Legal Rights of Children with Epilepsy in School & Child Care

Administration of Emergency Antiepileptic Medication in Schools
district special education director have told Marcus’s mother that they will not provide a
nurse or health aide to accompany Marcus on the trip because school district nurses do
not work on weekends and it would be too expensive to contract with a private duty nurse
to work on the weekend. They will not provide a health aide out of deference to the
school nurse. They have told Marcus’s mother that he may attend the trip only if she
accompanies him so that she may administer Marcus’s medication if he needs it. Marcus
does not want his mother to go on the trip with him, nor does his mother think it is
appropriate for the school to require her to attend as a condition of his attendance. She
seeks legal assistance.
Discussion and Possible Legal Strategy: This is a school-sponsored trip. Section 504
requires the district to have a person attend the trip with Marcus and administer his
emergency medication if necessary. Since Marcus’s Section 504 plan permits the person
to be a nurse or other qualified person, the district could choose to send an unlicensed
health aide; the fact that he has a nurse rather than a health aide is only because the nurse
refuses to delegate the task, not because he needs a nurse. The district has chosen to incur
the added expense of a nurse and cannot rely on this decision as the basis of its refusal to
assign a nurse to go on a weekend school-sponsored field trip with him. The following
strategy may be helpful:
1) Contact the special education director directly. Explain how refusing to provide a
nurse or health aide is a Section 504 violation.
2) If unsuccessful, contact the Section 504 coordinator for the school district.
3) If unsuccessful, contact the Section 504 coordinator for the state department of
education.
4) If unsuccessful, depending on the timeframe, file a complaint with the Office for
Civil Rights or file a complaint for a temporary restraining order in court.
Case Scenario 3 — 911 Call
Deena is a nine-year-old student with epilepsy and multiple developmental disabilities.
She attends Harmony Heights Center, a separate school for students with disabilities.
Harmony Heights has two nurses on staff, and many of the students at the school have
epilepsy and experience seizures at school. Deena’s IEP contains a number of health
services, including gastrostomy tube feeds, suctioning, positioning changes, medication
administration, and administration of emergency antiepileptic medication for prolonged
seizures or clusters of seizures. Deena tends to have seizures every day and requires this
medication about once a week. Harmony Heights insists on calling 911 every time the
medication is administered, saying that this is school district policy. In order to avoid
unnecessary trips to the emergency room, Deena’s mother, who is a single parent, must
immediately rush to the school to meet the paramedics and sign paperwork refusing
transport of Deena from school to the emergency room. Past visits to the emergency
room have been traumatic for Deena, as she does not respond well to loud sounds and
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