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23
Last May, I wrote about a set of Ohio parents – the Woods – who sought redress in the courts in order to compel a school district to provide certain services to their autistic child under the IDEA‘s IEP process. (The Plain Dealer published an article, then a letter to the editor and then another article within a week about how the Cleveland Bar Association wanted to levy fines against a different family for the unauthorized practice of law, because the parents had represented their autistic minor child in a court against a school district, as they tried to get the child’s needs met by the district. The Bar dropped that effort and more or less apologized, recognizing that it was the wrong approach.)
Today, the PD published this article that indicates support from the U.S. Solicitor General’s office, which provided an opinion to the Supreme Court of the US, for such parents to represent their minor children in such cases. SCOTUS had withheld deciding on whether to hear the case until the Solicitor’s office submitted its opinion.
The SCOTUSblog wrote about this development on Wednesday, four days ago. It provides this link to the Solicitor’s brief. How cool is that. It also provides links to numerous other important filings in the case.
From the PD article:
Lawyers for the federal government are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to let a Parma couple represent their autistic son in court to improve his education — a move that would open doors for parents of other disabled children.
Jeff and Sandee Winkelman asked the court last fall to overrule a federal appeals court ruling that only a lawyer could argue a case on behalf of their 9-year-old son, Jacob.
Appeals courts around the country disagree on whether parents have that right.
The Supreme Court held off deciding whether to hear the case until the U.S. solicitor general, the official lawyer for the federal government, could weigh in on the issue.
On Wednesday, the solicitor general’s office resoundingly backed the Winkelmans, asking the court to hear the case and to rule in the Winkelmans’ favor.
Special education laws so intertwine the interests of parents and children that separating them would be contrary to the law, the court filing said.
“Denial of a free appropriate public education adversely affects not just the child with a disability but also his or her family,” the brief states.
Jean-Claude Andre, the California lawyer who volunteered to help the family on the Supreme Court appeal, said he was ecstatic and thinks the court will likely hear the case, perhaps as soon as February or March.
“Now we just have to get five justices to agree with this,” Andre said.
I agree that the likelihood that SCOTUS will hear the case is very high. I also believe that it should side with the Solicitor and allow parents to represent their minor children with disabilities.
In cases involving enforcement of IDEA provisions, the parents have almost always already spent months if not years working through the administrative hearing process, during which time they become intimately familiar not just with their child’s needs as the law sees them, but with the law itself. What a ridiculous financial burden for them to then have to switch to paid legal counsel in order to enforce or continue to fight for rights. If there’s a question of incompetence on the part of the parents, that’s one thing. But in these cases, that’s not been the scenario.
Sadly, the Winkelmans and the Parma School District continue to argue over who should pay for the child’s education.
Though Sandee Winkelman said she was delighted to have the solicitor’s support, she noted that she is still fighting with the district over where Jacob will attend school this year. The parents want the district to pay for a private school, while the district wants to teach the child in-house.
Christina Peer, the Parma schools’ lawyer, said she is still studying the filing but expects the court to hear the case.
Of course, I have to ask: why didn’t the Cleveland paper of record not run this story until today? Guess there was just so much other news. At least there were only two articles in six days rather than four in five about everyone’s favorite unelected candidate for common pleas court. So I can’t blame it on that. Or her.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 11:03 pm September 23rd, 2006 in Politics
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2 Responses to “Follow-up: US Solicitor Gen. says Ohio parents can represent kids in court; SCOTUS likely to hear case”
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Shalom Jill,
As a tutor I’ve been involved with several parents and students in similar situations.
The school wants to pay for an in-home tutor at an annual cost of somewhere between $10,000 and $15,000.
The parents want their child in a full-time environment which can cost more than $50,000 per year.
This is a heart breaking ordeal for any parent. And I can easily understand how any school district faced with spending $50,000 on a single student when it has perhaps $5,000 budgeted per student in its district must feel intensely conflicted.
Throw in the stratospheric growth in the number of children with Autism and we have an educational crisis in the making.
Imagine a school district with 10,000 students and a annual budget of $5,000 per student. That’s $50 million. Now consider how many students with Autism as a cost of $50,000 per year it would take to wreck the school district’s budget.
This is a challenge that no individual school system, relying on property taxes, can deal with. This is yet another reason why Ohio and other states must reform the way it funds education.
B’shalom,
Jeff
Have Coffee Will Write
Thanks, Jeff. Yours is a wonderful comment. I do understand exactly what you’re describing. The system simply fails to be able to satisfy everyone, no matter what the expectations seem to be on each party’s part.