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HEY GAZETTE! QUESTIONS FOR BEAUFORT COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT
How much money has the Beaufort county school district deposited into the pocket of private lawyers and their law firms funded with our tax dollars in Beaufort county to battle against the rights of special needs children or any of our children?
How often does the school district break the confidentiality of these special needs children with these lawyers and their law firms funded with our tax dollars to battle against the rights of special needs children or any of our children?
Will the leadership in the Beaufort County School District answer these questions?
Will the Beaufort Gazette seek the answers to these questions?
Will the Beaufort Gazette please rise to the occasion? Will it do a series of in depth articles about the shenanigans going on in the Beaufort County School District and its special needs children? Will it post questions in the paper and a phone number for parents to explain their mistreatment so they can get the facts from parents who deal with this everyday?
- letstalkaboutit's blog
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I don't understand this one - why would the district not be entitled to lawyers to represent it and why does that violate confideniality/
Letstalk, you simply are misinformed about what the IDEA and IIDEA is, what the rules are for a district, and when the Board can be represented by counsel. . .
There is no scandal here. The District simply has a different idea about what the best program is for a child. If the PPT group does not specify the program what the student needs the parents have not done their job properly in the IEP process. The district does not have final say over the programming - the IEP team does. That team is heavily weighted toward the district, what with teachers, SPED teachers, paraprofessionals, specialists and a representative from the Administration.
Lawyers get involved when parents file challenges mostly. Parents file challenges [due process hearings] when they disagree with what the PPT demands. Parents need to be more direct at an IEP planning meeting. They need to ask specific questions as to why the District program is better than the one that the parent wants. Parents need to ask questions about money, about press brought by the district on the staff members. Many parents are uncomfortable asking these questions, so they get lawyers. At that point, if the parent has a lawyer, the district is going to get one. This is not anything confusing to understand.
There is no scandal and no news story and no violation of the law in 99% of cases.
Joe - what is your profession?
. . . you should be able to figure it out too!
Board of Education member [www.reg8.k12.ct.us]
Lawyer [www.weatherby-associates.com]
Blog Mayor
Airplane Pilot
Raconteur and all around nice guy
Joe:
you must be an all around swell ffella. You look at it from the perspective of a lawyer and a former board of education memeber. how about running when one of the unorganized, smoke and mirror 10 resign? they need some new blood on that board. it is bored.
...You look at it from the perspective of a lawyer and a former board of education memeber... .
The way I understood it, according to the link Joe provided, he is a current member of Regional School District No. 8 in Hebron, Connecticut.
I see you have an avatar - can you point me to instructions on how to attach one to my profile?
Sorry for going OT...
EDIT - N/M, found it in "my Account" "EDIT" :-)
EG
I see you have an avatar - can you point me to instructions on how to attach one to my profile?
Sorry for going OT...
EDIT - N/M, found it in "my Account" "EDIT" :-)
EG
I was getting ready to tell you and when I came back you'd figured it out.
:)
It worked out. Now I'm dangerous..
Joe- Please define your understanding of IDEA and IIDEA? Do you have a special needs child?Do you personally have a friend with a special needs child?
I believe Joe has stated on a recent post that he has an autistic son.
See "Special Needs Parents Battle School District"....Read his long reply.
Joe,
Many times, when I take my special need child to ST, OT, or PT, I hear from many parents that the district is simply denying what the child/ren need. Not talking abt what they read from magazines or heard from TV, but actual diagnosis from independent eval teams. Then, how can they offer the best program for the child/ren? If both independent eval teams and the distric are talking about same child/ren, where in the world the discrepancy coming from? Parents do the homework, that's why they ask the district to reach the same plan/goal to achieve, but district automatically denies saying that the child/ren does not need that!!!
Joe,
I also am confused about what you said...such as the autistic boy on the website,district spent that much money to avoid $25,000 therapies? Isn't that penny wise and pound folish...?
Here is a webpage which gives us some insight into the how the needs of a "special needs" child were recognized and handled.
http://specialchildren.about.com/b/2008/08/18/our-gold-medalist-debbie-phelps.htm
This may sound a little crazy, but why not address the special needs of all students? Prescriptive teaching has been around for decades, but has not been implemented largely because both the public and most educators do not understand it. Each student is different in terms of academic/learning strengths and weaknesses with the weaknesses obviously needing remediation.
Some folks like to pretend that individualized education plans for all students is enough, but it isn't because it doesn't properly define the weaknesses and the approach to strengthen them. Materials are not enough....specifically understood methods are necessary. Otherwise it all becomes another cumbersome paper exercise.
If this approach/method was implemented, the "special ed" students would be treated very much like the "regular" students, but would require more concentrated remediation....get rid of labels and instead, put into place a program for all. Even "gifted" student usually have certain learning/academic weaknesses/deficits. A high IQ does not guarantee success at anything.