my son wrote on Jul 29, 2008 9:14 AM:last year at Miller my son's IEP was changed with out our consent... we had to hire a lawyer and threaten a law suit just to get the services they promised him. The most difficult part of having a Special needs child has been dealing with the Escondido School dist. every year.. They are the worst. I truly hope this type of press has a positive impact on there policies and practices..

Epidemic wrote on Jul 29, 2008 9:28 AM:1 out of every 106 children are born with Autism(besides all the other disorders kids are born with). That is an Epidemic.. With reports like these it's obvious that Escondido Scholl district is not able to handle the massive influx of special needs kids... The District needs to ramp up the special end services to meet the needs of the community

Shame on you.. wrote on Jul 29, 2008 9:49 AM:Shame on you Escondido School,I hope there are some firings and lay offs, cause it sounds like things need to be changed at District level. These poor kids have enough challenges, way is it that the Escondido School District has to cause more difficulties and hardship in the live of these poor kids and their families.. Shame on you..

actions wrote on Jul 29, 2008 10:25 AM:Actions speak louder than words... and the actions of Escondido Union School District tell me they do not care about disabled students.. There actions are a disgrace and there should be serous repercussions towards all those at the district who were involved..

hope NTC keeps up wrote on Jul 29, 2008 10:57 AM:with this story.. and lets us know what the state finds...

januaryM wrote on Jul 29, 2008 11:26 AM:BRAVO! To the Mother! I had the same problem with the same school district and Elementary School in the 70s.EUSD could care less about the kids needs.Students & Teachers suffer while Administration adjusts all the numbers to make them look good. Your child is in a "holding pattern" never getting what they really need to learn.They are then just passed along..right into failure for life.The Teachers arent the ones to blame.The blame is squarely on the Administration.Federal dollars support special ed.If you get an IEP conference YOU arent even allowed to offer up to these committees your input reguarding your childs learning needs...afterall "they" are the "experts".Escondido is full of "child experts" and look around at what has happened to education in this town.Bill Gates wouldnt even give Escondido education a dime.It wasnt because of the Teachers. GO SPECIAL ED MOM! This will help all children.thank you

The number one complaint wrote on Jul 29, 2008 1:22 PM:In CA & every other state is FAILURE to impliment the IEP. As the parent of a child with special needs, I find this extreemly frustrating. Why bother developing a plan when the district refuses to impliment it (after they've already agreed to it)?

When this happens, parents should notify, in writing, their school districts of the noncompliance. List what it is & what you expect to happen (& by when). If the district then chooses to ignore you (like they did in this case), file a complaint with the state. Information on how to file is on the CA Dept. of Ed's (CDE) web site.

Bravo to this mom who finally filed. I hope the CDE contacts every other family of every other child that was supposed to be in that class. If they discover that this district typically does whatever they want (fails to follow the law), they should give them a full scale verification review (of their entire SpED program.)

I also hope that this paper follows up on this story, not only to force the district to perhaps follow the law but to also force the state (CDE) to enforce it. School districts do these things all the time because they rely on parents not filing & even if they do, the CDE does next to nothing (thereby encouraging districts to continue their noncompliance).

Busboy wrote on Jul 29, 2008 1:31 PM:Sometimes the change is made because the parent has no regard for what is best for the child. They insist that the child be kept in a special ed room even when it is clear that the child would be better off in a regualr classroom. Some of these parents just want to keep them in special ed, so they can demand more services, regardless of the needs of the child. After reading Mom's comments, I am sure the school has done what was best for the boy.

alejandro wrote on Jul 29, 2008 2:19 PM:rose school gracias becouse you no differente from charter schools,oh yes you will change becouse the state, come on what state? THE CALIFORNIA CHARTER STATE!

Amanda wrote on Jul 29, 2008 5:36 PM:Great story, Kudos to North County Times Reporter Shayna Chabner! She writes stories that interest the community and gets people talking and thinking about critical issues of interests to us the readers.

Having said this, Saravia story is not unusual in fact it is standard procedure and what the school districts are doing under the leadership (or the lack of) of the California Department of Education. Lets add the California State Board of Education and our good old Governor Arnold the Terminator the protector of children’s futures.

In fact the Terminator is more interested in building jails and making sure there are enough of them for California’s children. Most people will tell you that Special Education is a very complex subject but it really isn’t. Either you provide the special education services or you don’t its just that simple.

The school district takes the same position as factories of defective products. Instead of recalling, fixing and making changes to the defective products they put out for consumers to purchase. The insurance companies calculate the cost of how much it is going to cost them to settle claims if people get either killed or injured. After they calculate the cost of the damages (lives) they figure out that it is much cheaper to settle the claims (which insurance companies have a 98% rate of winning) than to recall and fix the defective products.
Insurance Companies don’t care about human lives per se they get paid to care about the bottom dollar and covering up for their clients.

With this in mind school district insurance companies operate in the same fashion. The SDCOE has a department called RISK MANAGEMENT and most of the school districts belong to one risk management pool or other. They are called “JOINT POWERS OF AUTHORITY POOLS,” “JPA’s.” These school district pools (most school districts use 2-5 JPA pools) join together in state wide “SUPER POOLS.” This means that all of the school districts in California, Community Colleges, Universities, and many other PUBLIC AGENCIES have to belong to these JPA’s pools and Super Pools. Without these JPA pools they cannot do business in California and the school districts cannot purchase insurance.

Three main INSURANCE BROKERS administer these JPA Super Pools.

While many parents have the impression that this system is dysfunctional and broken it is doing quite well and just as the state agencies planned. The public agencies plan is so effective that with a little negative PR against any parent who complains is enough to get the majority of parents to back down. I will have to say that at lest over 90% of parents NEVER get any MEANINGFUL special educational services for their children.

Oh, and how can we forget the so-called pro bono attorneys whose 501C’3 are paid by state grants. In my personal opinion and experience as a parent researching this subject for over 20 years. I found these 501C3 organizations as nothing more than tokens for the state agencies and school districts insurance companies who pay their grants.

Should we just call it hush money?

hmmm wrote on Jul 29, 2008 7:32 PM:Didn't I read not to long ago about some other law suit being brought against this principal at Rose School and EUSD? Sexual harrassment something against working mothers???? I think an in depth investigation is called for in both these cases. Please NC Times head up an investigation into this and keep tabs on this school.

yrs in Esco wrote on Jul 30, 2008 8:20 AM:Regarding "Busboy", you obviously didnt read the story. The boy in Special Ed. regressed academically, behavoirally, and socially. How is that what is the best for him. And it appears the school and district broke State and Federal Special Education Laws. If they thought they were doing what was best, then why didn't they do it the legal way. Generally parents DO know what is best for their children, especially when they have had to be their childs only advocate medically and educationally when their child has a disability.

Regarding "hmmm", yes this principal and district is being sued for gender harrassment and wrongful termination from a former teacher.

januaryM wrote on Jul 30, 2008 2:58 PM:Amanda the Reporter for this article should look into what you have posted here.Wouldnt it be something for this little newspaper to crack open whats really going on with education in Ca....and print it!My "child" graduated 15 years ago and this stuff was going on but nobody believed me, not even one attorney would touch it.Hope the Mom didnt go local lawyers.

Appalling wrote on Jul 30, 2008 10:36 PM:Busboy should thank his lucky stars that he has obviously never had to deal with the educational system with one of his own children. The school and the district must have agreed that the child needed to be outside of the general ed classroom for more than 49% of the day in order to meet his needs, because they determined the placement, generated and signed the IEP! And when they mainstreamed the child, it was not just one child, but the whole Special Day Class. So all of the sudden, none of these children required the benefit of small class setting for more than half of their day? Or did someone decide that they could save some money by sending these special needs kids into the regular classrooms? Being sent to a regular ed classroom with an aide is not the same as the less distracting, more nurturing, and more specialized environment of a Special Day classroom. Congratulations to this mother for fighting for what is right for her child!

hmmm is right wrote on Jul 30, 2008 11:02 PM:It is interesting that we keep seeing Mr. Carrasco in the news! Will we still be seeing this principal heading up Rose Elementary in the fall? ...

Parents need to network and share experiences wrote on Jul 31, 2008 8:47 AM:January M - agree most San Diego attorneys do not want to touch special education or school related cases. They know that the process is very long and the chances of winning against public school districts are zero to none in San Diego courts.
It is a stack deck all around, if you ask parents of special education students about horrors stories. We all know of a few too many. Most parents complain about CDE turning the other way and the procedural noncompliance complaints are unheard of now.

Their own attorneys take many parents to the cleaners. The parent’s attorneys have them refinance their homes to pay for their attorney fees. Unfortunately, in the end the parents don't get any special education services for their kids and they are left carrying hefty seconds on their homes.

After the parent are exhausted, worn out and spent out. These parents cannot afford the additional attorney fees to file a claim in court and so they are left with no other recourse but to suffer in silence.
We hear the works "FREE and APPROPRIATE EDUCATION," but there is nothing free or appropriate about what is happening to disabled students in these public schools.

Most if not all special education parents have called these so called 501C3's for assistance but they all say, "Gee we wish we could help you but our expertise and funds are limited." Then as to add insult to injury they say, “but if we can assist you in the future give is a call."
There is reasoning for this first the callers are placed in the list that the 501C3 report back to the state. They are placed as to, "people that they assisted." We as parent in turn know the reality too well.

The 501C3 agencies own Amicus to the Supreme Court in 2008 has the number of calls they receive and the fact that out of the thousand and thousands of calls the 501C3's receive they only help a very, very low number (the ones they parade in their websites.)
Parents should do a web search for “the Supreme Court of the United States Amicus in the WINKELMAN case.” ...

Cs are not the only problem wrote on Jul 31, 2008 9:50 AM:The deck is also stacked against students (& their parents) because the fair hearing process is fixed. Now that OAH has the contract, very few students are prevailing (compared to when SEHO had the Federal Contract).

That's why they're being audited (see below, news release from March of 2008).

Sacramento) Senator Lou Correa has announced that the Joint Legislative
Audit Committee has voted to approve his audit request to investigate the
Special Education Division of the Office of Administrative Hearings and the
monitoring arm of the California Department of Education, to determine if
the rights of Californiaˆs 700,000 children with special needs are being
respected.

Federal law does says that students are entitled to a "fair" hearing by "trained" hearing officers. Those hearings are also supposed to be "impartial."

At the present time it is far better for parents to obtain (& pay for) appropriate services for their children while giving their districts the proper 10 days notice so they can seek possible reimbursement at a later date (hopefully when the contract is taken from OAH & awarded to another agency). Doing so will not only benefit the student but will also spare the entire familiy the financial & emotional exhaustion that school districts (& yes, unfortunately some, NOT all, attorneys) cause.

Amanda wrote on Jul 31, 2008 1:13 PM:FYI- if parents do a web search for, “the California Bureau of Audits.” It will take them to a site, which has audits of California entities. In there is an AUDIT of CDE in the AUDIT FINDINGS, which state that CDE has NO control or OVERSIGHT of its CATEGORICAL PROGRAMS. It is quite revealing, the findings make perfect sense stating, CDE chooses not to monitor STATE or FEDERAL funds. CDE freely hands out our hard earned TAX DOLLARS without any requirement or expectation of compliance to the regulations attached to the funds or accountability.

By the way the audit mentioned above of the California Office of Administrative Hearings is scheduled to come out October 2008 and can be found in the same site mentioned above.

My personal opinion and take on the McGerge School of Law and the Office of Administrative Hearings [OAH] is that under the McGeorge the rules were a bit different than the OAH. Under the McGeorge hearing officers the CDE had a standard in which parents could file OUT OF COMPLIANCE COMPLAINTS for just about anything under the sun. The process was called “out of compliance complaints” under PROCEDUAL violations filings. Some parents abused this PROCESS and the rules were changed for everyone.

The new rules were changed to SUBSTANTIATE filings ONLY. CDE hired Office of Administrative Hearing Officers and my understanding is that most are or were retired judges. The OAH officers are making decision in due process hearings purely on FACTS and CASE LAW that have to do with SUBSTANTIATE and MERITORIOUS claims. These decisions are further supported by the most current 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rulings as well as the United States Supreme Court decisions.

Here is the problem while most of the parents in the North County could never afford attorneys to begin with had to represent themselves under McGeorge and it was great for the parents because under McGeorge parent won something like 50/50% with or without an attorney.
Now that the rules have changed the parents are loosing most of the time with or without an attorney. Here is what I have observed:

Parents still continue to bring PROCEDURAL complaints and claims and do not understand the new rules.
Attorneys representing the parents don’t want to accept that the easy gravy train has left and have to work harder for their money. So attorneys for parents also continue to bring PROCEDURAL complaints as well as claims that are NOT SUBSTANTIATE.
Parents new to educate themselves and be vigilant of the changes in law and regulations so that they can strategically format their complaints in a SUBSTANTIATE matter. Attorneys representing parents need to start working for the money instead of only doing easy cases.