I have several friends with children who have special educational needs. One family in particular has spent the last two years fighting with their son's school system over the development and implementation of his educational plan. The school needs this plan in place so that this six-year old boy can receive the level of educational services that he not only needs, but is entitled to under the law. His family has spent thousands of dollars for an advocate and a team of specialists to work with the school system's special education administrators but to little avail. These administrators have confounded the family with a cycle of unprofessional behavior, negligence, and simple stonewalling as a means of masking what appears to be gross incompetence. Despite the family's efforts to delicately navigate the intricate channels of the school system, educational law, and the myriad of specialists, and even entering mediation, late in 2003 they had reached what seemed to be a breaking point. Without agreement on an educational plan, the parties were deadlocked and this bright-eyed, young boy's education seemed destined to be the subject of a protracted legal battles. Then, in January of this year, in a somewhat miraculous event, they had a breakthrough and finally began making progress on his plan. While this glimmer of hope hasn't led to complete resolution, the mediation seems to be helping the process and progress is being made.
My reason for describing this situation is that about a week ago I heard from the child's mother about her concern over a pending piece of legislation in the U.S. Senate: S.1248, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Several of the provisions in this bill's current form have her absolutely livid, the two most relevant to her case are one, setting a statute of limitations on legal action that a family can take against a school system when they are dissatisfied with the services being offered; and two, preventing families who successfully sue a school system from recouping legal fees.
Where one of the better parts of this legislation encourages families to enter into mediation to resolve differences with a school system, this statute of limitations provision would force families to pursue legal action at the expense of allowing adequate time to see if mediation can resolve the problems. Further, the inability to recoup legal fees creates an unfair advantage to wealthy families who will be the only ones with the financial means to force schools to provide the quality of educational services that the law requires. In the case of my friends and their child's needs, if these provisions become law, they will be forced to begin costly legal action against the school system just as progress has begun to be made on their child's plan. You can only imagine what the school system administrators' attitudes would be toward resolving the issues in this child's educational plan if they knew they were being sued.
Now there are two organizations, the League of Special Education Voters and Our Children Left Behind, who are concerned with this bill. They have organized a petition against this legislation which offers constructive criticism on how to make the bill more beneficial to children with disabilities. Therefore, I ask that you read the text of the "Vote NO on S.1248" petition hosted on the free online petition service, PetitionOnline.com, at:
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/nos1248/
I personally agree with what this petition says, and I think you might too. If you can spare a moment, please take a look, and consider signing yourself. If you care, you can read the Senate's summary of the bill or the entire text of the bill.
Thanks.
After fighting our own fight (we homeschool now) and meeting dozens of others who have had these same awful experiences, I can tell you the changes proposed to IDEA are a frightening step backwards. I hate No Child Left Behind for a zillion reasons, but I can assure you, there are many many kids left behind, seemingly on purpose... Good luck.