Janie and I reached a
settlement agreement with the Polk County School Board. The
agreement was approved by the school board yesterday.
Janie and Bill Sammons
would have preferred the administrative judges compensatory remedy
over the settlement. But given the school board's past of drawing
out the legal process, and given the current real estate environment
(Bill is a commercial real estate broker with an uncertain income
next year), committing another $50,000 to the litigation and having
the entire $350,000 legal investment at risk was just too
uncomfortable.
The Polk County School
District has had no mercy. On April 28th, 2008 we received the
FINAL ORDER ON COMPENSATORY EDUCATION
ordering the Polk County School
District to pay the tuition necessary to send Drew to a private
school for five years. Before that, it was
the
November 8th, 2006 Orderfinding that
Drew received no educational benefit his last two full years of
school.
After each order, we
thought Drew would go back to school at the beginning of the next
semester. Each time, the District came up with legal maneuvers to
keep Drew out of school and to make the legal process more costly
for Drew's parents. Most recently, they have appealed the
April 28th, 2008 Final Order
with a
Dispositive Motion just filed August 11th,
and our response is due
September 3rd, 2008. At that point, we have to wait on the Federal
Judge to make a decision on the appeal. We want to get Drew back in
School. The Polk County School District continues to do everything
they can to prevent it.
Prior to this litigation,
the District clearly believed it had no duty to educate the
developmentally disabled to any acceptable standard. A look at the
historical outcome data demonstrates this attitude. Horrible outcome
data is what Drew's parents put in front of the School Board. And
now, the District and continues in their efforts to kill the
messenger and firmly set two precedents.
(1) If you live in Polk
County and your child is disabled, the District will provide your
child only the education the District wants to provide. It may or
may not meet your child's educational needs.
AND
(2) For parents who
aggressively seek a reasonable level of education for their disabled
child and other disabled children in the District, be prepared to
accept the consequences as set by the Sammons precedent. The
District will spend over one million dollars to prevent the disabled
child from obtaining any further education and, as a legal strategy,
work to bankrupt the parents by stringing out the legal process and
cause the parents to loose any litigation effort by financial
default.
This case now represents
a school board-endorsed million dollar retribution plan against an
advocate for ESE students, using public funds in the process.
Below you will find a
description of our journey to obtain Drew the services promised by
IDEA.
There has also been another
order Polk has generated that many ESE parents involved in the IEP
process will be glad they read. Check out the tab "The Boatrights"
and excerpts from that decision are available, along with the entire
Decision as a PDF file. Polk County continues to reject the right
course of action.
School Districts with
billion dollar budgets and specially-bred attorneys have learned
they can purchase injustice and purchase the ability to continue
to discriminate. Now, four and a half years later, we continue to
work to change this mindset.
The District's behavior
has exacted an even heavier toll on the families of the disabled.
Forget the financially crippling cost of $350,000 for the Sammons'
litigation. It is the loss of those skills that Drew could have
obtained, and the loss of skills that thousands of other ESE
students in the District could have obtained, had they all received
needed therapies in a timely fashion. That is the horrific and
lasting price the Polk County School District has exacted with no
apparent regret. Many of these students will end up in our jails.
Will the school board members go visit them?
It would seem fair, given
that there is apparently no price to pay for the individual school
board members that have been concerned with such precedents. Two
incumbent school board members drew no opposition in next month's
elections.
Could more coverage by
local media on ESE program deficits and the lack of effort to
prevent reforms have changed this outcome?
For more on the
case, keep reading below and check out the tab to the left,
In Court for Drew
and
The Details.
These pages need to be brought current, but there are a lot of
amazing depositions and numerous documents some will be interested
in.
What is
important on this web site?
It is a unique look at special
education for parents of ESE students.
For parents attending IEP
meetings, the "IEP Tips" tab to the left is a must. This is
what your school district and the Florida Department of
Education really prefer you not know. For more on the other
tabs, jump to the bottom of the page for additional
explanations or just click on the tabs themselves.
Temporarily, information on
Drew Sammons and his family's fight to get him an education
has been moved to the front of the site due to the interest
in the recent court decision. Just below, information on
our fight to get Drew the services he needed to make
whatever education he received viable.
______________________________________________
Advocacy for
Drew and Others, The Beginning:
It began
in the
late 90's, wanting to learn as much as I could about the
Polk County School District's ESE Department. Many problems
were evident but seemingly never addressed. These problems
had real and important impacts on several thousand ESE
students each year, including my son Drew. Click on the tab
Polk ESE Issues to see just one way in which I tried to
bring about a positive change.
My efforts
were not appreciated by the Polk County School District.
Unfortunately, the repercussions negatively impacted my son
Drew. Drew had very complex educational needs. The last
two years of Drew's schooling were spent with a very caring
first year ESE teacher that was offered very little support
from the specialists needed for even satisfactory progress
to be made. It also appeared to us that significant efforts
were made by Polk administrators to have Drew exit the
system early, and he was "graduated" in
May, 2004.
I asked to submit Drew's early exit to mediation. The
School District refused. There was a due process hearing in
September, 2004. We were unprepared and lost a hearing we
should have won. We did not meet the burden of proof
demonstrating that Drew did not earn the high school credits
they gave him. Now, extensive evidence is on the record
showing why Drew did not earn the credits given him to
graduate, but the District had the court ruling the district
administrators needed to keep him out of the system. But
their first game of Gotcha was a winner for them.
Since Drew's
"graduation", it is our opinion the District has continued
to play a series of cruel games of gotcha with our efforts
to get Drew back in school. They clearly won the first
round or two. Not on the facts, but on their strategy. But
we learned they were not interested in doing what was right,
just was was most expedient to severely limit the services
they had to provided ESE students.
When a new
school superintendent came on board, we were hoping for a
change. I asked the new superintendent, Gail McKinzie,
Ph.D., if she would meet with me. I told her I felt that in
30 or 45 minutes we could have it worked out. She put the
decision off on the first two requests, and on the third
request said attorneys had advised against it. For Drew, at
least, a new superintendent did not bring about a change.
She has consistently reinforced the board's efforts to keep
Drew out of school. When we tried to keep Drew in school
while the litigation continued, the Federal Judge put him
back in school to mitigate the damage that could occur due
to the interruption in Drew's education. The School Board
litigation team appealed to the Circuit Court in Atlanta,
and the Circuit Court ruled in the board's favor, and one
morning shortly thereafter, Drew was asked upon his arrival
at school to return home and not come back.
I have
appeared before the Polk County School Board on many
occasions, often, but not always discussing their
unnecessary legal spending on the case. I have to believe
the school board members and the top administrators know
fully the facts of the case and have chosen to continue on a
course I know has been destructive to Drew, my family, the
ESE students of Polk County, and the School Board.
With the help
of attorneys Tim Weber and Andrew Lennox of
Battaglia, Ross, Dicus & Wein, P.A.,
St. Petersburg, Florida, we have made progress against a
school district that is outspending us on legal at least two
to one.
Nov. 8th,
2006 Due Process Decision From Administrative Law Judge
It took two
years and over $250,000 before my wife and I finally had an
opportunity to lay out the facts at a hearing in the summer
of 2006. The facts told of what was not happening the last
two years of Drew's education. By that time the Polk County
School District had spent almost one half million dollars in
their efforts to avoid addressing the facts. The district
was been presented and a decision by an administrative law
judge, Judge William F. Quattlebaum in November, 2006.
"226. The Schoo1 Board
is obligated to provide personalized instruction with
sufficient support services to permit the handicapped
student to benefit educationally from that instruction.
There is little evidence that any educational benefit was
received by A.S. during the 2002—2003 and 2003-2004 school
years. Under the facts of this case, the award of a diploma
at the conclusion of the student’s school attendance is
insufficient in and of itself to constitute educational
benefit.
ORDER
Based on the foregoing
Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law, it is DETERMINED that the Polk
County School District has not met its obligation to provide
a free appropriate public education to A.S. for the
2002—2003 and 2003—2004 school years."
Judge
Quattlebaum was the same judge that ruled Drew had earned
all of his credits to graduate in our first hearing in
2004. What happened? The evidence, including transcripts
of IEP meetings and daily logs of academic work, were not
presented in 2004 but were now in evidence. He could not go
back and change the outcome of the first hearing, or could
he? Note that once the school board new the truth as to the
legitimacy of the credits awarded Drew, they could have
brought Drew back into the system as requested by Janie and
me. Janie and I thought that ethically they would be
compelled to do so. Not so.
Our Reaction
at the time:
Janie and I greatly appreciated that Judge William F.
Quattlebaum confirmed what we believed all along. The facts
confirmed Drew received little, if any, educational benefit
his last two years of school.
But we were surprised when Judge Quattlebaum chose not to
address the compensatory remedies in his order. The judge
needed to identify just what it would take to correct the
the oppositional behaviors that were reinforced during the
last two years of Drew's schooling, and the additional
education Drew could have received if the school district
had chosen to really seriously consider a diploma option
change in 2003 that would have permitted Drew to stay in
school another 4 years. Just after Judge Quattlebalm's
ruling, we were expecting to address these matters before
Judge Bucklew in Federal Court. Then we received a new
order from Judge Bucklew on November 21, 2006.
An Order from the Federal Judge (Judge
Susan Bucklew):
Just when we
were discussing the next step, Judge Bucklew cleared it up
for us. On November 21, 2006, Judge Bucklew remanded the
case back to the Administrative Law Judge Quattlebaum,
saying:
"Therefore, the Court again remands the case to the ALJ to
determine the issue of compensatory education, in its
entirety, including the appropriate amount of compensatory
education and specific educational services that should be
awarded to A.S. in order to compensate him for the denial of
FAPE during the 2002-2003 and 2003-2004 school years."
How did we feel then?
It was
discouraging. Another delay. Little did we know at the
time it would represent a 17
month delay. From our
standpoint, Greg Scharff, Esq., and the school district
administrators seem made a sport out of this process. Greg
Scharff, the Board's California attorney, and the board
members knew the Board has a billion dollar budget, and
another half-million dollar expense was very doable.
Apparently it
was worth any amount of money to to the district to
demonstrate to all of Polk's ESE parents that Polk will not
provide necessary educational services to its students with
learning disabilities. And if a parent doesn't agree, the
District can and is willing to prove they will litigate the
parent into bankruptcy.
How does a 17
month delay occur. Ask a school board attorney that is
familiar with the sport. In our case, we immediately filed
an appeal in federal court, given my attorney was concerned
the Polk County School District would try to appeal the
decision in state court, looking for a more friendly venue
and creating additional delays to resolve the litigation.
Sure enough, that is just what they did. Fortunately they
filed in state court the day after we had filed in federal
court. Their filing was not without benefit to the school
board. It cost my family time and money to have to have the
suit pulled out of state court. Time and money is on a
school board's side.
Keep in mind,
all of this litigation activity was well after the fact that
the Polk County School Board had all kinds of evidence
before them that not only demonstrated that Drew had not
received the ESE services he so desperately needed, but that
in fact, contrary to the conclusion of an earlier hearing on
the matter, Drew had not earned the credits he was awarded
to graduate him. It appears to us that the school board and
its administrators had set aside ethics to deal with Drew
and his family. Drew was being discriminated against, for
both his disability and his father's advocacy efforts.
In late August, 2007 we
participated in a five day hearing, again before Judge Quattlebalm, to determine what Drew's compensatory education
should be awarded him. On April 28th, 2008 we received the
April 24th, 2008 decision. CLICK
HERE
to get the
FINAL ORDER ON COMPENSATORY EDUCATION.
In it you will find:
"58. The
Respondent failed to provide FAPE to the Petitioner. In this
case, there is little evidence that any educational benefit
was received by the Petitioner during the 2002-2003 and
2003-2004 school years.
59. The
Respondent's failure to provide FAPE was not the accidental
result of inadequate educational planning. It is clear that
the Respondent was either unable or unwilling to provide the
appropriate services to which the Petitioner was entitled.
60. During the
2003-2004 school year, the Respondent's focus was the result
of an apparent decision by the Respondent to "graduate" the
Petitioner from the school system regardless of whether the
appropriate services had been provided.
61. The
obvious example of the Respondent's determination to move
the Petitioner out of the school system was the rejection
(with little discussion) of the parents' suggestion that the
"regular" diploma track was inappropriate for their child
and the simultaneous deletion of goals from the February
2004 IEP towards which there had been no measurable
progress.
62. The
ultimate result was the award of a "regular" diploma to the
Petitioner that had no apparent value. The Petitioner was
completely unprepared for transition into an independent
adult existence, and it is simply not possible to imagine
that the Respondent thought otherwise.
63. An
award of compensatory services to the Petitioner is the
appropriate remedy. The Respondent must bear the expense of
the private
compensatory educational services to which the Petitioner is
entitled."
The decision
is a win for us, but not really just yet.
We
will have won when we get Drew back in school getting the
education he needs AND when our family has been reimbursed
for the legal expense and expert witness fees incurred to
get him the education the school district has purposely,
continually, and unjustly denied him. This will be a
loss for ESE families if school officials around the state
can demonstrate that it will cost parents even if they win.
Continuing the
litigation for Drew has not been easy, but we will continue
on to the end. I am selling an interest I have in a
building , the proceeds of which will allow us to vigorously
continue the litigation to defend Drew's right to an
appropriate education.
You could help Drew and
our family. If, after reading the decision, you believe the
Polk County School District should not continue the
litigation with an appeal, please contact the school
superintendent and the school board members and let them
know how your feel. Their contact information:
There is no question the
ESE department has serious problems. See the Urban
Collaborative's report on Polk's ESE department by
CLICKING HERE.
Thus far, Polk has been
very successful at avoiding the provision of needed services
to its disabled students. The District's outcome data for
Polk's students with special needs is horrible. It appears
to us to be one of the worst in the country. See below!
One
Important Note:
The
district hired a new Assistant Superintendent of Learning
Support, Nancy Woolcock. She is a breath of fresh air. She
deserves the support of all ESE parents and staff.
Hopefully, the Board and the District will change their
polices and give her the resources she needs to remediate
the failures of the past and move forward to present a
strong educational opportunity to the children with
disabilities in Polk County. Ethics be damned, they still
have not accepted responsibility for providing the
Boatrights' daughter the education she needed. It is
difficult to see how Ms. Woolcock can be successful in such
an environment hostile to ESE families.
Currently, nationwide
58% of ESE students graduate with a standard diploma.
Statewide, 58% of ESE students graduate with a standard
diploma. In Polk County, 22% of ESE students graduate with
a standard diploma. Our regular ed students come close to
meeting the state graduation rate average. It is our
disabled that are discriminated against.
Generally,
performance data for the performance of ESE programs is
difficult to come by. The Florida DOE has some interesting
data, county by county, on it's web site. The second menu
tab on the left,
"2006
Polk Co. Data",
is an example of how the data is made available. The third
menu tab on the left,
"2004 State Data",
is a compilation of the statewide data inserted into an
Excel spreadsheet I had prepared. You can see how your
county in the State of Florida ranks in comparison to the
others in the State. Unfortunately, Polk County ranks right
at the bottom of the 67 counties in Florida. To compound
the problem, Florida ranks very poorly nationally.
On the menu
tabs to the left, click on
"The Boatrights"
to see what a family of a dyslexic student had to go through
trying to get trained instructional staff and a proper IEP
in an effort to make real progress. See what the Polk
County School District IEP practices are what the
Administrative Judge says they should be. You should be
aware that in most of the meetings I had 4 months and more
after the ruling, Polk's mid and lower level ESE
administrators were not even aware of the judge's ruling or
the impact it should have on their procedures. It appeared
the ESE administration had made no effort to correct it's
policies and procedures. I don't know if that is still the
case.
Read
this section so you can be sure Polk complies with the law
in your next IEP. This is must
reading for a parent of any ESE student in the state of
Florida and beyond.
The Polk
School District has aggressively responded to any attempt to
change their minimalist approach toward exceptional student
education. There are many other counties in the state that
take the same approach. The
"Polk ESE Issues"
tab identifies 20 issues the Polk County School District
should address and generally has chosen not to. Many of
these issues are common to other poorly performing school
districts.
The
"Polk DOE Audit"
tab will get you an example of a Florida Department of
Education (DOE) Focused Monitoring report. Be sure to look
at what at POLK ESE Issues I identified, and then look at
what issues the Florida DOE identified and what they did
about them. This is a warning to ESE parents in other
school districts who think the Florida DOE will come in and
fix their program. It is a program that looks good
bureaucratically, but in real life, has little impact.
If you have
ADHD and/or 504 issues, the
"ADHD
& ESE"
tab will be an important one for you. This has information
on a recent ruling in Manatee County, empowering parents to
get the services they need for the ADHD student.
"Districts
in Court"
has information of other school districts that have chosen
to fight parents asserting their child's rights to FAPE and
the expense they are willing to go to.
The
information found at the
"In Court for Drew"
was
what I believe was a direct result of the Polk ESE Issues
paper I presented the School District in 2002. The paper
was not appreciated. To kill the messenger,
the district exited
my autistic-spectrum son from the school system early and
havespent over $450,000
of legal to keep him out.
"In Court 4 Drew" is an overview of the issues and events.
I am an example for all of the state's ESE parents to see.
Advocacy sometimes carries a price. There are some school
districts in the state that want it to be known the price
can be quite high. In Court for Drew is an overview of the
issues and events surrounding
To look at all
the details of our experience in court, click on the tab
"The
Details"
to the left. Here, the issues and events are documented by
transcripts of IEP's, transcripts of the Due Process
Hearing, depositions of witnesses, the court documents,
transcripts of the Preliminary Injunction Hearing, copies of
the school district's legal bills, etc. We are talking
details. This information can provide all the background
for a good case study for the ethical considerations for a
school district board looking to win in court and whether
ethical principles should be set aside in favor or a "win at
any cost" legal strategy.
Finally, the Urban Collaborative
competed a report that is must reading for ESE parents in
Polk County.
Click Here
to get the PDF file of the report.
If you have an ESE child in Polk County
schools, you should know:
There are 57% fewer
standard diplomas for ESE
students in Polk County
than the statewide average
for ESE students ( for
diplomas not thru the GED
option or requiring the FCAT
waiver). When looking at
all standard diplomas
delivered, Polk delivers 40%
fewer diplomas.
Polk County has a 41%
higher dropout rate for ESE
students as ESE students
statewide.
Polk County has 12% fewer
ESE students in the regular
classroom than the statewide
average.
Polk chooses to give ESE
students 38% more
In-School Suspensions
than the statewide rate.
Polk chooses to give ESE
students 64% more
Out-of-School Suspensions
than the statewide rate.
Statewide in 2004, 14% of
the total disabled student
population is identified as
Speech Impaired (SI) as
compared with 8% in Polk
County. These numbers are
saying that Polk may have
75% more Speech Impaired
students than it has
identified.
The Florida Dept. of Ed.
found that in 11 of 23 files
(48%) of ESE students
receiving speech services,
Polk was out of compliance.
Polk was not providing the
level of speech/language
services that were listed on
the students' IEPs.
If you are a parent of
an ESE student requiring speech services, this news
is worse than it sounds. The state found Polk is
probably not serving you child, but the state will
have the Polk District determine just who the Polk
District has not served properly. This is a
district that has one of the worst ESE performance
records in the state. It is also the district that
continually confirms they have been providing all of
the needed services for their ESE students,
especially those with speech needs.
The systemic speech
services problem was just one of three complaints
made by a Polk mother to the Florida DOE. You will
see references to two other complaints made by the
mother regarding her own son. After several tries,
she received the additional services needed by her
son.
Click Here
to see the March 10,
2006 letter and Report of the Inquiry from the
Florida DOE. Go to page 4, Issue 3 of the report.
Click Here
to get a copy of my 04 11 06 presentation to the
school board.
In late October, 2006,
the mother received notification that all speech
students that had not received their speech services
had been identified and the compensatory services
provided. DOE has not provided any documentation to
confirm provision of the services.
It is important to note
the School Superintendent gave an immediate response
to one of the concerns expressed in my 04/11/06
presentation to the School Board meeting. For a
transcript of her comments,
Click Here.
If you have a student
that is supposed to be receiving speech services
from Polk County, I recommend you have an
Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE) for Speech
evaluation to confirm your IEP calls for the proper
services, and then investigate whether or not your
child has "in fact" been receiving those services.
Do not rely on Polk district staff to evaluate you
student's needs. For information on how the
District could be required to pay for the IEE, go to
Wrights Law and their discussion of your rights by
clicking here
Click Here
for 3 minute School
Bd. Presentation 04-25-06 Legal @ $379K
Click Here
for 3 Minute School Bd. Presentation 04-11-06 Speech
Info.
Click Here
for Superintendent's Response on 04-11-06 Speech
Info.
Click Here
for 3 Minute School Bd. Presentation 02-14-06
Click Here
for 3 Minute School Bd. Presentation 02-15-05
I have appeared
before the Board numerous times since April of
2006. I will try to get those talks posted here
soon.
This site currently has documents that
pertain to the ESE program in Polk
County, Florida. Many of these
documents also have application in the
rest of Florida, and for some of the
documents, the nation. But the ESE
program in Polk County offers some very
special challenges. For those parents
not in Polk County, you may recognize
similar challenges in your school
district.
I hope to put issues, letters,
responses, and IEP’s provided by you,
the reader of this web site. We can all
learn from other’s experiences. For
now, I would like to limit the issues
and letters to those generated within
the state of Florida. Click an item on
the menu to the left and get started.
Below you will find a
description of our journey to obtain Drew the services promised by
IDEA.