PREPARE TO RESPOND TO A COMPLAINT OR DUE PROCESS ISSUE

 INTRODUCTION

            The laws protecting students and children with disability have been evolving over the last few decades. The law now affords students with disabilities multiple protections. Therefore, the leaders of special education need to diligently ensure that all federal and state special education laws and mandates are strictly followed for every individual student every time. When the education sector fails to follow the special education law, parents and guardians of the students with disabilities may seek to remedy the situation by filing with the authorities for a due process hearing. Ways in which a due process is handled can be sophisticated and stressful for educators but particularly for special education leaders. It is the responsibility of the special education leaders to both ensure the laws are strictly followed and do so while being good stewards of district resources. Being proactive and prepared for potential due process issues can help in lessening anxiety while providing for a smoother response.

PART I

            The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is composed in such a way that it gives comprehensive protection to the rights of students with disabilities as well as their parents’ right. Therefore, as a parent and your child has an Individualized Education Program (IEP), there is a need for the school to get the parent’s consent before modifying or making any changes to the IEP. In the same way, there are various ways a parent can dispute the school changes. It is important for parents trying to get their children help in school to understand that the parents and their children have legal rights and are protected by the law. The IDEA, under the special education law, protects the child and their parents. These protections are referred to as procedural safeguards. Procedural safeguards help a school to comprehensively understand what it can do and cannot do during the evaluation and providing of the special education and services related to special education to children (Lee, 2014). It is the responsibility of the district to ensure that students with disabilities and their families are afforded their procedural safeguards about:

        i.            Access to Educational Records

The parents have every right of seeing, making copies of, and getting a comprehensive explanation of their child’s educational rights. These rights are protected by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)

      ii.            Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE)

The parent has every right of getting an IEE. IEE refers to an evaluation of their child’s skills and needs by another person who is not among the school employees. In this case, the school must carefully consider the outcomes of the IEE though it is not a requirement for the school to accept the findings.

    iii.            Parent Participation

The parent is legally right to actively participate in meetings about the education of their child among which includes IEP meetings.

    iv.            Prior Written Notice

The parent has every right of getting a written notice when it wants to change, add, or deny the child services.

      v.            Procedural Safeguard Notice

The school must comprehensively explain by writing all the procedural safeguards they have under the procedural and state law.

    vi.            Understandable Language

The language through which a parent is notified and consented must be understandable to the general public and in the language which is they understand most.

  vii.            Information Confidentiality

It is the accountability of the school to protect the confidentiality of the child. Among what needs to be protected is personal information such name of the child, social security number, and address among others. However, there are some exceptions.

viii.            Informed Consent (Parental Consent)

Before the school carry out an evaluation or provides special education services, it must inform the parent of what is involved. The parent has to give a written permission before the school can move forward with anything.

    ix.            Stay Put Rights

There are some instances where the parent might disagree with a proposed change to the placement of the child concerning location and services outlined in the IEP. The stay put rights allow the child to remain where they are while the parent and the school go through the process of resolving the dispute.

      x.            Due Process

If a parent has a dispute about the special education of the child, they can use what is referred to as due process. This is a formal way through which disagreements between a parent and a school are resolved. The parent should file a written complaint before the process begins. The complaint can take any aspect of the ways in which the school is handling the education of the child. This is if there is something to believe that the school has violated the IDEA. After 15 days, the school must call for a meeting referred to as resolution session to work on the disagreement resolution. After the resolution, the parent attends the due process hearing where the school and the present parent arguments and evidence to a hearing officer (Pierce, 1996).

    xi.            Mediation

Mediation can be used in place of due process hearing. A mediator, a neutral third party, always helps the parent and the school in trying to resolve the dispute.

PART II (A)

            Preparation for a due process hearing from the beginning is significantly important for success. The management of pre-hearing by the independent hearing officer offers an opportunity for the parents as well as the school district to go through some of these issues informally before hearing starts (Palmer, 2016). Below are the measures which must be taken while preparing for a due process hearing:

        i.            Organization of the Records

It is important that a parent organizes their child’s educational records. Once the parent has organized the records, they need to make short, clear statements concerning their grievances and whether these grievances are the kind whose relief is available. For example, it is not useful to complain that person Y, eligible for IDEA, has not been given Adidas basketball shorts unless the IEP team has determined that Adidas basketball shorts are required for person Y to receive a free, suitable education, and it was previously written in the IEP that person Y requires them.

      ii.            Give clear explanation of what you want

Give a clear explanation to the decision-maker what has been done, what should have been done, why it should have been done in a particular way, and what you would like the decision-maker to help you or do about it. After clearly stating the grievances and after determining that these grievances can be easily remedied by the decision-maker, gather all facts supporting these grievances. Grievances now become allegations.

    iii.            Edit the request

    iv.            While doing this, it is good to write out the allegations and then go back to the draft and try to strip as many adverb and modifier as possible. When the decision-maker gets briefs and pleadings from the opposition counsel with words such as gruesome, always, and forever among others, the decision-maker immediately suspect that the writer might not have spent his time necessary to conduct a complete factual investigation of the matter before him. Additionally, the writer is highly unlikely to be thoroughly prepared to argue the position of the client at that point.

      v.            Categorize the allegations

After clearly stating the allegations, the complainant should carefully categorize the allegations instead of having to make broad allegations. For instance, “denial of FAPE” is a wider umbrella than can appear many different ways using many different patterns. It would be good asking oneself what served to deny FAPE under a specific set of circumstances.

    vi.            Come up with evidence supporting the assertions

Having found out what denies FAPE is, the complainant should unearth the educational records and documents from where he should look for evidence that assertions are correct. This type of skill is learned. Additionally, there are many people who can easily help with hints and tips.

  vii.            Present facts that will convince the decision-maker

Facts should be presented coherently to convince the decision-maker that it is the school’s actions or inaction that the child’s educational welfare has been jeopardized and that the child is not receiving an educational benefit from the IEP programs and services. It should also be stated that without a corrective action, the child will be harmed.

PART II (B)

            There is a type of training that needs to be provided surrounding the due process hearings. The hearing officer should be provided with training to take proactive steps for the preparation and participation surrounding due process hearings. The hearing officer should be provided with training because it is their job to weigh the benefits of the argument, evidence, and witnesses of each party. This is, however, in light of the requirements of IDEA and state law and also bearing in mind that all relevant federal and state regulations about the Act and legal interpretations of the Act by both federal and state courts. The type of training provided to the hearing officer is that in which he acquires knowledge and ability to carry out hearings according to the appropriate, standard legal practice. The IDEA also includes some provisions at 300.511 (C) which gives a description of the minimum qualifications and training that must be possessed by the hearing officers (Zirkel & Scala, 2010).

PART III (A)

        i.            Citation: Lebron v. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, 2014 WL 5326513 (1st Cir.2014). The case was decided at United States District Court Middle District of Alabama Northern Division

      ii.            Facts

a)      The above decision addresses some significantly important aspects of a claim about a free appropriate public education (FAPE). FAPE is an issue which central to a dispute in special education.

b)      This refers to a case where a disabled student together with her parents filed a lawsuit where they were seeking monetary damages from Puerto Rico, its education department, and private school. The complainants were alleging discrimination and retaliation.

c)      The lower court dismissed all the claims

    iii.            Issue

Does an IEP need to be carefully designed to furnish a disabled child with the maximum educational benefit possible?

    iv.            Decision

The decision of the court regarding the above issue was NO

      v.            Reason

The Commonwealth dismissed, under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12 (b) (6) all the claims against it on 4th May 2012. On 20th June 2012 in a brief decision made up of one paragraph; the district court comprehensively dismissed all but the IDEA claim. According to the court, the IDEA bars the rest of the claims against the Commonwealth, and the IDEA does not also allow claims as to damages against the state (Crane, 2015). With regards to Puerto Rico state law, the court held that the causes of action were “barred by the Eleventh Amendment.”

PART III (B)

            The due process hearing on this issue would have been prevented by acting proactively. This means that administrators and school districts would have avoided this due process hearing if they would have reviewed the rights of the parents together. The rights of the parents under Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) have been specifically reviewed. Some of the important topics reviewed under IDEA and which would have been significantly important in preventing the due process hearing are:

        i.            Free appropriate education (FAPE)

      ii.            Appropriate evaluation

    iii.            Individualized education program (IEP)

    iv.            Least restrictive environment (LRE)

      v.            Parent and student participation

    vi.            Disciplinary guideline

It also includes a comprehensive discussion of procedural safeguards. It would have been very important if all professional staff and administrators would have been aware of the rights of the parents under IDEA and that they take necessary prior precautions to avoid due process hearing in this case (Meyers, 2016).

            This due process hearing would also be avoided if the parents, administrators, and school personnel had sufficient knowledge of the law on ways they can avoid due process. Another way to which it would have been avoided is informing the parents of the rights they have. This is by ensuring that the school district strictly complies with the mandate of informing all parents their rights under the federal law with regards to special education. There are many federal laws discussing children with disabilities like Section 504, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and IDEA. If the school had informed the parents of their rights under IDEA, the school district would have avoided the due process hearing as well as saving a large amount of money. Therefore, the most crucial task to do is communication.

CONCLUSION

            The action of the parent while trying to ensure the hearing process is both effective and efficient must always get tempered by making sure the due process is fair to both parties. The parent is in charge and must, therefore, control the process while trying to make sure that there is the fulfillment of all functions of the hearing which are:

        i.            A decision on the dispute about a good record

      ii.            A framework for all parties involved to collaboratively work together

    iii.            Therapeutic relief

The way parties conduct themselves and the hearing by keeping control will be the significantly important factor in whether there will be the achievement of success of not.

REFERENCES

Crane, B. (2015). Bill's Blog: 1st Circuit Special Education Cases you Need to Know. 

Lee, A. M. (2014). Important safeguards for you and your child. 

Meyers, S. M. (2016). NADD Bulletin Volume VII Number 3 Article 1.

Palmer, B. (2016). How to prepare for a special education due hearing process. 

Pierce, R. J. (1996). The Due Process Counterrevolution of the 1990s? Columbia Law Review,      96(7), 1973-2000.

Zirkel, P. A., & Scala, G. (2010). Due process hearing systems under the IDEA: A state-by-state survey. Journal of Disability Policy Studies, 21(1), 3-8.

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in nursing essay help USA if you need a similar paper you can place your order from custom college papers.