for private school, and I hope that won't bother you too much because I do like what you did and it sounds like it's pretty much closed now. I'd feel the same as you did, by the way. I really have to pile up the written material before a meeting because when I get there, I go all soft and cooperative and lost without building myself a superstructure of my real views and supporting data... I just forget everything and want to go home.

So I think you did great for being brought to it cold. Surely they should have given you some information ahead of time... but you got something done with it. I hope they follow through.