• IEP Parent Workshop – October 7, 2015 IEP Parent Workshop – October 7, 2015

    IEP Parent Workshop – October 7, 2015

IEP Parent Workshop – October 7, 2015

Parent Workshop:   Your Child, the Special Education Process, Law and Strategy and How to Effectively Advocate for your Child   Save the Date: Wednesday, October 7, 2015 7pm-9pm Mill Valley Recreation Center Mountain View Room 180 Camino Alto Mill Valley, CA Lawrence Siegel Esq. and Patricia Black, Esq., leading special education attorneys will present a 2 hour workshop/exchange, providing families with children with special educations an easily understood analysis of special law, how to navigate the special education process and what strategies to employ to insure you child receives an education that meets her or his very unique needs. Larry and Trish have represented children with all types of challenges, including children with a hearing or vision loss, children with autism, children with emotional, physical and learning difficulties and children with brain injuries and developmental delays. They have a combined 40 years of experience, have published in the field, teach special education in law school and have been recognized nationally and internationally for their work. The workshop will include a power point presentation and a question and answer session. Location: Mill Valley Recreation Center The Mountain View Room 180 Camino Alto Mill Valley, CA   Time: 7-9 pm There will be a $30/family charge to cover rental and other expenses. Please RSVP to pblack@childlawgroup.com as soon as possible or by September 25, 2015  
By |September 8th, 2015|News/Events|0 Comments
  • Special Education Lawyers
    School Districts and Non-Public Schools School Districts and Non-Public Schools

    School Districts and Non-Public Schools

School Districts and Non-Public Schools

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act provide an individualized program that meets the “unique” needs of your child. The program must fit your child, not the other way around. Therefore if your LEA does not have an appropriate program/class/school for your child it has a duty to find a non-public school that does meet his/her needs and pay for that placement, including all support services and transportation. If you believe the LEA does not have an appropriate program you must be able to prove several things: 1) specifically what your child’s needs are and why the program offered by the LEA will not meet those needs and 2) why the non-public school will meet those needs. Central to proving that case will be to have a very specific list of your child’s needs, including kind of class, size and make-up of the class, staff requirements, class strategies and curriculum and other issues that are unique to your child. For example a child’s disability may mean that s/he has a difficult time on a large campus or needs a very quiet, small classroom without distractions, noise, etc. Or a child may need a very specific educational environment/milieu – a small school exclusively focused on say children with autism or children with psychological challenges. Finally once you have a clear sense of what your child needs you will need to compare that with what the LEA is offering – two lists of the kind of information mentioned in the previous paragraph. The greater the differences the stronger you cases for a non-public school placement.
  • Related Services Related Services

    Related Services

Related Services

Under the IDEA (http://idea.ed.gov/) a child who is found eligible may receive special education and related services designed to meet his/her unique needs and prepare them for employment and independent living. While special education services focus on specifically designed instruction, related services can mean any supportive service necessary to assist a child with a disability in benefiting from special education. Related services include, but are not limited to: audiology, counseling, sign language, interpreting, occupational therapy, orientation and mobility, parent counseling and training, physical therapy, psychological services, including psychotherapy, to assist in developing positive behavioral intervention strategies, speech and language therapy and transportation. The important thing to consider is that a related service can be any service needed by the child to benefit from his/her education and advance appropriately toward annual education goals, to participate in extracurricular and non-academic activities and to be educated with both disabled and non-disabled peers.  What constitutes “benefiting”? Our courts have ruled that a child in special education “benefits” if they progress commensurate with their abilities.  So a child may need a related service not only to avoid regression but also to improve. It is the IEP team’s responsibility to identify any related services the child needs and include them in the IEP.  Goals can be written for related services just as any other special education service. The IEP must specify When the service will begin How often it will be provided Where it will be provided Related services can also be separately required to insure a child is given the opportunity to be in a regular classroom.