My husband and I have spent the last several months putting together a complaint for the Office of Civil Rights regarding their treatment of our children and of us. While discussing this today, as we wrap up and ready the complaint to send to the OCR I shared my feelings with my husband about why it is so important that we send this. I believe this will probably be the introduction to our complaint, but regardless I hope others understand how important it is that we parents look at what is going on at school and that we demand that our districts meet our children's needs.
The law says that I must send my disabled child to school because EVERY child deserves and MUST get an education. If you are going to insist that I send my child to school then the least you can do is avoid hurting her, and really don’t you believe educating her would be necessary?
If she must go to school then the district has every obligation to make sure that they do not abuse or harm her in any way. Is it okay to say she “must” go to school and then abuse her? Dragging her across blacktop like a bag of trash? Or to cause her so much upset that she does not want to go to the classroom so that staff feels it is okay to drag her to the room as she screams and cries? Or is it okay to be so incapable of meeting her needs and teaching her so that she becomes so frustrated and upset that she is hitting herself in the face and head hundreds of times during the school day? Should we accept that this is an appropriate education for our child? Should we have to enter into Due Process to prove that the district isn’t doing their job in educating our daughter? And what about the children whose parents don’t know how they are being hurt at school because they implicitly trust the district to have their child’s best interests in mind? As we did until our daughter was in fourth grade, we had been duped for years. This is what CVUSD does to every child whose needs they don’t meet. They dupe parents into believing that they have been educating their child with special needs. This is a travesty, an injustice, ineptitude, and just one example of their complete lack of regard for the civil rights of children with disabilities.
Dragging her across blacktop like a bag of trash?
ReplyDeleteYou're kidding, right?. Ok, you're not. This is outrageous! I am so angry reading this. I hope all your efforts with the OCR pay off and that you get some justice from them.
Thanks for the support. We are hoping that if nothing else the OCR complaint will let them know they need to tread very carefully in the future, with us and others.
ReplyDeleteI'm truly appalled at your situation, but so heartened that you and your husband have decided to take action. My best to you both as you move forward.
ReplyDeleteI am grateful I have found a group of parents who knows their way around the system. They have shared so much with us and we are using that information to help our kids whenever we can!
ReplyDeleteBrent mentioned that you used to work at Harbor Regional Center. I wonder what has gone so wrong, I wonder how we can get things back on track. Any ideas on how we can get things back on track?
ReplyDeleteWe heard back from the Office for Civil Rights - the response was negative, they will not take the case on because we have persevered and managed to triumph, although how it can be so absolutely uncivil on the way to getting school districts to do their jobs is beyond me. With the attitude that OCR takes we have no chance of making this system better through that channel. I guess we will have to find another way to make the way clear for students with special needs int he future.
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