Commenting on “Only the Rich will Have Rights” Article

I’ve recently decided to check out the blog, ComfortInTheMidstOfChaos.com in the hope that I will find writings that speak to me where I am currently.  This is a community of Christian Parents whose children have complex special needs.  If you’ve read anything here at Special Connections you may guess why that sounds appealing.

Because I’m basically still reeling from some very difficult, painful, unethical, and frankly illegal events surrounding my son’s education (or lack therof), I clicked on the “special education” tag at the above website.  The article below jumped out sufficiently for me to write to the author in the comments section.

http://www.comfortinthemidstofchaos.com/2015/01/are-you-serious-awards-volume-xl-only.html

Below are my comments as shared with the above blog post, though due to the character limit they were posted there in batches.

We have just experienced the fallout of this dilemma first hand. Our 20 year old autistic (among many other issues) son “graduated” last Spring with a “diploma” though he still cannot do 3rd grade math! At the IEP near the end of the school year I (again) raised the issue of Transition Services and provided several “age appropriate transition assessments” to show areas where he still needed significant help. By the way, the school has done Zero Transition goals or services over the years even though I have asked in writing for such Legally Mandated services to be provided. They once again refused, and also refused to reconvene the IEP to address outstanding issues and my son’s need for clarification from IEP Team Members.

The bottom line is that we ended up filing a Due Process Hearing Request near the end of 2015…and I had been working on the issues related to that filing leading up to the IEP and before filing, for about 8 months preceding it. We tried to find an attorney or legal advocate including returning to the University based “poverty law center” who had assisted us a decade ago when we had been compelled to file for Due Process, again as a last resort. The law center said no; our state’s Protection & Advocacy organization said our situation was too complex (after working with us over the phone and email for a month) so no; a state level Autism Organization did basically the same thing as P & A.

We are in a lower income situation and our son is on SSI, Medicaid, and Food Stamps so he personally, a legal adult Not under guardianship, is definitely low income. I went through our state’s Bar Association (phone & web) and sent emails to every attorney listed who had Special Education expertise and also did pro bono work…no takers. We contacted another university’s disability law clinic–no. I was in the process of trying Legal Aid (who seemed unlikely to have special education expertise but would at least be free)…

Anyway, a relative offered us a sum of money that could enable us to “hire” legal advocacy for the filing of motions, oral arguments, and conducting the hearing itself. We visited this attorney’s office and he basically told us it would cost us at least $20,000 to have a lawyer see us through the Hearing, which of course (even with help) we didn’t have.

In fact, in our state (Michigan) the school district attorneys are now habitually going after families and their lawyers to get attorney fees, claiming the filings were “frivolous” even when they are clearly not. They also apparently get $100,000 insurance money from the taxpayers whenever someone files Due Process so they can pretty much Always defeat the little guy (who already has the burden of proof and a major uphill battle). The lawyer examined the school district’s lawyers’ motion to dismiss (where they either denied or ignored every issue we raised) and seeing that they hadn’t already tried to hit us up for attorney fees said he would talk with them and get the case dismissed (like he was doing us a favor by Not allowing the Significant Issues we raised in the Due Process Hearing Request get a “fair” hearing). I thought we were there to hire him to represent our son, but he talked as if we decided to proceed Josiah would be on his own in court…

The financial component of what would likely fall on our head if we proceeded, our direct attorney costs and the likelihood of being “sued” to pay for the school’s attorneys, regardless of the legitimacy of our issues really scared most of the other family members at the meeting. My husband was afraid that if we proceeded we could lose our house (though not having $20,000 meant, apparently, not proceeding at all)!

So instead of helping us with our case “our” attorney (who at least lowered his fee) appeared to never read our actual hearing request (it was nearly 40 pages long after all), nor did he review some of the supporting documentation I sent him electronically to show “proof” of what was being contended, nor to offer us any advice or analysis on the “merits” of our case, or lack thereof. Needless to say I was, and basically still am, furious. I felt as if the 15 plus years of Wrightslaw and other advocacy training and self education I’ve attained was pointless. I could have rolled over and played dead at virtually every IEP meeting we’ve had and gotten virtually the same results!

The upshot was that our disabled son was pressured to sign a “with prejudice” dismissal of the case request so that the case would just go away…and we were all supposed to be grateful that at least the school wouldn’t try to make us pay for their lawyers! How is that protecting the rights of the disabled, especially the lower income disabled (& their families)?

We had and still have extremely serious and legitimate issues, many of which have been problematic for years, some going back to 2001 when the school disregarded autism and outside (hospital based) neuropsych testing showing my son’s IQ to be “low normal” and they decided he had an IQ 30-40 points lower than the outside testing showed…put him in a class for mentally/cognitively impaired students, didn’t address his autism, denied him access to general ed in any meaningful way until our prior hearing request (which finally got him a Para Pro, which had been a doctor’s written recommendation from at least 2000), refused to re-mediate his areas of learning disabilities because they preferred to use their significantly lower iQ during the “severe discrepancy” LD era, even though his math LD met that more stringent requirement even considering the IQ they claimed he had…and many other things.

The irony is that we would probably never have pursued Due Process this time if they had been willing to Finally address his Transition Needs. I had mistakenly thought that that area got short shrift when other heath crises (like a Brain Tumor and eventual Liver Transplant) took preeminence. Apparently it was the same as always, obvious needs that would be disregarded, denied, or dismissed…

I could go on at even greater length here, and I’m sorry for going into this so much, but it is still very fresh and raw. In fact, today was to be the day the Hearing was to have happened/started. At this point I’m trying to regroup to find another way to get my son’s significant needs addressed when a system tasked with caring for these issues was extremely derelict in its duties. Given that Michigan is usually quite generous, in that it provides Special Education through age 26 (unless one “graduates”) it is even more frustrating.

My son’s doctor has said that kids that have high-functioning autism are the one who aren’t getting their needs met, not in school and definitely not in the adult services industry. If you are high enough functioning to handle the academics then they apparently completely disregard the independent living skills side of the equation. If you can’t handle the academics then the “life skills” track means you never acquire anything like a high school education. If you examine the IDEA requirements for post-secondary transition you have to wonder where the “diploma” track kids will get those issues addressed if they are busy taking the course requirements for graduation…and graduating kids without high school skills and no transition services violates the letter & spirit of IDEA!

Here’s our bottom line, too weary over the years to step our issues up to the next level after the extreme exhaustion and years of dispute that accompanied our first Due Process request (that took like 2 years to resolve, when 60 days is “required”)…overwhelmed by Brain Tumor & Liver Transplant issues that exactly overlaid the years when Transition should have been addressed (and initially when we should have confirmed that the Settlement terms from the first Due Process request were followed–they weren’t entirely). Being lied to by school staff that you don’t get functional needs met when you’re on the diploma track and being too beaten down by the IEP process (always backed up to the end of the school year so there’s no maneuverability for “procedural safeguards”) to start the battle all over again when school starts. Being unable to find virtually Any Advocacy to assist us over the years so living with the “as good as it gets” aspect of the IEP that was, from my perspective, No Good At All (and Never Legally Compliant ANY Year). When finally filing Due Process again, as a last resort, being told that because you don’t have deep enough pockets to absorb attorney fees for your son AND the school you can’t/mustn’t proceed.

And here’s the real kicker, since our son is Not under guardianship, if you cannot find an attorney to represent him then HE MUST ACT AS HIS OWN ATTORNEY. So in order to vindicate our son’s rights he must be mightily violated by the system in order to proceed. Someone on the spectrum, with communication, attentional, and processing issues will be forced to act as his own trial attorney in a hearing. He doesn’t have near the breadth of understanding of special ed law, or even his own educational history, that his mother does, but she cannot speak on his behalf! The attorney insisted that the hearing experience would virtually destroy Josiah, being made to listen to people he cares about potentially lying and saying horrible things about him (even if they didn’t believe them but in order to protect their jobs). His twin and father were convinced to “quit”…Josiah and I, not quite so much…

We are praying about where to go from here, but it is an incredible heartache to me that we cannot even, apparently, have our legitimate issues heard nor obviously afford to find someone to proceed. Now it may be that even if we found someone free who could proceed we cannot carry on because of the “with prejudice” dismissal (which apparently means cannot be brought up again and is used to dismiss a case on the merits–which were never addressed in any venue, not even our alleged “legal representative”). Being told by the attorney that if we’d come to him a year ago he could have “kicked them in the…” but now it’s basically too late. “You can’t do anything to help your son…but I really hope you’ll become an advocate to help others…you know the special ed law better than the administrative law judge who would have decided your case”…what does a parent even say to news like that?

Thanks for letting me vent, and thanks for writing about the many issues families face. I only just found your blog after reading your recent article on Rare Diseases and Not Being Alone that you published through Special Needs Parenting. I am planning to read many of your postings in my process of moving forward from this devastating disappointment.

Blessings In Christ,

Valerie Curren

PS I recently started blogging at SpecialConnections@WordPress.com and would love to have you stop by! Best Regards!

Also, I’ve been writing a medically focused CarePage.com blog mostly emphasizing Josiah’s needs for several years now, trying to cope with Brain Tumor & Liver Transplant for a while here:

http://www.carepages.com/carepages/JournalingForTheJazzman/

And my son Josiah is working on finding his own voice here:

http://www.carepages.com/carepages/JosiahTheOvercomer/

I have not yet, until this reply, written about so many of the details of what has transpired surrounding our Due Process Hearing Request and the horrible and entirely ineffective results from attempting to assert my son’s legal protections.  If you are reading this page our family would greatly appreciate your prayers on our behalf as we seek to find a way to move forward that addresses our son’s myriad needs, redresses existing grievances (if that is even possible now), and hopefully ultimately blazes a trail so other students and families won’t have to suffer the major setbacks that have been body blows to us all.

There is Always Hope…and the Lord is still Light & Life even when all about us is seemingly darkness.  May you too find Rest, Peace, Joy (even in the midst of sorrow), Light, Love, and Hope in Him!  Blessings, Valerie

Adding the below link on 7-16-19 I realized that our carepages blogs have ended due to the service closing.  So if anyone wants to really wade into the weeds here is where we are sharing some of our journey online:

I archived the CarePage about Josiah’s needs here:

JazzmanJournal.wordpress.com

Josiah & I archived his CarePage here (& he continues to add things):

JosiahTheSecretWeapon.wordpress.com

I continue sharing about Josiah’s journey (& the family’s to a lesser extent) here:

https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/josiahcurren

Josiah is on Facebook & Twitter; here is his twitter feed:

Tweets by CurrenJosiah

PPS  Here is a true tale from a bit of the other side of the equation, hopeful & healing!

https://wqth.wordpress.com/2019/02/03/make-your-house-a-sanctuary-this-spring/

A few other posts I’ve done that touch on the theme of this post loosely:

https://specialconnections.wordpress.com/2018/08/18/complex-ptsd-personal-touchpoints/

https://specialconnections.wordpress.com/2018/09/09/special-needs-parenting-trauma-ptsd/

https://specialconnections.wordpress.com/2018/09/04/special-needs-parenting-some-ancillary-aspects-encouragements/

https://specialconnections.wordpress.com/2017/06/13/thoughts-on-i-cant-do-this-special-needs-life/

https://specialconnections.wordpress.com/2018/10/17/special-forces/

https://specialconnections.wordpress.com/2018/08/14/insights-on-spiritual-warfare/

Please let me know if anything I’ve shared blesses you.  God Bless!