Legal Rights of Children with Epilepsy in School & Child Care

Legal Rights of Children with Epilepsy in School and Child Care
1) Request another IEP meeting at which an attorney/advocate can be present along
with Manny’s parents. If there is relevant case law from the circuit in which
Manny’s family lives, bring it to the meeting, or at least be familiar with the
standard applied to extended school year services. Manny’s seizures cause
significant regression and very slow recoupment even when he is getting services.
It seems likely that without services, any progress he is likely to make during the
year would grind to a halt because he will spend all of his time trying to get back
to where he was when school ended. If Manny has any outside therapists or
service providers who can speak about this issue, they should provide something
in writing to present to the IEP team. If possible, find a school-based therapist
who agrees and who will be able to attend the meeting. Have specific plan
regarding the amount and type of services Manny will need during the summer in
order to make continued educational progress during the school year. If Manny
needs more than four weeks of services, it is possible to build an appropriate
program around the four-week program offered by the school district by adding
individualized services before and after the district’s program.
2) Point out to the team that, in addition to significant issues of regression and
recoupment, there are a number of factors weighing in support of extended school
year services for Manny: his multiple disabilities make his progress slow, his
hospitalizations and changes in seizure medications are special circumstances that
have an impact on his ability to benefit from his education, and his multiple
disabilities combine to make him a person with severe disabilities.
3) Counter the team’s “plateau” argument by asking for all of the records,
evaluations and other information the team members are relying on to establish
their position that Manny will not make any further progress. This is consistent
with the prior written notice requirements of the IDEA regulations. 34 C.F.R.
300.503. 38 Do they mean no further progress educationally? In physical therapy?
Occupational therapy? Speech? All areas? It is unlikely that the team has
evaluations or data to justify its position that Manny has reached a plateau in
every area of his education, and it runs completely counter to the fundamental
idea of the IDEA that all children are capable of making educational progress.
Pushing the team members will likely get them to back down.
4) Request a due process hearing if necessary.
38 Under the prior written notice requirement of the IDEA regulations, the school district is required to give
notice to parents a reasonable amount of time before the agency changes the identification, evaluation, or
educational placement of their child or the provision of a free appropriate public education to the child, or
refuses to take such actions. The notice must include “A description of the action proposed or refused,”
along with “an explanation of why the agency proposes or refuses to take the action” and “a description of
each evaluation procedure, assessment, record, or report the agency used as a basis for the proposed or
refused action.” 34 C.F.R. 300.503(b)(1), (2) and (3). The notice must also include: a statement about the
parents’ procedural safeguards, sources for the parents to contact for assistance to understand the provisions
of this requirement, a description of other options the agency considered and the reasons they were
rejected, and a description of other relevant factors. 34 C.F.R. 300.503(b)(4)-(7).
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