Los Angeles Daily News

March 13, 2008

LAUSD, parents at odds over special education

By Naush Boghossian

Complaints from parents of special-education students at Los Angeles Unified have soared by about 25 percent over the past seven years as families in wealthier areas of the district have filed the lion's share of thousands of claims, the Daily News has learned.

As the number of annual complaints rose to 2,302 last year, attorney fees paid to parents also have surged 146 percent, to $2.2 million, over the past several years, according to the most recent data available.

And parents on the Westside and in the San Fernando Valley account for nearly 70 percent of the complaints and payouts.

"There's a horrible, huge discrepancy," said school board member Yolie Flores Aguilar, who represents communities where few complaints are filed by parents of special-needs students. "At the same time, I want the district to be responsive so they're not paying these lawsuits.

"There are hundreds and hundreds of people whose children are special-needs kids who are not getting those services because they don't know that they have a legal right, they're afraid of their legal status, they don't have access to lawyers, access to money, and they're the ones no one pays attention to."

LAUSD attorneys said they could not provide a total settlement amount that the district has paid over the years - including reimbursement for services paid by parents.

But overall, officials said the district has paid at least $13 million in attorney fees for parents since 2000 - which does not include those fees negotiated by the district's Office of the General Counsel.

And LAUSD records show that from 1999 to last year, parents of special-needs students in the three local LAUSD subdistricts in the Valley and Westside have filed the most complaints.

In both the 2005-06 and 2006-07 school years, for example, the three subdistricts accounted for an average of 67percent of the more than 4,000 complaints over issues ranging from a lack of services to problems with teachers.

By comparison, in the two local districts represented by Flores Aguilar - covering South Gate and East Los Angeles - just 119 complaints were filed.

"You could extrapolate from that that there are sophisticated parents living in those parts of the city and they certainly would have access to lawyers," said Diane Pappas, head of the special-education legal team at the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Keith Sakimura, managing attorney for the Los Angeles regional office for Protection and Advocacy - which provides services for people with disabilities - said the challenge is to educate parents in underrepresented areas about their rights.

"Intimidation, whether intentional or unintentional, by school administrators can have a chilling effect on minority populations," Sakimura said.

He said his group has found that many in less-affluent areas also lack knowledge of the legal system and might not be as directly involved in their children's education.

And he said, historically, many of those are African-American and Latino.

"We, as an agency, have a responsibility to try to equalize the imbalance - and I don't mean to say that it should be less for the other communities that are currently using the system," he said.

The rising number of special-ed complaints at the LAUSD also highlights a growing challenge as district officials weigh potential statewide budget cuts that could shave funds from the $42 million special-education program's budget.

Sakimura said schools are faced with many competing demands for resources, but that a systemic change in special-ed programs could be cost-effective in the long run.

"It is my strong belief that many school districts focus too much of their resources on the risk-management end of the spectrum - settling and defending litigation and administrative complaints in special-education matters after educational harm has occurred," he said.

"The sad reality is that while school districts focus on a short-term containment of costs strategy rather than on providing timely preventative services to eligible children, school districts will continue to dilute and/or deny appropriate resources to teachers and children alike."

Flores Aguilar acknowledged that the district needs more money for its special-ed program.

"It's a very terrible Catch-22 that people in their hearts want to provide the services for these kids, but we don't have the resources to do it," she said. "It's only through a lawsuit when we're forced to and we don't have a choice.

"At some point, we have to, as an institution, be stronger advocates to the state and federal government to give these kids the services that they need."

The special-ed complaints have become so frequent that they have spawned a major business niche for attorneys.

While years ago the LAUSD dealt with just seven or eight law firms on special-ed claims, it now deals with at least 85, Pappas said.

The district has been able to make some improvements in special-ed complaints, implementing an informal dispute-resolution process several years ago that has reduced the number of complaints that escalate into full-fledged hearings - which require costly attorneys.

Since the process was put in place, attorney fees paid by the district have dropped from $3.4 million in 2004-05 to $2.2million in 2005-06.

"Our goal is, as much as possible, to resolve these as quickly as possible for the family, the students and to get students the services they should have and not to put the families through a legal ordeal," Pappas said.

"It's in the best interest of the district to have as good a relation with parents as possible, and we don't want to have the proceedings escalate where everyone has to get a lawyer.

"We don't want the money to go to attorneys. We want it to go to services for the kids."

For the latest school news, go to www.insidesocal.com/education.

naush.boghossian@dailynews.com - 818 713-3722