Ohio’s long
standing lawsuit regarding the free, appropriate, public education (FAPE) of
children with disabilities ages three through twenty-one has received a partial
settlement agreement today, October 20, 2009.
This suit
is in the Federal District Court, Judge Holschuh presiding.
It is known as John Doe v. State of Ohio.
The lawsuit has two parts.
The first part is a challenge to the way Ohio funds special education and
related services.
The second
part is a challenge to the Ohio Department of Education’s (ODE) procedures for
implementing the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
This
lawsuit was brought by parents of students with disabilities in Ohio who want
their children to receive FAPE. The
second part of the suit is the subject of the partial settlement, the challenges
to Ohio’s procedures for implementing IDEA.
The
challenges raise four matters:
1.
The way ODE
monitors local school districts and other agencies compliance with the IDEA.
2.
The way ODE
handles school districts’ requests for waivers of state standards controlling
the delivery of special education services.
3.
The way ODE
operates its system for handling complaints about special education matters.
4.
The way ODE
corrects school districts’ failure to comply with the IDEA.
For over a
year, the parties have been negotiating an agreement for a partial settlement
which resolves the claims about the way ODE implements the federal law, IDEA.
The parties have written the agreement in a document called a “Consent
Order”. The judge, in a hearing
held on October 20, 2009, declared the “Consent Order” final, with regard
to the issues above.
The Consent
Order requires ODE to identify and correct violations of federal and state
special education law. Since this
case was a class action, it applies to all children in Ohio who are receiving or
who should be receiving special education and related services.
The final order requires:
1.
ODE to
provide public involvement and access to information regarding its IDEA
monitoring systems. Local school
districts must post for public review local districts’ performance and hold open
meetings to hear concerns.
2.
ODE must
provide protections and additional oversight when a waiver to the state
requirements for class size are requested by schools.
Parents in the district whose children would be affected by allowing the
rules on class size, case load and other factors, must now be given notice of
requests for such waivers before ODE can decide to give the waiver.
Waivers cannot deny FAPE to affected students.
3.
ODE must
provide additional notice to parents/guardians of the complaint process and
advocacy resources when a parent files a state level complaint.
ODE is required to conduct a more thorough investigation of complaints
which challenge the delivery of FAPE, or a school’s failure to implement due
process hearings or state level review decisions, and the inappropriate use of
restraints or seclusion. ODE must
correct violations of the law in a timely manner.
4.
ODE must
enforce complaint timelines and mediation cannot delay these timelines.
5.
ODE must
enforce state and federal standards and require a district to correct failures
within one year. Penalties may be
applied for failure to correct.
This
decision is final and the Consent Order is in effect and lasts for 2 years.
Please
visit
www.olrs.ohio.gov/
to read the Order.
(The above link is currently undergoing maintenance, so you may have to try again later to read it.)