5th Grader with Autism Charged with Felony Assault
I am writing today about a deplorable situation in my home state of Arkansas involving an 11-year-old with autism who has failed to receive a Free Appropriate Public Education (“FAPE”), according to the events described by his grandmother (see the Examiner news article). Zakhqurey Price is a 5th grader at Beard Elementary in Fort Smith, AR, who is challenged by autism.
I’m not going to repeat verbatim the article cited above because that’s unnecessarily redundant. I’ve already posted comments on this article and its sister article at Great Schools in hopes that the family will get the word and contact Arkansas Legal Aid for help. The point of today’s blog article and podcast is to use this horrible situation as a teaching example and learning opportunity for others. I’m going to presume for the purposes of this article that the family’s assertions are true.
Robin Hanson reports in the Examiner article that Zakh returned to school on August 18, 2009 after having been institutionalized. His family attempted to coordinate an IEP for him prior to the beginning of the school year but the Fort Smith school district refused to do anything until the school year started. In many states, the IEP process is disrupted by summer break and school districts are not required to engage in IEP-related activities until the school year starts. However, not being required to do something doesn’t mean that school districts are necessary barred from doing anything.
While a procedural violation may not have occurred due to the District’s refusal to coordinate an IEP for this child prior to the onset of the school year, common sense dictates that it probably should have done so regardless of whether it was procedurally required or not. The millisecond that school began on August 18, 2009, the District instantly denied him a FAPE on the basis that whatever IEP he had failed to meet his unique needs and was unable to render educational benefit.
The change from institutionalization to a public school setting was a change in placement for which amendments to the IEP were required. These are two very different settings and the institution into which he had previously been placed was outside the District. An IEP meeting should have been held on the first day of school at the very latest to put together an appropriate offer of FAPE so that he could start school right away with appropriate supports and services in place from the very beginning. That was not done, thereby resulting in an actionable denial of a FAPE.
Zakh’s grandmother, Carole Reynolds, claims she has been refused access to Zakh’s records in spite of her repeated requests. She stated, “We have made requests to receive a copy of his evaluation/assessment results before the October 15th temporary placement IEP meeting and were refused because they said it was not allowed by state law.”
As of 2004, when the IDEA was reauthorized, whether a state has its own timelines for certain aspects of the special education process or not, federal law now establishes mandated minimums and maximums. If state law does not require the provision of student records prior to an IEP meeting or within a specified number of days, it doesn’t matter. Federal law mandates that parents (or those acting in the legal capacity of parents, including emergency foster care status and legal guardians) be granted access to student records within 45 calendar days at the most, but definitely before any scheduled IEP meetings. (See 34 CFR Sec. 300.613.)
Giving parents access to records is not the same thing as providing copies, however. Copies may be provided and school districts can charge photocopying fees so long as the imposition of fees do not prevent the parents from receiving the copies (see 34 CFR Sec. 300.617). What this basically means is that if the school districts provide photocopies and wish to charge photocopying fees, those fees must be waived if the parents can’t afford to pay them since the imposition of photocopying fees would prevent them from obtaining the copies due to their economic hardship.
Arkansas’ Special Education Rules and Regulations can be found at http://arksped.k12.ar.us/sections/rulesandregulations.html. Arkansas defaults to the federal standards for the provision of parent access to student records.
Arkansas’ regulations require the provision of copies of student records if failing to provide them would otherwise deny parents access to those records. Such might be the case if the parents lacked transportation to go to the school site or district offices to review the records on site, if the amount of time necessary to read and review all the records would exceed the length of a school day or business day and the parents would need to take the records home to continue to review them, or if the parents work or care for children during the day and cannot take off to go access the records at a district location.
In a situation like this, it would by highly unlikely that the parents would be able to review the entire file with comprehension in one sitting, much less with school site and/or district personnel hovering over their shoulders. Plus, if the parents decide to file for due process or file compliance complaints, they would need copies of the records to review and possibly submit as evidence. In this case, the provision of copies of the records, as opposed to simply granting access to them at a district location, is warranted.
Ms. Reynolds reported that a temporary placement IEP meeting was held on October 15th, nearly 2 months after the school year started. The reason she requested the IEP meeting was that Zakh had been previously placed in a residential facility and facility personnel believed that he could not be appropriately transitioned to a less restrictive setting without 1:1 aide support. Staff at Beard Elementary allegedly refused to provide aide support via his IEP.
20 USC Sec. 1414(d)(2)(C)(I) requires that when students transfer within a state, the receiving school district “…shall provide such child with a free appropriate public education, including services comparable to those described in the previously held IEP, in consultation with the parents until such time as the local educational agency adopts the previously held IEP or develops, adopts, and implements a new IEP that is consistent with Federal and State law.” [Emphasis added.] Again, this is a federal minimum standard and the states are free to add additional protections according to their own implementation methodologies. The Arkansas regulations mirror the federal requirements. (See Sec. 8-03.3)
While, procedurally, Fort Smith had until such time as a new IEP was developed to implement the last IEP in effect from Zakh’s prior placement, the prior IEP was written for a residential placement, not a public school placement. Fort Smith could not implement the last IEP without placing Zakh in a residential placement at the District’s expense. That clearly was not done. Given that it could not implement the IEP as written, it had no choice but to revise the IEP. For the period from August 18 to October 15, the District failed to implement the IEP as written, which is a procedural violation. However, the bigger issue is that a FAPE was denied during that same period on the basis that Zakh’s IEP was no longer appropriate to his then-current placement and needs.
At the October 15, 2009 IEP meeting, Ms. Reynolds says she requested a Functional Behavioral Analysis (“FBA”) and positive behavior intervention plan for Zakh, but no behavior plan was ever forthcoming. On October 30, 2009, Zakh experienced a behavioral meltdown related to his autism.
In the absence of a positive behavior intervention plan that would have helped to prevent the meltdown in the first place and given specific guidance to school personnel as to how to respond if the meltdown had nonetheless occurred, staff failed to prevent the behavior from escalating and then resorted to physical restraints when Zakh passed the point of no return. Staff received minor injuries in the course of restraining the 11-year-old child. Instead of responding to the situation appropriately, school site staff called the police and had the cognitively impaired, autistic youngster taken away in handcuffs and charged with felony assault as though he had attacked people with criminal intent rather than struggled during an unlawful restraint, thereby contributing to the inadvertent injury of school personnel.
Zakh’s current home-school placement resulted from a disciplinary removal and he has been suspended for 12 school days this year. This constitutes as a change of placement pursuant to Arkansas regulations. This makes the need for a functional behavioral analysis mandatory at this point.
If an FBA was conducted previously but failed to result in a positive behavior intervention plan, then the family could disagree with the district’s FBA and ask for an Independent Educational Evaluation (“IEE”) in the area of behavior as a corrective remedy. Clearly any assessment of his behavior performed failed to result in a legitimate offer of FAPE since it failed to produce a positive behavior intervention plan. It’s more likely, however, that the FBA hadn’t been done. If it remains outstanding, then the family may be stuck with a District assessment at this point, though it’s long overdue if so.
The fact that this family has a court date on January 12, 2010 on the felony assault charges means the charges obviously haven’t been dropped and Fort Smith schools are prosecuting handicapped children for manifesting the symptoms of their handicapping conditions rather than providing them with a FAPE. What is more, in addition to the claims that this family most likely has under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”), they probably have actionable claims under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 for discrimination on the basis of handicapping conditions. While the IDEA claims can only pursue remedy in the form of special education services, the 504 claims can pursue monetary damages.
The District’s board of education, which is comprised of Dr. Deanie Mehl, Ms. Shannon Blatt, Mr. Wyman R. Wade, Jr., Ms. Jeannie Cole, Ms. Barbara Hathcock, Dr. David Hunton, and Ms. Yvonne Keaton-Martin should be mortally ashamed and embarrassed right now, and are well-advised to keep their eyes on the horizon for a big, fat legal expense that should never have had the occasion to develop.
If you are an attorney in Arkansas who practices special education law on behalf of children with disabilities, please register with the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates at http://www.copaa.org so that Arkansas parents in situations like these can find you. I will be attending the March 2010 COPAA conference. If you will be attending as well, please sign up for Text Alerts so that I can connect with you in person at the conference.
Click here to download the podcast version of this article.
30 Responses to “5th Grader with Autism Charged with Felony Assault”
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I have taken the liberty of re-posting most of the above entry to my website (Psychologically Humane Assessment and Treatment, or PHAT). I have also added a link to this website’s home page. Excellent work; keep it up, and Godspeed.
aspiehd
Thank for replying Anne,
I am aware of the blogspot site and the thezakhappeal.com site. Both sites have very abbreviated content with links to facebook as the real source of information. From my perspective, those links lead to blank pages, and this makes researching the issue difficult. Not impossible, as I have found a great deal of information without the facebook pages, but difficult.
To get the widest exposure possible, I suggest making research as easy as possible, and that means putting the principal source material where everyone can access it.
Someone using Carole’s nick mentioned a male teacher in the comments at:
http://daisymayfattypants.blogspot.com/2010/01/zakhquery-zakh-price-and-system.html
I guess that was a different teacher who entered the room after the meltdown started… maybe? The same person mentions 2 different classrooms or schools he was in since Habberton. Was that someone impersonating Carole… maybe? I don’t think it’s all that consequential, but without access to the principal material it leaves me a little confused.
“significant disparities between his strengths and weaknesses.”
In other words, he’s autistic.
“It was assessment at Habberton that identified many of his previously unserved needs and ultimately led to the determination that he was inappropriately placed there.”
In other words, the school district abused process to foist him off on the DHS and is now abusing process to foist him off on the courts.
“It’s my understanding from reading the press release from Zakh’s attorney that one of the allegations against the District is circumventing and attempting to circumvent further the IDEA.”
Yes, thus far, it sounds like Zakh has someone competent and familiar with the politics and history in the area representing him with respect to the education issues. I remain concerned about his representation on the battery charges, though. I think the cost of a competent defense attorney will be much higher than $5000 unless someone basically agrees to represent him on a pro bono basis, which seems unlikely.
I think your concerns about the representation against the battery charges are very legitimate, but there doesn’t appear to be that many attorneys in the nation that represent children with special needs in the criminal court system, and certainly none in Arkansas. In my experience, it has taken the special ed attorney working closely with the public defender assigned to the child to help figure things out. Once the special ed attorney can present the legal authorities to the public defender to demonstrate what’s really going on, the public defender is often able to convince a criminal court judge that the matter is being handled through an inappropriate venue and help shift the burden back onto the school system.
If it the juvenile justice system thinks that it is wrongfully incurring a cost that should be borne by another publicly funded agency – particularly when mandated by federal law – the juvenile justice system tends to become indignant about assuming other agencies’ costs unnecessarily and a rift between the courts and the agency that was trying to dump its problems onto the courts develops. Eventually, the courts start to look squinty-eyed at all the other cases that come through under similar circumstances and at least one public defender eventually becomes the in-house expert on identifying similar abuses of the court system as they come in.
“In other words, the school district abused process to foist him off on the DHS and is now abusing process to foist him off on the courts.” Absolutely!!! That’s what I got from reviewing the records.
If possible, I would like to get a message to Carole:
I think the choice of facebook as a central repository of information is unfortunate and potentially self-defeating. Because facebook requires membership, it excludes a large portion of the audience–potentially the one person who will inject the story into the national media.
Because facebook’s aggressive advertising methods render other sites inaccessible to me, I use adblock to block their ads. This also blocks whatever material might be available to non-members on the facebook site itself. I basically see a blank page when I click any link to the site including comments.
I understand Carole probably chose facebook due to familiarity, cost and ease of use. This is a little like looking for one’s keys under the light instead of where one dropped them. Please consider moving the complete central repository of information someplace accessible to the public. The entire public. Without membership. Without registration. Preferably on a site that does not require flash or javascript.
I am a little unclear on some of the facts. For example, did Zakh have an IEP while institutionalized? In her interview, Carole mentions the school ignored the aide recommendation because it was not part of an IEP. This article here seems to indicate there was an IEP prior to arriving at the school. Did Zack have an IEP at Habberton?
In any case, it’s clear the school or the school district is trying to skirt the letter of the law to defeat the spirit of the law a la Shylock in Merchant of Venice. It’s also clear the felony charges are an abuse of process. This is nothing new in the State of Arkansas:
http://arkedu.state.ar.us/commemos/static/fy0102/1044.html
Here and elsewhere, I am disappointed to see the focus on behavior. A meltdown is not a behavior. Neither is a meltdown an emotional disturbance. It is a tic or involuntary reaction like pulling one’s hand out of the fire or flinching when electrocuted or having an epileptic seizure. In many respects the behavioral model is the cause of this situation because if a meltdown is behavior, it is bad behavior. If it is bad behavior, it is an issue of discipline. Under the Arkansas Code, a teacher basically has the right and authority to batter or imprison a child when necessary for discipline, and the child has no right to resist.
Behavior is the wrong model–not just because it is inconvenient from a legal perspective, but because the model is simply wrong.
Approaching a child in anger when the child is calm after a meltdown and has appropriately retreated to the private area set aside to recover from meltdowns serves no purpose of pedagogy or discipline, or any other legitimate purpose. It is no different from approaching an epileptic in anger after a seizure. Unless, of course, one holds the incorrect mental model of meltdown as a behavior instead of a tic.
Due to the protections and rights afforded to teachers in the Arkansas Code, Zakh will need very competent representation to prove to the courts that the teacher and principal had culpable intent beyond their protected mandate. This makes it doubly important to make everything as accessible to the public as possible because $5000 is just the start, and it will be hard to attract funds when everyone is focused on the tragedy in Haiti..
I am also a little unclear on the sex of the teacher or whether the teacher present that day was the same teacher involved in the temporary IEP, but those facts are less consequential.
While I am disappointed to see the focus on behavior here and elsewhere, I am disheartened to see reference to Dr. “We’ll Beat These Fags Into Real Men” Lovaas. While I have no general objection to behaviorist methods for appropriate training, I find Lovaas’s goals and methods sickening from the perspective of an autistic adult.
We have all seen film of a dog being electrocuted without reaction. The term is “learned helplessness”. Extinguishing meltdowns no more serves the autistic than extinguishing the reaction to electrocution serves the dog.
Bob,
Thank you for your feedback! You make a really good point about FB being difficult to access for many people. The family has started a web site at http://zakhs.blogspot.com. This is a more public forum than FB.
As for details of the case, here’s what I can tell you, having been in contact with the family and listening to Carole’s radio interview. Both the principal and the teacher who pressed charges are female. The outburst started when the teacher erased what was on the board before Zakh was finished writing it down (spelling words list). He has severely expressive and receptive language delays. His FSIQ is 68, but that probably isn’t accurate due to subtest scatter and the fact that the tests used were not necessarily appropriate given his age at the time administered and language impairments. It’s probably more accurate to say that he’s better at some forms of cognitive processing than others with significant disparities between his strengths and weaknesses.
As it turns out, Zakh did not have an IEP while at Habberton. The District unlawfully exited him from special ed about 3 years ago and convinced the family to go along with this “plan” in a desperate attempt to get him appropriate help. Habberton is funded by Ark Dept of Human Services and he was placed through their Behavioral Treatment program, which is funded by Medicaid. Medicaid does not cover the costs of treatment for autism spectrum disorders, so the District and DHS conveniently left that part out. They identified him as having mental and emotional health issues so that he would “fit” the program design on paper and shipped him off to a residential program that failed to serve all of his actual needs.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that he was without mental or emotional health problems, but I’m not qualified to make that call, either. Really it doesn’t matter, because even if he had mental and emotional problems, that was hardly all that was going on with him and they weren’t his primary issues even if they were present. His assessment data reveals significant neurological issues with sensory integration, expressive and receptive language, motor planning, and cognition. His records are replete with references to autistic-like behaviors. He’s also received more than one diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder, ranging from PDD-NOS to actual autism. Habberton does not serve all of the needs that Zakh was identified as having before he went in.
It was assessment at Habberton that identified many of his previously unserved needs and ultimately led to the determination that he was inappropriately placed there. Habberton had some pretty competent assessments done and realized that he had needs other than what their program was meant to serve, so he ended up getting sent home. The District was apparently chagrined because it hadn’t wanted him back, so knowing that the DHS route wasn’t going to get him off their caseload, they turned to the juvenile justice system. It’s my understanding from reading the press release from Zakh’s attorney that one of the allegations against the District is circumventing and attempting to circumvent further the IDEA. Apparently, she knew what she was looking at, too.
Anne
See our new Arkansas-specific site for special education: http://arkansas.kps4parents.org/.
Zakh’s website is http://zakhs.blogspot.com/.
Hi great people out there! I’m the ‘Grandma’…met with atty for 7 hours today. Will let you know more tomorrow evening…so go to Zakh’s website to hear the statement.
Have they tried to utilize http://www.arkdisabilityrights.org/?
Kristina,
I’m pretty sure they have. The organization that operates the site may be taking Zakh’s case.
Anne
Thank you to KPS parents and everyone who is helping spread the news to help Zakh. There have been emails and offers of help from advocacy organizations. I am currently out of the office and this has been the 1st time in 4 days I have been able to check in. Next week I will be back in and hopefully I can print an update.
Thank you again to everyone. Keep spreading the word, all of our kids deserve fair and decent treatment.
Please take advantage of the free subscription update on my web page because there are thousands of children who deserve to have their story told! The more awareness, the more influence we have!
Robin,
Thank you so much for writing the original article that got our attention about this in the first place. Many thanks to you and the other Examiner writers who cover special education-related topics!!!!
Anne
I can remember when CVUSD did something similar to my son when he was 6. They didn’t call the police, but he was suspended. They never put a behavior plan in his IEP, and did not know what they were doing.
They refused to allow an NPA trained behaviorist on the school site, which is what he needed. Their “aide” was clueless and poorly trained, and left him alone with the principal who gave him a lecture (he was nearly non-verbal at the time and didn’t know the principal and was scared…)
He melted down, and they wondered why… DUH! I don’t even want to write in this comment the condition I found him in…
If it were me, I would be looking for a solid NPA behavior agency (mine was Lovaas) – I have no idea what they have in that state that would provide solid support (both 1:1 in school and home program) for an older child with emotional issues as well due to institutionalization. How horrifying… an 11 year old.
But if they can make that part of their demand to move forward, while the district staff gets training (believe me, that can take years!) then at least he’ll get a chance at succeeding. However, in reading the stories above, I see the statement that resources in Arkansas are limited. As part of their lawsuit, and next IEP – they can ask to have NPA behavior support in the IEP. If none exists nearby, their are agencies that can fly in staff to train their staff. They can ask that staff training be provided, and that the person working with their child (the 1:1 behaviorist/aide) have a certain amount of minimum training provided to them, as well as ongoing consultation and training.
Anne, thanks for posting and educating others throughout the country. I hope the family gets a really good attorney to help them. I have a friend who flew in special ed attorney Gary Mayerson from New York to CA for a case some years ago. He was willing to travel then, maybe he would again. He is supposed to be very good. I know things like that can be expensive. I wish their was an organization that would help families financially in cases like this.
There are abuses all over the country, so this is not an isolated case I’m sure. I’m surprised about the court not allowing homeschooling, though. I saw Zaks Grandma’s post about the court forbidding homeschooling. I’m shocked by that. How can they do that? As far as I know, homeschooling is still legal! many families of children with special needs homeschool for exactly these reasons. The public schools don’t meet the kids needs.
Jennifer McNulty
Jen,
Thanks for posting!!! I have to tell you I’m pretty tempted to develop KPS4Parents programming for Arkansas. From what I’ve seen of this young man’s records, it’s a pretty scandalous situation.
Because the Arkansas Department of Human Services offers out-of-home placements for children with emotional and behavioral problems outside of the special education process (see http://www.arkansas.gov/dhs/sgChildren.html), which is funded by Medicaid, Ft. Smith School District exited him from special ed a few years ago and had him placed through DHS. But, the DHS placements don’t serve children on the autism spectrum, so the District and child dependency courts conveniently left that out of his admissions paperwork. In essence, the public school district shifted the financial burden of providing this child with appropriate special education services onto the DHS system.
Now, it’s attempting to shift the financial burden onto the juvenile justice system as well as DHS. By filing criminal charges against him, he could be declared a ward of the State and put back into DHS placement by a court system that doesn’t even get that it’s being taken for a ride by the public schools. The school district is entirely shirking its financial responsibility for serving this child by criminalizing his problems and making this out to be something other than what it really is.
The District even went so far as to hire a neuropsych to “assess” Zakh, who then deemed his own results invalid only to then turn around and make special education placement recommendations as though he’s somehow qualified to do so. (Can you say “Total District shill”?) Medical professionals aren’t qualified to make special education placement recommendations. Placement decisions are driven by what is the Least Restrictive Environment in which the services can be rendered such that the measurable annual goals are met and are an IEP team decision.
Apparently, in Arkansas, hearing officers have historically given weight to medical professionals without taking into account the legal framework upon which special education placements must be made under the IDEA. It’s just shameful!!!
Anne
I did my part by posting a brief mention on my blog, with as many links as I could find. I’ll continue to update both the post and mentioning this story on Twitter.
Blog post
http://lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_dreams/2010/01/helping-zakhqurey-prices-family-.html
Liz,
Thanks so much!!!! I posted a comment updating your content, as well.
Anne
I have been pushing this story via various social networks and indexing sites and I also dropped off a note to the US Department of Education, as far up the food chain as I could find.
There are a couple of things I should observe, regarding the nature of the incident above.
First, there’s the making of a very large civil case here. Less flagrant violations of IDEA mandates have resulted in staggering – multimillion dollar – settlements against school districts. IDEA has very large nasty teeth in it’s own right as well – this school district is inviting significant and unwelcome federal attention.
As I noted in my letter, if there is contempt for IDEA, one can hardly expect significant compliance with NCLB. :>
But a point that has yet to be raised: this would seem to be a case wherein it certainly appears that the school district, the police and likely the local prosecutor have entered into a conspiracy to deprive someone belonging to a protected class of their Civil Rights. This would bring this matter under the aegis of the Department Of Justice’s Civil Rights Division as well as direct contact with the Americans With Disabilities act. Of course it should be brought to the attention of the ACLU and various disabilities rights organizations; they may well have some specific advice to this point.
I’d suggest to the members of the school board that there is still time to resolve the issue without difficulty. It’s quite simple. Read the IDEA guidelines, and realize that you are bound by law to meet the minimum standards and that failure to have done so exposes you (personally and as a district) to significant legal liablity. A “Free And Appropriate Education” means just that.
At the very least, the school board members and teachers should be consulting lawyers. I suspect the union/professional association lawyers may turn pale and say something along the lines of “you did WHAT?”
I have some personal insight into this matter, you see. My wife – a special educator of 20 years, with experience in some very poor schools in Nevada. Special Ed it need not “take anything away” from other students, which seems to be the “issue” that the school board is concerned about.
Push-in full inclusion has the advantage of bringing teachers with SPED experience into the classroom where, with just a touch of intelligent management, they become a resource for the whole class, turning one or two small liabilities into a net asset for thirty or more.
In any case, taking actions against a child that result in a multimillion dollar judgements against the school district – which is to say, the taxpayers – is not a career-boosting resume item.
Nor is it a path to higher political office.
Bob,
Very well put, indeed!!!! I’ve been in contact through an ongoing Facebook discussion group with several people on this case and have had the privilege of reviewing Zakh’s most recent assessments & IEP. Holy cow, does this family have a case!!!!
The problem in large part is that the resources in Arkansas are incredibly limited, according to my sources. The State Dept of Ed has not even scratched the surface in terms of providing resources to the local school districts to comply. However, the local districts are ultimately accountable under the IDEA. My impression from reading what of the record I’ve seen so far is that the District, lacking the appropriate resources to serve this student in whatever setting represents the LRE based on his unique educational needs, is simply looking to dump him back into a residential placement just to get him out of their hair when the residential placement has already proven ineffective.
Further, it appears that the way they are achieving residential placement is not through the IEP process but rather through some convoluted Medicaid funding scheme that requires him to not be on an IEP in order to get the placement paid for. If they don’t get their pants sued off and/or subjected to harsh regulatory oversight, I’d be shocked and amazed.
Thank you for doing what you can. I’m sure the family much appreciates every effort being put forth on their behalf.
Anne
Has anyone contacted the family’s Congress representative and/or senator’s office?
They’re often very helpful in cutting through red tape in these situations, particularly when violations of federal law are involved.
Sara,
That’s a really good question/suggestion. Since writing this article, I’ve been in communication with Carole Reynolds, Zakh’s grandmother, and she indicated that she might be getting help from someone in Washington, DC, but I’m unclear on what that entails or how she got their attention. It’s a good suggestion if she hasn’t done this, already.
Anne
Hi,
I’m Zakh’s Grandma, Carole. We have a lot of interest, but no solid leads on a great atty. If they take Zakh away on the 12 Jan like they did almost exactly THREE years ago, how will I get him back?
The court FORBIDS us to homeschool him, and then puts him where he learns nothing. We have 3 yrs of records showing serious regression in those 3 years.
We are FORCED to put him in public school…and then they take him away!
While it’s cutting it close, there is still time to come up with a solution. This time of the year makes it particularly difficult to get in contact with people in general, but this is a holiday weekend right now, so it’s not like we can pick up the phone and start calling law offices. We’re going to have to wait until the first of next week, and even then we’re going to have to face the reality that people might not yet be back from holiday vacations. I know it’s hard, but we’re just going to have to be patient for a couple of days. Hang in there!!!!
http://autismwomensnetwork.org/forum/autistic-fifth-grade-boy-charged-felony
This family needs legal help right away…is the person who wrote this article able to help them? Can they find someone who can help if they can’t? This family can not afford to pay a disabilities lawyer. It shouldn’t be that this child should have to lose his chance at a life just because his family isn’t wealthy. If you would like to get in touch with Carole from the story in order to help them, please email me and I can give you her information.
embraceautism07@aol.com
Thank you,
Tricia
Tricia,
Carole contacted me directly through Facebook and we’ve been communicating throughout the day. It appears that a number of people have stepped in to help, so we have to be careful that we don’t have too many cooks in the kitchen as it were. We’re working on trying to find a qualified attorney for this family. THANKS!!!!
Anne
Actually, he’s on homebound receiving 4 hours a week of education.
I’m glad that someone wrote this story properly, I was having trouble pulling it all together. Thank you KPS4Parents. I’ll link into this one.
Marjorie,
You’re absolutely welcome! I’m glad to learn of your web site, http://www.eyecontactarkansas.org, as well.
Anne
Now that Zac is homeschooling, (I’ll assume legally) contact the Education Alliance in Little Rock and the homeschool legal defense association at http://www.hslda.org for legal help and advise.
Lynda,
Thanks!!!! I’m wondering if he’s actually receiving home/hospital instruction through his IEP versus actual homeschooling. That would make sense. I wish I had more facts, but I’m sure more will come to light over time. These are great resources you’ve provided to add to those we already knew about!!!
Anne