Hot legal questions?

[barbaralyn]

Are there any particularly pressing legal or school policy issues plaguing the Northwest? 

Having moved from Florida I can speak to the lack of litigation in the state.  There are many violations of IDEA and due process which would trigger Due Process Hearings in WA and ORE immediately and did not do so in Florida.  Consequently, basic violations were commonplace and teachers and therapists seemed unaware that such decisions were problems.  For example, students with IEPs were suspended by the SPED teacher for 20 and 30 days without meetings until the SPED directors discovered it.  Teachers and therapists seemed unaware that they couldn't do it.  Behavior plans were frequently non-existent several districts where I consulted.  Assistive technology was presumed to be available only for individuals with physical disabilities only and presumed that schools were not required to provide it if the statewide program did not have it for the student (that somehow the school was off the hook, so to speak).   

[efranz]

Discipline is huge in the state.  What we do at Lewis & Clark Middle in Yakima, Is that I give the administrators a list of all the sped kids in our building.  Then I give them a step by step process for dealing with sped students.  That way we stay in compliant with legal issues with discipline.  Also compliant IEP's is another issue that districts struggle with.  Luckly the state helps with giving us state forms that are compliant.  It is up to the district to use those forms or create their own based on the state forms.  I hope this helps.

[barbaralyn]

That was an issue before I left to move to FL and is a huge issue there still as well.  It is a great pro-active plan to provide administrators a list of students and a step by step plan for intervention. 

Another big issue for me when I worked in Federal Way, WA as well as in FL, was making sure that any kiddo that had any 'behaviors' mentioned in the initial eligibility assessment, or subsequent assessments, had a behavior plan and that it was reviewed regularly.  That was a very big problem when I was working as a private clinician with individuals who had autism or ADHD. In FL 3 years ago,  I had one student who had autism and for a minor behavioral infraction was sent home and the parent was notified after he was already on the transport home. The parent was a teacher herself.  The team failed to meet within 10 days.  In fact the administrator had to threaten the team to meet with mother who had been requesting a meeting via email every other day.  The kid was out 30 school days before the meeting occurred.  School days, not consecutive.  They had no behavior plan even though his moderate aggressive behavior was documented in all of his evaluations.  He was 14 at the time.  While the parent had a strong case for a court action, she didn't pursue it.