I got a letter from our SPED Head today. SPED Head is a friend's somewhat affectionate nickname for the director of special education. We just got a new SPED Head in our district. She was moved over from another department, not because she had any special knowledge of special education, but probably because she just hadn't pissed off a ton of parents in her former position. I met with her in July and she told a good story of wanting to see that morale improved with the parents and that the kids got what they needed to the best of her ability. In other words, she said what she was expected to say, used a tone that implied she cared, and then proceeded to do exactly what has been done prior to her taking the position. In other words, nothing that benefits our kids.
So the letter I got today....it was what is called a letter of "Prior Written Notice". These letters really have little to do with "prior" but they are written and of some sort of notice. Ours was to tell us that they were not going to give our older daughter the two hours of outside speech therapy that was recommended by the expert in her evaluation done by a company contracted by the district since this particular evaluation can't be done by any of our district personnel (no one employed by the district is qualified to perform the evaluation). The letter said "the district has strongly considered your request and at this time respectfully denies your request". Okay, I suppose the use of the word "strongly" is supposed to make me think they care more this time than any time in the past when they have only "considered" my requests. And as for the "respect", I don't know, but this seems pretty disingenuous to me. I mean how can one be respectful and at the same time refuse to deliberate using facts in their duty to educate our children?
For some reason, this particular letter raised my curiosity. I decided to look up what this letter is supposed to do. I found out it is supposed to include:
1) a description of the actions proposed or refused by the school district - which it did
2) an explanation of why the action was proposed or refused - which it did not
3) a description of any other options considered and the reasons those options were rejected - did not - all that was included was that they would only do what they are already doing which was below the recommended level of service recommended by the expert they chose and they paid
4) a description of each assessment procedure, test, record, or report used as a basis for the action proposed or refused - nope not included, because there was no basis for their response except that they don't want to pay for the services
5) a description of any other factors relevant to the action proposed or refused - nope, again because there is no relevant reasoning behind their response except that they don't want to offer the services ($$$$$)
6) a statement that parents of a child with a disability are protected by the procedural safeguards - the statement is there but it is meaningless since the district ignores said procedural safeguards.
I write about this because I know from talking to other parents that this is the norm. The Prior Written Notice almost never includes any explanation for districts' decisions. I have never heard of one that includes sound reasoning behind district decisions, they probably exist, but we don't hear from parents in the districts who do this correctly because they are getting their kids' needs met.
I'm not fully sure of where to go from here. I know I could file a compliance complaint but the truth is, the CDE will not apply any meaningful sanctions for this type of infraction. And that is even if they don't just find for the district because there is really little incentive for the state to actually hold districts accountable to obey the law. Once I know more I will come back to this issue and share what might work, but in the meantime if any of you know of a way to push this issue I would love the input, if districts can really be forced to use meaningful deliberation rather than just saying "no" to every request with no thought then we might have a way to get meaningful services for our children.
I started investigating this more and more and I'm learning that if the letter of prior written notice is done correctly it gives us the information we need to either agree that the district is doing the right thing or to argue that their reasoning is not sound. The laws were written the way they were to protect our kids but the districts don't go by the law because they know most of us don't know what they are supposed to do and let it go at that. Today I wrote a response to our "PWN" letter and I used it as a blog post to give an example of what to ask for from the district when their PWN is lame.
ReplyDeleteAlso, in Laws, Definitions, etc. I include a link to the 2004 CA Procedural Safeguards. They are somewhat outdated, BUT they include what is supposed to be in a letter of prior written notice. The current CA Dept of Education website does not give that information - it refers to more details elsewhere, but I'll be gobsmacked (to quote my favorite author Sophie Kinsella) if I can find them in their current information on line. It's probably there, but they haven't made it easy to access, that's for sure!