California Business Litigation Blog

A special education teacher has been placed on paid administrative leave after a parent discovered he had posted derogatory pictures and comments about his students on Facebook. Jeremy Hollinger, who is employed by the Mobile (Alabama) County Public School system to teach special education at Eichold-Mertz Elementary School, posted the comments and pictures on his public Facebook page.

Celeste Dennis, who saw Hollinger's site, was upset enough to insist her son, a second-grader at Eichold-Mertz, be transferred out of the school. Although she says there were plenty of derogatory comments on the page, including posts about students soiling themselves and eating crayons, she says that one insult hit especially close to home. "It hurt. It genuinely hurt me, said Dennis."My son wears a helmet for seizures during P.E. He had a picture of himself with my son's helmet on making fun of him like that was some type of a joke."

Dennis responded to the cruel postings by reporting Hollinger to the school system and insisting that her son be transferred. The school was slow to take action against Hollinger, however, and he remained in his position at the school until after the incident caught the attention of the press. Initially, the school system refused to explain why Hollinger was still at his post. Nancy Pierce, the school's representative, initially declined to discuss the matter, saying, “Because it's a personnel matter, I can't discuss that with you. The appropriate measures were taken by our Human Resources Department."

However, on Tuesday, October 18, it was revealed that Hollinger had been suspended with pay as a result of the incident. In the meantime, Dennis hopes the suspension becomes permanent. "It takes a special type of person to deal with special children, and he is not that person," said Dennis. "I just want him out of there."

The Woodland Hills (Pittsburgh, PA) School District has agreed to pay $25,000 per year, plus a 3% annual inflationary increase, to the family of an elementary school aged student diagnosed with autism and mental retardation. The agreement will enable the family to seek private education for their child.

The suit, on behalf of an unnamed family, alleged that the district’s plan to place the then-six-year-old child diagnosed with autism and mental retardation, in Wilkins Primary School was inconsistent with the educational requirements laid out in the federal Individuals with Disabilities Improvement Act and other laws. It argued that the Pace School, a private school for emotionally disturbed and developmentally disabled children in Churchill, PA was significantly better equipped to meet the child's needs. The family's attorney stated that the family "felt very strongly ... that the private placement was what was best for their child" therefore the district’s plan would not meet their child’s needs.

The federal civil lawsuit was filed in U.S. District court last May and resolved in mediation this February. The payments, required for 15 years, will allow the family to send their child to the Pace School, despite the fact that it only partially covers the tuition expenses the family will incur.

The Sarasota (Florida) County School District has reached a settlement over a lawsuit filed by a student alleging mistreatment. The district will pay $52,500 to settle the claim. The claim comes from a developmentally disabled student who states that she was mistreated by her teacher, Diana O'Neill, from Venice Elementary School. The teacher no longer works for the school.

The parents of the girl will drop the lawsuit against the district but still can file additional lawsuits against the teacher. All school board members and the district have agreed to settle the claim.

However, all is not in the clear for the school district since three other students have come forward alleging further abuse. They have sent letters of intent to sue to the district.

The current settled lawsuit states that the teacher pinched, poked, slapped and shoved the disabled student and called her a "fat ass" and a "waste of air." This occurred when the student did not respond to the teacher. The student is missing half of her brain, which was surgically removed as an infant. The student is unable to talk, see or walk. According to the lawsuit, the day the student was abused, she came home with bruises.

The student's attorney, states that the student was unable to communicate her abuse to the parents since she does not communicate. The parents state that they sent the child to school daily without any idea of the child's poor handling.

O'Neill did not comment on the settlement. The amount of the settlement was reached through mediated session.

The teacher was arrested in 2008 on charges that she abused the disabled students in her care. She was acquitted of those charges. She kept her job in the school district but does not work as a teacher, but rather works in the record's department. It is possible that she could lose her teaching certificate. A state administrative judge is scheduled to hear the case against O'Neill later this month, and will then make a recommendation about revoking her teaching certificate.

The Education Practices Commission will then vote whether to accept the judge's recommended order. If the commission revokes her teaching certificate, the district would be able to fire O'Neill since she would no longer be qualified for her $78,000/year job.

Continue reading "School District Pays $52,500 to Settle Student Mistreatment Claim" »

In Boston, a settlement has been reached having to do with a former student who allegedly received electric shocks at the school he attended. The special needs school, agreed to pay $65,000 to settle the lawsuit. The lawsuit claimed that the shock therapy was inhumane and violated the student’s civil rights.

The school known as The Judge Rotenberg Center uses a controversial form of aversive therapy. In order to control aggressive behavior, and to prevent self injury in autistic students, the device administers a shock.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Antwone Nicholson. At the time of the filing, in 2006, he was 17 years old and was enrolled at the school for the last four years. The student’s mother agreed to settle to simply move on. The school agreed to the settlement because it was minimal and far less than what it would cost to fight the case in court. The suit originally was for millions of dollars in damages.

The school is thought to be the only one in the United States that uses the therapy. Some parents of the school believe the therapy is successful and is used only as a last resort in preventing severely autistics children from injuring themselves. The settlement allows for the school to be absolved of all claims by the family. The school also says that the parents of the student were made aware of the treatment used at the time of enrolling the son.

Nicholson acknowledges that she knew of the treatment but said she thought it would be used only in situations where the boy was a threat to himself or to others. She says that was not the case. She claims that if her son simply said no to a directive or did not pay attention, the center’s administrators would shock him.

Nicholson says her son pleaded with her to remove him from the school. He still lives at home with her but has flashbacks to the treatment, she says.

Earlier, an appellate division of the New York Supreme court dismissed a claim that a Freeport, NY school district helped place the student in the school. Another lawsuit, brought against the state itself was also dismissed.

According to the school, less than 20 percent of students experience the shock therapy and only if positive reinforcement does not control behavior. The US Justice Department has begun an investigation to determine if shock therapy is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Approximately 30 advocacy groups presented a letter to the Justice Department asking for the shocks to end.

Continue reading "Special Needs School Settles Shock Therapy Lawsuit" »

The parents of an eight year old special needs child have filed a lawsuit against the township of Voorhees’s school, in New Jersey. The parents allege that their eight year old girl was sexually harassed by a boy on the bus and at school. The suit was filed in federal court in Camden.

The lawsuit against the school states that the school district did not protect the child from the repeated occurrences, which occurred at Signal Hill School by an eleven year old student.

According to the lawsuit, the employees at the school showed deliberate indifference to the alleged harassment. The parent’s concerns, the lawsuit states, which they voiced to the teacher, received a response from the teacher indicating that the eight year old should wear a bra.

The harassment started in the spring of 2010 when the boy encouraged the girl to expose herself on the bus. The parent’s allege that the boy continued the harassment by asking to see “private parts and touching her butt.” The mother contacted the teacher and the teacher said that the boy was “such a nice boy” and stated that the girl’s statements could be a form of attention getting.

The harassment continued into the next school year. In another incident, the boy “touched breasts while asking to see them” and continued to do so on the bus ride home that day. The girl stated that because she was pressured, she pulled down her shirt to and showed him.

The lawsuit requests that adult monitors be placed on all school buses in the township, among other things. It would also require the school district to put in place methods to investigate the complaints of sexual harassment within the district.

The lawsuit alleges that the girl’s education suffered because she was continually monitoring where the student was. In response to the claims, the school moved the student to the back of the class, even though her individual education program requires her to be near the front of the class. The girl has auditory processing disorders.

The school district was unable to comment and has not responded to the lawsuit. The lawsuit seeks damages to cover medical and legal costs as well as funding for home instruction for the girl until an alternative school can be obtained, at the district’s expense.

Continue reading "Parents of 8 Year Old Sue School Over Sexual Harassment" »

A civil lawsuit brought against the Los Angeles County Office of Education was settled. The lawsuit stated that students within the district were being punished for asking for instruction and that teachers at the school in question, Camp Challenger in Lancaster, were routinely missing classes.

According to a statement released by the education office, the teaching staff will be examined and changes made. Teachers will be retrained. In addition, as part of the lawsuit settlement, career programs and new literacy programs will be put into place. The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit.

According to the ACLU, students were graduating from the school without being able to read. According to Mark Rosenbaum, who is the attorney working on behalf of the ACLU, “these kids could not fill out job applications or read basic signs.”

In the lawsuit, it is alleged that the civil rights violations occurred and deprivation of education that is legally mandated was not provided to students enrolled at the facility. As a result of the class action lawsuit, about one quarter of the teachers have been transferred or resigned. The principal and the assistant principals may face legal charges. A federal judge will need to approve the settlement.

The office of education is like to work with various professionals to improve the education of youths who attend the high school. In addition, the county’s educational program will move towards courses that include special education, instruction, literacy and other areas of specific need. Another action of the settlement forms the Challenger Reform Taskforce, which will be responsible for monitoring the reforms occurring at the school to ensure they are being taken seriously. The county will also likely pay attorney’s fees and other expenses related to the case.

Continue reading "Los Angeles County Education Lawsuit Settled" »

Louisiana school officials face a lawsuit for handcuffing and shackling a six year old boy. The advocates who filed the charges include the child’s parents, the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana and the Southern Poverty Law Center. School officials from the Louisiana Recovery School District are accused of handcuffing the child for what the attorneys call, “minor offenses.” Included in the lawsuit are Paul Valias who is the superintendent for the school district and security officers of the Sarah T. Reed Elementary School where the child, now seven, was a student.

According to the director of communications for the school, Ken Jones, the employee involved in the charges was terminated and the child was never arrested. However, attorneys say that the methods of punishing students at the school crossed the line.

According to the lawsuit, an armed school security officer took a six year old to the principal’s office where the child was then handcuffed and shackled to a chair. The student was accused of shoving another child. Two days prior to the incident, which occurred in May of 2010, another officer handcuffed the child for failing to “listen and follow directions.”

The parents of the child said that the principal defended the officer’s actions in the case. The lawsuit states that the principal told the parents that it was part of the school’s policies to handcuff children who were “out of control” until they calm down. The child did not move when the principal told him to and the principal is accused of saying, “if the child failed to follow the rules in the future, he would be handcuffed.”

The parents claim in the lawsuit that the child’s life will never be the same since being handcuffed.

On a related note, HERE is an AP story about a similar lawsuit recently filed on behalf of an eight year old autistic girl who was allegedly handcuffed and arrested at her school last year. This lawsuit claims that the school district and the Sheriff's Department violated the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Continue reading "Louisiana School Officials Sued Over Handcuffing Six Year Old" »

The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island is suing Family Court Chief Judge Jeremiah S. Jeremiah claiming that the practices of the truancy court program violate the constitutional rights of the public school children and their parents.

The administrators of the program, the class action lawsuit contends, have threatened to arrest students or have them placed in custody if they fail to attend school. The lawsuit says that the administrators of the court engaged in a “pattern and practice of intimidation designed to bully plaintiffs.” The bullying is said to lead to a waiving of the constitutional rights of those involved.

The plaintiffs in the case are nine teenagers who are identified through the lawsuit by pseudonyms and their parents or guardians. The students have special education needs, chronic medical conditions or family caretaking obligations. The lawsuit says that these special circumstances resulted in the student’s missing school, being tardy or being unable to maintain schoolwork requirements in class. It also says these conditions also lead to the students to be unable to behave in school.

These abuses are alleged to have occurred in five school districts in the state, including Providence, North Providence, Coventry, Cumberland and Woonsocket. More than 700 students attend schools in this area in the past two years.

Of those filing the lawsuit is a student from a middle school who suffers from sickle cell anemia and who has an education plan that specifically says the student should not be punished for missing school. In this case, the mother was ordered to appear in Family Court because she failed to appear in the truancy court because she was hospitalized. The mother appeared in the court but without the child who was home ill. The court, under Judge Jeremiah, issued an arrest warrant for the child then told the mother it would vacate the arrest warrant if the child was brought in to school by noon that day. The mother took the child to school and two hours later, he complained of chest pains and had to be rushed to the hospital by ambulance.

Some plaintiffs were under the age of 12 when they were labeled as being wayward or truant students. One mother was ordered to leave her night job early to ensure that her child made it to school by 7 am. The woman lost pay because of this decision and eventually lost her job, though it is not known if the change in schedules played a role in this. Another mother was ordered by the school to bring an ill child to school or he would be arrested.

In another instance, a child with Tourette’s syndrome and ADHD who struggled to attend school and often had behavior problems in class was told by the magistrate that he “had no interest whatsoever” in the child’s behavior or health concerns, but only that the student failed to come to school and fell behind in studies.

The Truancy Court program was created by Judge Jeremiah in 1999 and it was designed to help those students who are labeled as at risk to stay in school. These courts operate in school offices and school libraries and are part of the Family Court process. Attorneys are appointed as court magistrates to administer such hearings. These types of courts are present in 150 schools throughout the state and have no written transcripts of what occurs in each of the hearings. That is a violation of due process rights to the plaintiffs, the class action lawsuit claims.

The court requires parents to sign documentation that “waive their rights” to legal representation in a Family Court situation. Weekly truancy court hearings may be required if the magistrate issues them.

Continue reading "ACLU Sues Over Truancy Court Practices" »

A federal judge ruled late last month that the school board from Itawamba County, Mississippi violated a lesbian student’s rights when it canceled the prom because the student challenged a ban at the prom of same sex couples. However, the federal judge did not order the district to reinstate the prom.

Judge Glen Davidson from US District Court did not reinstate the prom because a private prom that some parents are planning will provide the student with the same experience. The late date of the April 2nd prom made it difficult for the judge to require its reinstatement saying it would be too much of an inconvenience for all involved.

The case began when Constance McMillen requested to bring her girlfriend who is a sophomore at the same school, to the dance and she wanted to wear a tuxedo to the event. McMillen, 18, contacted the American Civil Liberties union to sue the school district to allow the same sex couple access to the prom.

Davidson stated a trial would be set for a later date but did not set a date for it. The parents of students at the school are hosting a private prom on the same day the school prom was to take place. All junior and senior students are able to attend, though there was not specific information about whether or not gay students would be allowed to attend. Another prom is being sponsored by the Mississippi Safe Schools Coalition, which is an advocacy group for same sex couples.

The court case furthers the First Amendment rights of same sex couples within the school setting. Kristy Bennett, who is the legal director for the ACL, is preparing the case for trial and plans to ask the judge to list the board’s actions as unconstitutional. They are hoping to be awarded damages plus court costs.

The school board says it canceled the prom because they did not believe the prom could be successful at protecting the safety of students. The school is in a rural northern Mississippi community and has some 715 students in the high school.

In Dalton, Georgia, the parents of a junior who was enrolled in Murray County High School are suing the school system claiming that the school's inability to protect the child from bullying lead to the child committing suicide. The child committed suicide on Oct 17, 2009. They have filed the suit in federal court this week.

Also named in the lawsuit is the principal of the school, Gina Linder, whom the parents believe did not do enough to protect Tyler Long, who died after what his parents call a "particularly painful week of bullying at the high school." Long had Asperger's syndrome, which is a type of social anxiety disorder within the area of autism. The parents believe that the school's inability to protect the child was a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Vocational Rehabilitation Act.

According to Stan Hawkins, who represents the school district, the case has no merit. In a statement, he states that the school system is not responsible for the child taking his life. Hawkins is one of several attorneys working on behalf of the school system.

A statement released from the parent's law firm, W. Winston Briggs Law Firm states, in part that the school's administrators and employees "exhibited deliberate indifference" towards protecting the child. The statement says that the school and principal knew of the child's disability and did not do anything to protect the child from the bullying. The law firm also states that the principal knew of the bullying. The parents filed the suit in an effort to hold someone accountable for their child's death and to ensure it does not happen to someone else.

Although the case has been filed in federal court, there is likely to be a significant discovery period prior to the case going to trial. The school system has 20 days to respond to the allegations. The lawsuit is seeking punitive damages, including payment for court costs and attorney fees.

Continue reading "High School Suicide Victim's Parents Sue School" »

The San Francisco school system is in for major changes in the way that students are placed in elementary and middle schools. School officials are now planning to send students to those schools closer to their homes, rather than basing the choice of school on socioeconomic class or home language, something it has used for years.

The Board of Education of the San Francisco Unified School District met to discuss possible options. Staff presented a number of options including those that would use academic performances and the student's home location to determine where the student went to school. Board recommendations are still being submitted and a final vote is scheduled for March 3 on all the options available.

Options include:

Parent Selection
One of the options presented is to allow parents to select the school that the child attends, up until the school is full. At that time, all names of remaining students would be placed in a lottery system to determine which school the child will attend. However, the difference here is that the lottery would also take into consideration academic performance of the student to get an aggregate of low to high performing students in each school. In addition, such a lottery system would also factor in the location of the student's home.

Closest to Home
Another option is to simply send the children to the school that is closest to their home. Parents could still make a choice in which school to send their child, but they would be allowed to choose other schools outside of their closest school only if there was availability at that school. This makes the school assignment far more predictable.

Racial Diversity
The goal of the school board, however, is to create more racial diversity within their schools. Neither of the thus far proposed options offers any type of benefit to racial diversity. The school officials are hoping to find another solution that will give them more ability to reduce the number of racially isolated schools in the community.

Complexity
The Parent Advisory Council and Parents for Public Schools both came together to talk about the school assignment system. These groups will not support any system that takes the parent’s right to choose a school. The group believes that if the school district ensured that all schools offered the same benefits that people would not care as much about their child's assignments.

A history of the San Francisco Unified School District's school assignment system may be found by clicking on the following link:

Continue reading "San Francisco District Shake Up of School Assignments Starts" »

Here in Los Angeles, a woman who is legally blind is suing the National Conference of Bar Examiners because she believes they are unfairly restricting her from using necessary equipment to take the licensing test. The woman, Stephanie Enyart says that the agency needs to catch up with better, currently available options for its standardized testing.

When she entered law school, the Law School Admissions Test was required. UCLA, the school she was testing into, hired a human reader to read the test questions for her. The problems happened on test day. She says that the man hired was so sick that he continued to leave to get tea and blew his nose. She had a hard time understanding him through his nasally congestion, too. However, she passed the test and entered law school. She believes her score suffered because she was denied the use of a computer software program that would magnify the text of the test and convert it to speech heard through an ear bud.

The National Conference of Bar Examiners has denied her request to use a computer program to take a portion of the California bar exam that it controls. Rather, it says she must use a human reader instead.

Due to this, she has sued the national conference. She claims that the conference violated the Americans with Disabilities Act and the California Unruh Civil Rights Act that prohibit discrimination.

Enyart says, as reported by the LA Times, "To use a human reader or the visual accommodations they have offered just simply doesn't meet my disability needs. It would be like trying to run a race in someone else's shoes."

Mr. Enyart is not the only person who wants the national conference to catch up. A man named Michael Witwer, who will graduate from Catholic University of American's law school this year took another required test, the Multistate Professionals Responsibility Exam recently and passed though with a score he believes was reduced because he was unable to use computer programs during the test. Rather, a human reader was imposed by the administrator of the test.

He says that the reader commented on big words in the questions and struggled with pronunciation including struggling with the word constitutional.

However, there is some improvement seen within the industry. The National Conference of Bar Examiners has allowed three blind test takers to take the test in July using a pilot program that allows software to read the text aloud to the user. This was reported through Larry Paradis, an attorney who is part of the firm representing Enyart in her lawsuit. The pilot's internal report says that the pilot program has been successful. However, the program is unable to be used at this point, and will not be available in February when Enyart will take her test.

There are about 500 blind or vision impaired lawyers in practice in the United States. Most use equipment similar to what Enyart wants to use within their day-to-day practices.

A mother out of Montana's North middle School in Great Falls claims that two teacher's aides severely abused the special needs children in her care. Five families have come forward to make the claims, with one mother describing the abuse of her autistic child as being "waterboarding like torture."

The teacher's aides, Kristina Marie Kallies and Julie Parish have resigned and charged with assault on a minor and endangering the welfare of children. Kallies has not been located by police and Parish has appeared in court and was released on bond. The teachers resigned after the allegations were made, although both teacher's aides claim they are false allegations.

The children involved were special education students in grades seven and eight. The mother, Tiffonie Schilling said that the aide allegedly held the child's head under a water faucet when he dozed off in class. The boy was 14 at the time. She says, "He was having waterboarding like torture done to him on a frequent basis." Another claim is that the teacher made her son, Garrett, "eat his own vomit." The child is not vocal and could not defend himself.

Ms. Schilling is not alone in her allegations. Other parents complained of including one female child being hit in the head with a pan and a male child that was locked in a closet.

A full investigation and independent probe is likely to occur by the state attorney general, although the school has conducted a full investigation and are working with police.

In Oahu, Maui and the Big Island, there are nine families fighting to keep school open for special education and other needs even though the state plans to close them for the day. Two lawsuits are currently pending on behalf of these students in an effort to keep public schools open even though the state had plans to furlough teachers on 17 Fridays over the next few months.

The parents filing the lawsuits want to keep their children in school and around their classmates during these furlough days and hope to have their case heard by Judge David Ezra in the U.S. District Court. They are hoping to get a temporary injunction in place. This lawsuit states that the state has "violated the procedural safeguards" in place through the federal law that protect and prohibit unilateral modifications for any type of special education and related services.

Another lawsuit, filed by attorney Eric A. Seitz is also scheduled to be heard and is on behalf of regular, special education and charter school students in the state. The lawsuits state that Hawaii is breaking the state's obligation to provide 180 days of education, five days per week to Hawaii students. The class action lawsuit, on behalf of all students in the state, states that the furloughs disproportionately affect some racial groups and certain classes specifically.

Although the state's Department of Education claims that they have yet to see the lawsuit, Attorney General Mark Bennett believes the lawsuits are without merit. The state Board of Education has welcomed the lawsuits because their goal is to restore educational days to the students. Through the publicity from such an action, the school board hopes that this will force the governor and the Legislature to find the necessary funding.

The new contract signed by the state Department of Education and the Hawaii State Teachers Association requires there to be 17 furlough days in the current school year and the coming school year. The amount of money these days would save has yet to be noted, however the goal is the cost savings to be put towards the $127 million cut that the department is facing after the state's budget shortfall.

Continue reading "Lawsuits May Keep Hawaii School In Session Despite Furlough Days" »

An Indianapolis teacher is accused of giving a child a peanut filled candy bar. The child's mother claims the teacher was trying to make her son sick so that he could not go on a field trip with the class. The boy is eight years old and is autistic. He is mostly nonverbal and experiences swelling by just touching peanuts.

The mother, Anita Young, has filed a lawsuit against the teacher, claiming that the special education teacher, Trinda Barocas, told an aide that the boy was likely to misbehave on the field trip and said that, "maybe he could be sick enough not to attend and we won't have to deal with it" the lawsuit states. The mother claims that the teacher knew how severe the child's allergy was. She says the child was frustrated and angry, and would fight with her about going to school, during the time of alleged abuse. The child is now in a different school and the mother claims the child is doing much better and is happy to be at school.

Officials from the school contacted the mother after aides reported that the teacher has mistreated the boy and another boy. The school is Mary Bryan Elementary School in Indianapolis.

The Department of Education and Marion County prosecutors are investigating the case. Barocas no longer works for the schools and her lawyer did not provide any feedback to the Associated Press regarding the case. The teacher told investigators that the allegations are false and that she did not try to prevent the boy from going on the field trip.

In the lawsuit, there are claims that the teacher kept the boy in a small cubicle, meant to be used for short periods. Specifically, the lawsuit states that the teacher treated the boy as a "caged animal." The teacher is also accused of pinching the boy, standing on his foot and grabbing him by the arm to drag him. The mother wants criminal charges filed.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and says that the teacher and school officials should have known of the abuse and that they failed in their obligation to protect the child. The school district claims that they filed a report with Child Protection Services as soon as they learned of the allegations and that the teacher was on administrative leave with pay three days later. She had told the school a month earlier that she would resign at the end of the school year, for reasons unrelated to the allegations. She was employed with the district since August 2008.

The Indiana Department of Child Services reviewed the complaints and found that the teacher did not want the boy to attend the field trip. The boy did attend and "did many things that he was not allowed to do." The teacher compared the child to an "18 month old" several times.

In addition to these allegations, the teacher is also accused of hitting a nine-year-old girl with Down syndrome on the lips. The teacher claims she tapped the child's lips with two fingers as a physical prompt, not to abuse the child. Another allegation stems back to 2007 when Barocas was working in Franklin Community Schools. A mother claims she saw the teacher force feed her child, slap her and restrain her improperly. The teacher stated, "I did not, will not and would not hurt a child in my care."

Continue reading "Teacher Accused of Intentionally Sickening Autistic Boy" »

A cell phone video depicts the scene of an eleven-year-old autistic boy being struck by a teacher. The child’s mother has filed a lawsuit against the Pittsburgh Public Schools because of the slap, and other allegations of assault on the boy.

The teacher, Lori Davis, was fired from her job by the school district because of the incident at Conroy School, located in Manchester. The video, posted on YouTube.com, is mentioned in the lawsuit. The lawsuit states that the teacher hit the child on the side of the head and then said, “Stop moving your chair back. Move it! And you stay back there! I’ve had it with you!”

One of the claims in the lawsuit is the school’s alleged poor background checking that allowed the teacher to be placed in the school.

The incident was not the first time that the boy was assaulted, according to a teacher’s aide named Andre Burrell. Burrell personally witnessed the teacher both verbally and physically abuse the child on multiple occasions before the March 14th video release in 2008. In addition, the child was also assaulted by a bus aide, who the school district also fired.

The teacher was fired in June of 2008, a full three months after the incident. The state also revoked the teacher’s teaching certificate after the incident was reported to them.

Experts in special education state that this is really the exception to the rule and that most special education teachers are in fact very good with students. Still, this incident could cause parents to step back and wonder what is happening with their own children both in the classroom and on the bus.

A federal judge appointed the monitor who will oversee the Milwaukee Public Schools process of locating and compensating students who were denied special education services between 2000 and 2005. The process requires locating thousands of students, potentially. Elise T. Baach was appointed as independent monitor of the class action lawsuit.

In addition to the appointment, the judge, U.S. Magistrate Judge Aaron Goodstein, also provided documents on when the search for these individuals would be conducted. The schools must track down any student who missed being identified as eligible to receive special education services between that timeframe. Both current and former students would be sought.

The search and compensation is required after a court found that the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, a federal law, was violated. That lawsuit, Jamie S. Vs. Milwaukee Public Schools was ruled on in the same court district.

Not only do the schools need to locate these students but they must also determine what is fair compensatory services to provide to those whose rights were violated. Notices must be posted starting September 1st, 2009 in all public schools in the district and must remain there until Jan 4th, 2010. Anyone who could have had their rights violated is encouraged to sign the class action lawsuit to receive the required compensatory requirements. Students who were suspended during for more than ten days in that period must also be identified, and the schools must determine which students could have qualified.

The original lawsuit claims that the school did not make required payments to allow the special education students to attend private schools for the services that the public schools could not provide. The school district has appealed the ruling.

Continue reading "Special Monitor Appointed For Milwaukee Public School Special Education Lawsuit" »