by Brian Keaney
After months of denying any wrong doing, school officials have entered into an agreement with the federal government to settle a complaint that the civil rights of special education students were violated. The settlement requires the district to provide compensatory services to the affected students and to report periodically to the Department of Education.
The complaint was filed by several Middle School teachers after two special education teachers were pulled from their classrooms and sent to the home of then-School Committee member Joanne Flatley to tutor her child. The Flately child had previously been a student at the Greenlodge School.
The Middle School students were left in the care of a retired French teacher who is not certified to teach special education. The complaint alleges that the Middle School students were denied a free and appropriate education and that an extended lapse in the services the district is legally obligated to provide to students occurred without notification to their parents or the principal of the school.
Jim Bradshaw, a spokesman for the Department of Education, said school officials approached the Department seeking to reach a settlement before the Office for Civil Rights finished its investigation. The investigation is now closed, but the complaint will remain open until after the last report is filed by the School Department, which is due in November.
Of the nearly 6,000 complaints that are filed each year, the Office for Civil Rights opens cases for roughly one-third. In the last fiscal year 523 resolution agreements were reached, and of those 216 were voluntary agreements similar to Dedham’s.
Under the agreement, the School Department must offer extended school year services during the summer of 2010 to all students affected. The services shall include two hours of instruction per day, four days a week, for three weeks in English language arts and math.
If the students are not able to attend the extra classes during the summer, the School Department is to make a good faith effort to offer the same services after school during the 2010-2011 school year.
The School Department is also required to develop a protocol to ensure substitute teachers are knowledgeable about the provisions of Individual Education Plans for special education students. Teachers of special education students in regular and substantially separate classrooms must be trained in the new protocol, and the School Department must provide documentation describing the efforts to ensure it is being followed.
The School Department must also submit to the Department of Education a copy of the draft protocol by January 31, and finalize it and publish it on their website by February 28.
The same deadlines apply to new internal grievance procedures that must be developed to ensure that they are consistent with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Staff must also be trained in the new procedures during the 2009-2010 school year and during the 2010-2011 school year.
The new grievance procedures are a response to an internal complaint filed by more than 20 Middle School teachers asking for a reply within five days “as the grievance procedure outlined in the handbook states.” The School Committee did not respond until a month later, and Chairman Dave Roberts later told the Daily News Transcript that “to my knowledge we have not received any grievance action from any of the faculty involved.”
Roberts refused to comment for this article. Superintendent June Doe did not return a call for comment.
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