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Health & Fitness

OCR Complaint Win for WO Students

    PASSE would like to update all members and parents of WO students about a complaint we filed with the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) regarding our School District policy, procedures, and publications about Section 504, and written statements by Interim Superintendent O'Neill addressing some issues of services that some students are entitled under 504 plans.

    The OCR found merit in all five of the points we made to them and the district has entered into a resolution agreement to make amends.  While we do not like to file complaints, I (Sue) am very proud of Alex's efforts and research of the law, district policies, procedures and publications which has helped to preserve the legal rights of students in the district and will better guidance to the staff and much-needed training on Section 504 through the terms of the resolution agreement the district has entered into with the OCR.

    Section 504 is a part of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 that prohibits discrimination based upon disability--it is an anti-discrimination, civil rights statute that requires the needs of students with disabilities to be met as adequately as the needs of the non-disabled are met. Unlike IEPs, where students must qualify for special educations services, Section 504 protects people with any disability that affects a "major life function"
For example: diabetes, allergies, ADHD, Dyslexia, Aprasia, graphomotor problems, physical impairments or illnesses (short/long term) among other hidden disabilities.

    Previously, the Director of Student Support Services served as Director as well as the “District 504 Coordinator.” Principals of each school usually served on the 504 committee, but all staff/administrators could go to the Director Of Student Support Services for advice, questions and guidance, and when plans were complicated or a student might be transitioning from one school to another, the Director would take charge of those 504 plans and serve on that 504 committee.
 
    After the previous Director passed away, the district happened to hire a new Director of Guidance around the same time, and since 504 plans are in fact General Ed accommodations, the rationale was that 504s belonged under Guidance, not Support Services.

    However, while the superintendent and BOE at the time spoke of 504 plans being "under Guidance" it soon became clear that Ms. Butler, the new head of Guidance, was the district 504's Compliance Officer, NOT the district 504 Coordinator. As both Alex and I pointed out at the time, this left a void for staff that were used to having someone to go to for guidance on how to comply with Section 504, because Ms. Butler's role was to deal with 504 complaints, not to guide staff as had previously been the role of the 504 Coordinator.  As a result, Alex advocated for guidelines and a manual as well as training to be provided for the building staff that were now in charge of complying with Section 504 and creating plans without the guidance they previously got from the District 504 Coordinator--because most of the building 504 coordinators at that time were newly appointed and unfamiliar with the law, safeguards, procedures, policy and best practices.  

    Some, for example, erroneously thought that all students who got 504 plans first had to go through I&RS (Intervention and Referral Service), an informal plan to cope with temporary difficulties a student may be having--an infamous example (mentioned to the BOE and superintendent) was when a visually impaired child needed a 504 plan to accommodate their obvious disability and the principal wanted to first send the child to the I&RS committee!

    Ms. Butler promised a 504 manual for November 2011, with training to come afterwards.  The manual came in late Spring of 2102, and as Alex pointed out at the time, it had some issues, mostly because it was a collection of copy-and-paste from websites which created inconsistencies and contradictions.  Throughout last spring and summer, confusion at many schools continued with regard to 504 plans, and we both spoke at BOE meetings and by email about the need for a District 504 Coordinator, with me pointing out that it was not Ms. Butler's fault that she was not fulfilling the role of coordinator, because it was, after all, not her job.   BOE members finally seemed to understand and agree with this idea of a District 504 Coordinator.  Shortly after that meeting, however, West Orange changed superintendents.

    After Mr. O'Neill started a couple months later, Ms. Butler was appointed the "504 compliance coordinator."  I asked at the BOE meeting where this appointment was being voted on if this new title was a hybrid role, or the same as the old role, or a typo.  Mr. O'Neill stated that he felt that our concerns about 504 titles were not substantive, and went on to explain an appeal process that did not follow what was in the district's own policies, procedures or the current 504 manual.
    

    After that meeting, Alex and I tried to clarify his statements by email and point out the differing information in the various 504 materials, with Alex carefully citing and quoting the law, the manual, etc.  As the email conversation went on, Mr. O'Neill made further statements that ran contrary to the law, including declaring that students with 504 plans may not have any special educational services in their plans, and that any that did have services in their 504 plans would have those "errors" "corrected"- (quote from his statement):

"Over the course of time through either the protests of parents, recommendations from experts external to the school district or aggressive advocates who profess a knowledge of the law they do not have there have been significant errors made specifically in some of the recommendations from IR&S
 meetings and included in 504 plans.  These errors have, on a number of occasions resulted in the district providing services to general ed students which should only be provided to classified students.  We plan to correct these errors and insist students be evaluated by the Child Study Team and only given those services when recommended by the CST."

    The part in bold was clearly a swipe at Alex, who had attended forty-three  504 meetings in the past year and who had just provided the interim superintendent with a detailed email, quoting the law which he failed to acknowledge (or, perhaps, to understand?)  Instead, he merely made a gratuitous insult and then went on to say something blatantly illegal and incorrect.  The law makes it quite clear that students who do not qualify for special education services under IDEA (which governs IEPs) may still qualify for special education services under Section 504.  It's in the law!

    Having failed, after over a year, to get corrections to the manual, helpful and accurate published material for parents and staff, training/professional development for staff/administrators, or a district 504 coordinator, and with the superintendent only adding to the confusion with statements that ran contrary to the law and which threatened the services of students, we finally felt we had no choice but to file a complaint with the OCR, and we did.

    Of five points we made to the OCR, they found basis for all of them, though the superintendent entered into a "voluntary resolution agreement" before the investigation was complete.  This agreement requires adjustments/amendments to the various publications and forms, the appointment of someone outside the district to handle 504 appeals (Compliance Officer), training for staff, etc.  Should any of the points in the agreement not be met by the deadlines, then the OCR investigation will re-open.  And yes, this means that not only did Alex have "knowledge of the law," but she had better knowledge of it than the superintendent, who chose to insult informed parents instead of working cooperatively with them, and who even sent out memos to staff advising them incorrectly on the law with regard to Section 504!  (Ironically, that memo helped make the case against him, since the email he had sent to us was not sufficient to prove the point of discrimination by removal of services unless there was evidence he was carrying through on his statement--the memo to staff provided that evidence.)

    It seems that the BOE might not have been aware of the OCR investigation/findings until I spoke to the BOE at the last meeting. At that meeting I pointed out that in the future, it would be simpler and better for all if the Administration, BOE, and parent groups like PASSE could work cooperatively to comply with the law without complaints to outside agencies, as has been done in the past.  We have ALWAYS reached out to the district first to resolve issues "in-house" in a cooperative manner.  We hope that going forward this will once again be the case.

    If anyone has any questions on this complaint, 504s, or anything else, whatever it is, please contact us at execboard@wopasse.org.




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