How To Get Speech, Occupational Therapy and Other Related Services Delivered To Our Kids During Coronavirus

 By Michelle Ball, California Education Attorney for Students since 1995

The end of the 2019-2020 school year was a nightmare for kids, and hardest hit were special needs students.  Now that fall 2020 is starting mainly at home, students are not likely to receive adequate special education services, including their "related services."  

Related services are things such as speech and language, occupational therapy, adaptive physical education, and other similar supportive services necessary to help a special needs student to be educated.  These can be very difficult to deliver via online options and schools recently have cut down the provision of these services due to distance learning.

One possible solution for the delivery of these services is to have a school district pay for outside service providers to deliver in person services to the student.  These could be delivered either at the provider's business or in the student's home (if the provider and family are willing).  

Recently I have reached out to a local private speech and language provider and found they are open for business and can deliver right now to students at their office.  This means that while  school employees are not available for students to meet with, other equally qualified professionals are.  The argument is that these outside services must be provided or students will regress.

Parents may want to research what services are available in their area for in person delivery and contact their school to attempt to get their child's services delivered by these outside providers.  If the school argues they are already delivering, that argument can be countered by asking if they are willing to deliver their services in person or not and pointing out the obvious difficulties and deficiencies present with online provision.  

There is a huge difference between in person and video services when it comes to speech and language, occupational therapy, and adaptive physical education.  I have had some clients give up doing video delivery altogether as they cannot get the student to attend and they also don't have the equipment or training to deliver the services to their kids.

Additionally, parents can ask to be reimbursed for their mileage to and from these services.  The mileage reimbursement must be listed in the IEP.

Other supports such as from an aide/paraprofessional, where a student may be accompanied by a trained assistant throughout their schoolday, may have vanished recently as well.

With aide services, if a student is entitled to specialized support, they should be

provided that support to the fullest extent possible.  The aide should attend their classes with them, at the very least, and perhaps assist them online for their whole school day (as they would have been at school had it been in session) and beyond, helping them with whatever they need.  If minutes of service are noted in the IEP, those minutes should be delivered.  There are other arguments that aides should help children directly, but those may be a bit more complex at this point.

We have to do something, and not just wait until this is all over to try to pick up the pieces.  If outside providers are available to deliver, this may be an option for families to receive some of their services during this difficult time.  

Research and an IEP meeting may be the first steps to take to move our kids forward, as the government does not seem they will solve this problem for us.

Best,

 

Michelle Ball

Education Law Attorney 

 

LAW OFFICE OF MICHELLE BALL 

717 K Street, Suite 228 

Sacramento, CA 95814 

Phone: 916-444-9064 

Email:help@edlaw4students.com 

Fax: 916-444-1209

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Please see my disclaimer on the bottom of my blog page. This is legal information, not legal advice and no attorney-client relationship is formed by this posting, etc. etc.!  This blog may not be reproduced without permission from the author and proper attribution of authorship. This blog may not reflect the current state of the law.

 

READ MORE - How To Get Speech, Occupational Therapy and Other Related Services Delivered To Our Kids During Coronavirus

Student On Student Vaginal Ultrasounds Found To Be Search Under Fourth Amendment

By Michelle Ball, California Education Attorney for Students since 1995

Earlier this week, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals found that a transvaginal ultrasound requested of college students at Valencia College in Florida was a search for Fourth Amendment purposes.  

California is within the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, but often sister jurisdiction decisions impact and influence decisions here.  The decision is noteworthy for its facts, which college students may want to be aware of, and for the definitive ruling that this conduct did involve a search for purposes of Fourth Amendment analysis.

The basics are that students who entered the state run Valencia College Sonography program were allegedly asked to "volunteer" for transvaginal ultrasounds to be performed on them by other students in the program (male and female).  Three students refused.  Two were allegedly thereafter badgered into allowing this invasive procedure to be done on them.  The third student did not agree and was as a result excluded from the ultrasound procedures, given "two failing grades and yelled at... for an hour until she had a panic attack," according to the decision in Doe v. Valencia College Board of Trustees (11th Circuit, October 4, 2016).  Per Judge William Pryor, these transvaginal ultrasounds involve insertion of a sonogram device into the student's vagina and can be painful and embarrassing.

The students filed suit in federal court alleging breach of their Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches, breach of their First Amendment speech rights and other bases.  They requested damages, injunctive relief, and attorney fees and costs.  

The lower court (District Court) dismissed the students' complaint alleging that their communications on the procedure to the college were "school-sponsored" speech and that there was no search.  An appeal of this dismissal was made to the Eleventh Circuit, where the court, taking the students' assertions as fact for the proceeding, found that the speech was not "school-sponsored" and that the insertion of the objects into a student's vaginal area was indeed a search under the Fourth Amendment.

The matter now returns to the District Court for proceedings and presumably a trial.

This case shows the extent to which some colleges may breach students' rights: by forcefully leveraging the power of a potential degree to get students to submit to invasive procedures.  More shocking for most may be the fact of how the college treated the student who refused this intrusive search of her body- with reported degradation and failing grades.  

Just another day in the life of a college student at the mercy of government run educational institutions.

Best,

Michelle Ball

Education Law Attorney 

LAW OFFICE OF MICHELLE BALL 

717 K Street, Suite 228 

Sacramento, CA 95814 

Phone: 916-444-9064 

Email:help@edlaw4students.com 

Fax: 916-444-1209

Website: http://www.edlaw4students.com/

Blog: http://edlaw4students.blogspot.com/

Twitter: http://twitter.com/michelleaball

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/EdLaw4Students

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Law-Office-of-Michelle-Ball/191273330901857

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Please see my disclaimer on the bottom of my blog page. This is legal information, not legal advice and no attorney-client relationship is formed by this posting, etc. etc.!  This blog may not be reproduced without permission from the author and proper attribution of authorship.

READ MORE - Student On Student Vaginal Ultrasounds Found To Be Search Under Fourth Amendment