Welcome Aboard

At our November meeting, Promise Foundation members welcomed a new family to the group as participants in our oral history project, Patchwork Promises.
The immediate connections, and common need to "tell the story", were obvious. For me, it was also clear validation that we are on the right track with our plans for an oral history project.

The next, and very important, step in the process will be submission of our application for a mini-grant from the Ohio Humanities Council. The next "formal" meeting of the group is scheduled for Saturday, January 8, 2011. Same time, same place.
In addition, if possible given holiday scheduals, a meeting of the project committee will be attempted in December to discuss the proposal and review the grant requirements.

We should also discuss how to maintain and operate this "blog spot" to best meet our needs and project objectives. Any suggestions, directions, comments, ideas, etc. will be most welcome.

Autism fund pays despite concerns

Autism fund pays despite concerns

Just to be Clear

Apparently, even a post that is deleted and/or edited, will appear to "followers" of a blog. Therefore, please disregard previous post, as it was sent in the wrong direction in an attempt to show someone how to post something -- supposed to have been a demonstration of how to set up and post to a blogspot. Acutally, turned out to be a rather good example of how not to do it.

In other news, Promise Foundation Board meeting postponed until October 9th.

Helicopter Parents & Kevlar Educators

The following comment is quote in an introduction to the EdJurist website at http://www.edjurist.com


"For educators and their attorneys to have the requisite information and knowledge, there is a need to define a new class of educators and a new class of lawyers, each attuned to the contextual reality of the other's discipline. Such a new class will establish law-informed educators and leaders who can act preventively to avoid or minimize legal entanglements and proactively to influence both litigation strategy and government policy. Such a class will also establish education-informed lawyers, apprised of both school practices and important educational research and policies, who can work collaboratively and preventively with their clients. " Sarah Redfield, The Convergence of Education and Law: A New Class of Educators and Lawyers, 36 Ind. L. Rev. 609 (2003) (Emphasis added.)

The Blame Game

Review and a Few Comments on:
Parents, Their Lawyer and an IEP: Teachers Can Survive When Parents Aren't Afraid to Take Legal Action Kellie Hayden 2007.

Kellie Hayden, Ohio educator and freelance journalist, advises teachers about how to cope with "aggressive parents" and/or "helicopter parents", who can make life stressful for teachers by keeping a "lawyer on speed dial".
Hayden's guidelines to assist teachers prepare for a "legal-action-free" school year include (1) being sure to read child's the IEP, (2) contacting the child's former teacher(s) who may be able to "offer tips on how to deal [with] the parents", and (3) becoming familiar with the Individuals w/ Disabilities Act. [Emphasis added]
The Hayden article, published on suite101.com, is no longer available at that website, as it was removed about a day after I posted a response on behalf of the Promise Foundation. Nevertheless, a cached version of the entire column can still be found at http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:W5nf2Y7bEkYJ:educationalissues.suite101.com/article.cfm/parents_their_lawyer_and_an_iep+special+education+avoid+litigation&cd=31&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Promise Foundation's Response

Good advice, but . . . What about the student without a "helicopter parent" and/or the benefit of legal counsel?
Shouldn't the goal be to provide a free, appropriate, public education...as opposed to simply avoiding litigation?
Why is it necessary to feel sufficiently threatened before becoming motivated to do what needs to be done? All of this is very good advice, e.g. to "read" and understand the IEP "before the school year begins", and then to actually "follow the IEP" and "document, document, document". It is unfortunate when school officials justify a defensive posture as a starting point and necessary response to aggressive parents and the threat of being sued.
I suspect the increase in the number of "helicopter parents" may be due to a corresponding increase in the number of "Kevlar" educators and a siege mentality that has become far too common among school administrators.

Patchwork Project

August 2010
As The School Year Approaches

The Patchwork Project plans to follow a number of children with disabilities throughout the 2010 – 2011 school year, with a focus on the experience of special education for the child with a disability from the perspective of families and family systems.

What is the state of special education today in northwest Ohio? How do things stand now, thirty-five years after federal law first afforded disabled children the right to attend public school at all, and twenty years after the 1990 passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (I.D.E.A.).

Our focus of attention with each of the families participating in the Patchwork Project is twofold. First, how are special education services being provided in various local school districts, particularly in terms of developing and implementing individual educational plans (IEP’s) for children with disabilities. Equally important, we are interested in assessing the degree to which parents are being afforded meaningful participation in the educational planning and decision making for their children.

Real names and personal identifiers of individuals and school districts will either be redacted or changed in all of the posted Patchwork Project narratives, reports, or exhibits. No actual names of individuals or entities will be identified until an as yet undetermined time following the end of the 2010 – 2011 school year.

2010 Perspective on the Anniversary of the ADA and the I.D.E.A.

Since the first American public school was founded in Boston in 1663, this nation has recognized and respected the educational rights of children.

Nevertheless, it took well over three hundred (300) years before American law extended similar educational rights to children with disabilities.
Within our own generation, various state laws designed to exclude disabled children from public schools were abrogated by federal courts in 1972. Then, in 1975, the Education for Handicapped Children Act (EHCA) established the right of all children with disabilities to receive a free public school education in an integrated environment.
In 1990, the same year the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) became law, the EHCA was amended and renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

On the 35th Anniversary of the EHCA and 20th Anniversary of the IDEA, I celebrate the gains made. I must also observe, however, that the battle continues and remains an almost a day-by-day struggle to enforce the law and protect the educational rights promised to children with disabilities.

Broken Promises

FACT: Ohio has 1,839,683 public school students, of whom 246,605 receive special education services (13.4%) and
FACT: Ohio will receive $437,736,052 in IDEA Part B funds under the Recovery Act. These funds are in addition to the $435,055,616 the state will also receive as its regular FY09 IDEA Part B federal allotment. All Recovery Act funds must be spent by Sept. 30, 2011.
http://ideamoneywatch.com/states/oh/?page_id=2

Changes made to Ohio law in 2009, purportedly to provide school districts with more “flexibility”, now permit districts to divert money intended for the education of children with disabilities into other general education and district purposes. As Jennifer Smith Richard, Columbus Dispatch (January 2010), observed:

Ohio school districts are spending money meant for disabled students to stabilize their shaky budgets, and the state has made it easier for them to do so. Statewide, schools are receiving an extra $438 million in federal stimulus money just for special education. For most districts, the influx has doubled the federal dollars they received for special education.. . . vulnerable students are being cheated as the money is redirected, and . . . Ohio has taken the most extreme approach of any state that has paved the way for schools to use the money elsewhere. [Now] Districts don't have to meet the federal progress goal to divert funds anymore, nor do they have to prove that special-needs students are being educated in the "least restrictive environment," which often means in regular classrooms. (Emphasis added)
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/01/24/specialmoney.html?sid=101

For years we have heard perennial complaints about special education being a drain on resources needed to educate typical students. Now it seems, with stimulus funds dramatically increasing special education funding, the Department of Education and school districts in Ohio have discovered and/or devised a way to tap into the resources intended to fulfill the promise of the IDEA to children with disabilities. Economic stimulus funding, in most cases, practically doubles the regular FY 2010 allocation of IDEA Part-B funds for special education. It is no accident that recent legal maneuvering and tweaking of the ODE rules and regulations has now opened the door for practically every school district in the state of Ohio to redirect at least half of their stimulus funds from special education to meet other needs in regular education or the general fund.
What kind of money are we talking about? In Northwest Ohio, for example, the numbers look like this:
District IRN District Name Total IDEA Part-B ARRA Allocation + Non-public Proportionate Share + Regular FY10 IDEA Allocation
048207 Anthony Wayne Local SD $ 882,340.46 $751,451.15
047589 Liberty Center Local SD $ 235,254.78 $205,026.16
044909 Toledo City SD $ 8,694,671.86 $ 40,366.87 $7,660,222.48
044602 Oregon City SD $ 828,082.06 $724,726.60
046813 Perkins Local SD $ 490,877.19 $433,936.16
045583 Perrysburg Ex.Village SD $ 889,435.66 $ 15,535.99 $765,851.49
044743 Sandusky City SD $ 1,066,085.11 $ 65,700.59 $947,359.09
050690 Lake Local SD $351,040.46 $3,250.37 $303,712.09
048215 Ottawa Hills Local SD $ 248,460.08 $ 91,058.21 $212,894.52
048231 Washington Local SD $ 1,684,576.88 $ 276,014.23 $1,465,072.83
049577 Woodmore Local Local SD $ 276,014.23 $241,417.32
044875 Sylvania City SD $ 1,829,924.43 $ 121,759.68 $1,610,744.77

A Bad Case of Widgets

A funny thing happened on my way back into this blog. I couldn't get into it because of some kinda malicious cyber-link that kept sending me off to other places, at least one of which I think was a Japanese anime site. At any rate, I was definitely not in Kansas anymore.

So... after much frustration, I finally resorted to looking for instructions and reading a few directions. For someone who likes to figure things out independently (read: stubborn) these are indeed desperate measures. But it turns out there are, apparently, all kinds of places out there in cyberville where people post questions and receive answers, some of which are helpful, many that aren't. Thus, in a way, I could sill explore finding the fix on my own. One thing I did discover almost immediately is that this problem is not unique.

Although no one seems to know exactly why it happens, apparently it does happen occasionally. And not just to me. The experience is not unlike walking along a familiar trail, when POOOF, you're suddenly somewhere else in an unfamiliar universe.

The problem? As it turns out, it was widgets. Normally benign, it seems I had one rogue widget causing all of this distress. A pesky widget called the "realtime hit counter", which as you may notice is not longer present on the blogspot.
Of course, getting rid of this nasty little widget was far from easy and, as you may have noticed, required the sacrifice of most of our formatting and other bells & whistles as well. That darn counter widget fought like crazy to avoid being whacked with my edit button, and at one point even deactivated its own edit button. Ultimately and unfortunately, I was forced to delete all widgets and return to default formatting.

I suspect there is some kind of lesson in all of this.

Board Topics

On Saturday, February 20th, we met for our Promise Board Meeting at our home base in Sandusky. The meeting included reports, discussion on the issues, and updates on technical progress.
Topics included:
An afternoon colloquium at U.T.:

Providing Care for Children with Disabilities in NW Ohio: the Engler Family and the Development of the Sunshine Children’s Home, 1950-1964” Samuel Di Rocco II

Kathleen discussed some interesting things she learned from that presentation about the early history of the Sunshine Childrens' Home in Maumee. Among other things, she informed us that the Sunshine Childrens' Home is no more. It has now become the "Sunshine Foundation, Inc.".
We also discussed how some things have changed, and other things haven't, with respect to the struggle of parents attempting to care for their special needs children and to find adequate resources to do so. We are particularly interested in looking at the process by which many of the larger organizations of today grew from the roots of families, like the Englers, who did what they did and learned to care for their special needs children because there was no one else who could or would.

Other topics presented and/or discussed at the meeting will be elaborated upon in following posts, but include:
--Status of Research on Special Education due process cases in NW Ohio;
--The Catching Stories Oral History Institute being offered at Kenyon College in June, about which absolutely everyone expressed serious interest. Kathleen will follow up and request an application(s).
--The recent webcam case involving invasion of privacy by a suburban Philadelphia school district. This "just breaking" story hit a nerve with many of us,because it underscored existing anxieties and distrust that has become almost inescapable in relationships between parents and school districts.
--Need for MUCH more work establishing a working blogspot and learning how to get maximum benefit from it with respect to the story collecting project. Kathleen, Angie, and Carol will meet on March 2nd, to work exclusively on technical and blog issues. One thing we all agreed on, however, is that there is still a lot to learn about how to do this blog-thang.

A Connection

So. It's been awhile, and sometimes it takes me a little longer to get things done than others. Previously I suggested we would post some information and/or data from the Department of Educations' public records.
I had also mentioned and posted a link, I think, w/ respect to Susan Schweik's book, The Ugly Laws, N.Y. University Press, 2009.
Another time, I vented about health care and health care insurance.

Since then, I did conduct some research into special education due process cases and the decisions of DOE appointed hearing officers. I was not particularly surprised by what I found, but was rather overwhelmed by how much I discovered. So far, I've entered the data into an Excel workbook, and did some preliminary comparisons with charts & graphs. Putting it all together is something that will take more time than I realized.

Maybe, however, there's something to be learned here. A thread connecting individual experience (in this case, with special education and health care insurance) with the gatekeepers entrusted to distribute resourses and provide what is needed.
Some school districts seem more willing to spend significant amounts of money to oppose parents trying to get services for their children, than it would cost to provide the services which they consider unnecessary. A common concern, often implied but left unspoken, is that special education is a "drain" to the general population-- that providng special education to a child with a disability must be "at the expense" of their more deserving peers.

Why is opposition to providing services, including education, to persons with disabilities so pervasive, so vehement? In the big picture, how far has our community come in 2010?

Susan Schweik wrote, regarding the history of disability in the United States between 1867 and 1920:

Ugly law was begging law, although contemporary American disability activism did not know this. Unsightliness was a status offense, illegal only for people without means.

Think about it.

Questionable Practices

Smell anything fishy here..................?


The LURE

In the course of business, I needed a certain standard form. I could do it from scratch, like a homemade cake, or get the form ready-made. As luck would have it, just about then I noticed a link, to a website ..... offering . . . “free legal forms”.
Perfect. Download the form from Rocket Lawyer.com and save myself some time and money. After locating the exact form I want, and entering my name and email address . . .

The BAIT

Whoa. There’s more. Seems Rocket Lawyer.com is offering me a whole month of access, absolutely free. Must be my lucky day.


The HOOK

Next screen prompts me to enter all my credit card information.

So, I’m wondering, why does Rocket Lawyer.com need that kind of information to give me something free? Well, as it turns out, that question has been “frequently asked”, wouldn’t you know, and the answer was right there in the FAQ section at Rocket Lawyer.com. This is what I learned.


The BARB

Yes, the offer is true. Free forms for a whole month. No catch. However. However, at the end of the completely absolutely free month, the same access is available as a subscription…..and can be purchased, after the free month, at a very reasonable subscription rate. No pressure and I can opt out without penalty. In fact, it seems Rocket Lawyer.com won’t actually be using my credit card at all. They only need the information for security. Not only that, but I guess it saves time and avoids the hassle of filling out forms later.

LINE & SINKER

Oh, one more thing. The FAQ information did mention that if something happens to appear on the credit card statement—not to worry. In that unlikely event, it’s just something posted as a “pending” charge. Just in case I accept the offer, I suppose.

Questions to ponder for next week......

Between 2001 and the present.....

1. How many impartial due process cases do you think were decided in Northwest Ohio?

2. What would you estimate to be the ratio between the number of decisions
favoring parents and the number favoring school districts?


Hint:
http://webapp2.ode.state.oh.us/exceptional_children/p

History Happens

Howard Zinn, 1922 - 2010

Howard Zinn, unorthodox historian and author of A People's History of the United States, died yesterday.
Zinn's perspective on history made the majority of his peers uncomfortable because it challenged conventional thinking, assumptions, and conclusions.
Significantly, Zinn believed in "the eloquence of ordinary people" and sought to "bring to light little known voices from U.S. history".
http://howardzinn.org/

A People's History of the United States Harper & Row; HarperCollins, 1980 (1st ed.) 2003 (more recent ed.)

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
Isaac Newton (1642 - 1727), Letter to Robert Hooke, February 5, 1675

It Got Me Thinking.....

I've been thinking about __G.'s story, where a school district proposed transporting the elementary school student to and from school in a mail truck ...
G's story illustrates two important things, at least.
First, this child was never actually required to travel between home and school like parcel post, because her parents (1) were able to obtain qualified legal representation, and (2) filed an administrative complaint and prevailed in an "impartial due process hearing" [here is where I'd like to insert a link referencing Special Education law & regulations]
The second important point to her story is that it illustrates the viseral nature of community attitudes and embeded biases with respect to disability. In other words, makes you wonder just how much so-called progress and enlightment reflects simply a growing sophistication, the trend to cloak discriminatory intent with inclusionary rehetoric, and the abiltiy to get away with substituting "appearance" for substance when it comes to real tolerance, acceptance, and equality.

Oh, and justice.

Suggested Reading:

The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public
Susan Schweik, New York University Press, New Your and London www.nyupress.org (c) 2009

In 1881, the Chicago City Code read, "Any person who is diseased,
maimed, mutilated, or in any way deformed... shall not... expose himself to public view." These "ugly laws" began in San Francisco in 1867, then spread through the U.S. and abroad; many in the U.S. weren't repealed until the 1970s.
http://www.nyupress.org/

Hit & Miss : Trial & Error

By default, I suppose I have become the systems administrator or blog moderator, assuming I’m using those terms properly, for purposes of Project Promise and/or the Promise Foundation.

Please bear with me, as I try to get a handle on all this. It’s very new territory for me, and I remain a bit intimidated especially when encountering “net-talk”….i.e. URL, hhtp//, java script (which, apparently has nothing to do with coffee).
BYW, Angie, thanks for the feedback and encouragement. Can’t wait till you’re actually a follower too.

One thing I am still not getting is ….links & how to write and use them, which is important because we will want to reference other sites and information.
AND, please tell me, what exactly does …>,a href=””> < /a > < blockquote> mean, anyway?

Maybe we need to think about finding a little assistance with this kind of thing.

A Little About Formats
The Promise Foundation now has a Facebook “page” and a “blogspot”. I am unsure about the older website, and how that plays into all of this.
Although I managed to include the Promise Facebook page in my own groups, I remain unsure about how to proceed from there. One thing I do like about the Facebook page, is that it provides discrete sections, i.e. the “Wall”, “info”, “boxes”, notes and the ability to add new tabs, but I am still exploring how they might be used for purposes of the Promise Foundation, as discussed earlier this month at the Kurtz Enclave.

The blogspot looks promising too, but I am really struggling to understand the underlying systems. It does appear that when I post something on the blog, like this here….
a copy of it is sent to my own email. But, I wonder if that applies to all followers?
In the meantime, I think it’s important to kept inching forward, and
describing the Promise Foundation—it’s mission, vision, goals & projects—
for others as well as for ourselves.

Looking ahead

Here we will begin to describe & rough out some of the "stories" that we want to share-- the stories that someone really needs to tell. For example:
In the "Sometimes, they just don't get it Department" >School District proposes to transport Downs Syndrome student to school in the mail truck, to eliminate need for her to travel on regular school bus with peers.

In the PWD/nos >Josephine Zraik had no physical limitations, fit and intellectually sharp, yet was devestated by "disability" throughout her life. First, when her youngest daughter, Christine, was removed over protest from her home and family by "the state" and sent to "Orient", an institution for the severely imparied. Josephine often spoke about the day a county worker finalized the placement for Christine and cautioned her mother not to think of Christine "as your daughter anymore".
>Subsequent stories about Christine are much more upbeat. One is about a trip to Columbus to buy her shoes, when she refused to try on anything but red shoes in the most expensive department store in town. Which, naturally, her mother gave in and purchased for her.
>The second "disability" wave hit Josephine when her adult son was blinded in a workplace accident. After breaking the news to Josephine, the doctor then designated her as the one to tell her son he would never see again. >>

PWD/nos

LINKS

Aspergers Diary : Lynn Soraya
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/aspergers-diary

After Dinner Recollections

Sitting around the table, following a wonderful meal at the home of Dan & Angie Kurtz, we got to talking about the mission and vision of the Promise Foundation. During the conversation, Dick Smith shared a poignant memory with us.

“You know, I still remember her name today”, he told us, recalling one particular classmate from his elementary school days-- from more than a few years ago.
But even today, he remembers the name of one little girl from his class.

“She was . . . well, you know, different”, he remembers.

He also recalls that "after awhile, she just stopped coming to school”.

In those days, “developmental disability” was an unfamiliar, if not unknown, term of art.

Dick continued to relate how, back in the old days, his classroom had desks with flip-top lids that seated two students side-by-side. (Don’t know if they had inkwells, I should ask.)

He recalls that he and the "other boys” would, occassionally, get a little rowdy or, once or twice, actually misbehaved. He remembered the teacher yelling at them, demanding acceptable behavior and an end to their juvenile insubordination. And, in the most extreme circumstances, with no other recourse, their teacher would eventually get around to threatening the very WORST punishment of all-- care to guess what it was?

For really major felons, this teacher and authority in loco parentis would force the culprit to occupy a desk sitting next to their one developmentally disabled classmate; the girl whose name Dick Smith still remembers today, the girl who eventually just stopped coming to school.

Each journey begins with the first step....

Saturday. January 8th 2010

Angie Kurtz, Dan Kurtz, and Dick and Carol Smith, founding members of the Promise Foundation Sandusky ("PFS"), meet with Tom and Kathleen Zraik (of the Zraik Law Office) to discuss the Foundation's mission, history, and possible future direction.