Principal called police because our 9 year old rode his bike alone

[DLgal]

The general case is if you allow a bureaucratic organization to investigate itself it will inevitably result in a whitewash. As exemplified by Catholic Church, Boy Scouts and too many government agencies to count.

Until it gets so bad it explodes and thats not where we should be with our kids.

up here we had a ‘grooming’ problem at one of our high schools, they suspended a student for going to the police (supposedly for filing a ‘unfounded’ report) unfortunately for the school district did this to the wrong student the family was both wealthy and well connected with federal law enforcement they promptly hired a ‘white shoe’ law firm to sue the school district as well as get about half dozen govt agencies looking into the administration. Turns out the groomer had been bounced from school to school to cover up their activities. The feds are still looking into every nook and cranny and dragging more stuff into the light of day.

Because this girl’s family had ‘juice’ she got so called justice but she had to leave the school abd her friends because even with the feds being like white on rice the administration continued to retaliate against her.

Whose only crime was be desired by a school official.... and go to the proper channels for some relief.

Imagine if this had been a poor person of color...

Okay. If you say so.

 

[Gf77]

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[DLgal]

No public school in the United States is “free”. It’s all paid for with tax dollars. It’s why we need to move to a school choice/voucher system.

You know what I meant.

 

[Gf77]

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[DLgal]

I wasn’t being pedantic. If we had school choice, he could remove his child from that school and use his tax dollars to go to one that wasn’t run by megalomaniacs. Instead, the school isn’t punished for bad behavior because people view it as “free”, when it’s quite the opposite. You are minimizing what he is going through by using the word free, as if it somehow mitigates what is being done to him because he didn’t choose to pay for a private education.

I absolutely did not minimize anything. I simply stated how public schools have to operate under IDEA law.

If a parent doesn't like it, they have to go private. It is what it is. Lots of parents don't like the idea that their kids need special education services. It's a denial thing. And it harms kids, in the long run.

 

[Gf77]

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[ford91exploder]

I absolutely did not minimize anything. I simply stated how public schools have to operate under IDEA law.

If a parent doesn't like it, they have to go private. It is what it is. Lots of parents don't like the idea that their kids need special education services. It's a denial thing. And it harms kids, in the long run.

as does the ‘special needs’ tag if the kid wants to participate in after school activities or apply to college. A ‘special needs’ tag hung on a child is a scarlet letter barring them from many activities that ‘normal’ children take for granted. Its also why many parents with special needs send their kids to alternative schools which provide them with the necessary services without labeling them.

 

[DLgal]

I’m going to hazard a guess by how personally you’ve taken this that you are in education. You have to realize this person only posted to vent some frustration for a situation most of us hope we never go through (the big wheels of government bureaucracy steamrolling over us), and instead of being an empathetic stranger on the internet with an open ear, you became exactly the thing he came here to vent about.

Definitely not in education. I'm a stay at home mom to 2 autistic kids.

I have a hard time sympathizing with parents who refuse to get their kids the help they desperately need because of their own prejudices against people with disabilities.

 

[DLgal]

as does the ‘special needs’ tag if the kid wants to participate in after school activities or apply to college. A ‘special needs’ tag hung on a child is a scarlet letter barring them from many activities that ‘normal’ children take for granted. Its also why many parents with special needs send their kids to alternative schools which provide them with the necessary services without labeling them.

Wow, you are very much mistaken about ALL of this.

Colleges admit special needs students every year. And companies hire them, and sports teams allow them to join.

Where do you live that special needs individuals are so ostracized and excluded from society?

 

[DVCcurious]

I absolutely did not minimize anything. I simply stated how public schools have to operate under IDEA law.

If a parent doesn't like it, they have to go private. It is what it is. Lots of parents don't like the idea that their kids need special education services. It's a denial thing. And it harms kids, in the long run.

You obviously haven't read the original post or you wouldn't be writing what you are writing.

I am not in "denial" that my child needs special ed services. We agreed to special ed services for three years. He had an IEP and an aid in a general education setting. Then last year the school tried to move him to a restricted special-ed only classroom and LIED on a form (prior written notice) saying that we agree to that change. We had to sue the school (due process complaint) and the school attorney's defense was "sure we lied, but we know best and this child needs to be taken out of a general ed class" and the Administrative Law Judge AGREED. We had two choices: pull him out of special ed services completely or allow the school to change his placement to a more-restrictive special ed only classroom.

If you REALLY understand IDEA law then you know about Least Restrictive Environment and you know what the school was trying to do to my son was wrong. If you understand IDEA you KNOW they broke the law.

This is all besides the point that my son claimed he was taken to a room with the school psychologist and made to stand on a chair and yelled at and told he will never amount to anything. They took him to the principal's office and told him he was a bad kid and his mom was very angry with him. They played mind games with him. He disclosed that to us over months (April - June) after school was shut due to Covid and when we reported it the principal did the investigation even though our son claims she was one of his abusers. And of course they claim he's making it all up. We demanded an independent investigation and the school just ignored our demand and let the principal investigate herself.

I've talked with the lead attorney for special education services for the district, the superintendent, the head of student services (who runs special education for the district) two principals, a school psychologist, 2 special education teachers, and a speech therapist. They are ALL corrupt. They do not have the best interest of my child in mind.

Since you are into the law let's talk about the law.

1) Our son is entitled to a public school education
2) We are entitled to reject a recommendation of special education services for whatever reason we want

We are following the law. We are doing nothing wrong and the school is turning our lives upside down.

Our son is getting special ed services from a private organization where he works with a special education teacher. But we are NEVER going to allow the district's special ed services to get their meat hooks into us again. If you think that makes me a bad parent, so be it.

 

[DLgal]

Our son is getting special ed services from a private organization where he works with a special education teacher.

This is all that matters. But then if this is the case, why the CPS charge of educational neglect?

 

[DVCcurious]

This is all that matters. But then if this is the case, why the CPS charge of educational neglect?

The school principal called CPS and claimed we let our "severely autistic" son ride his bike alone and then my son fell out of a tree and our negligence resulted in his injury. CPS came to investigate that claim and we provided our doctor's report that showed there were no injuries and a fall out of a tree was highly unlikely. We provided a report from Mary Camarata (a nationally-known expert) that said our son has normal intelligence, is not autistic, but has high anxiety which has resulted in delayed speech and delayed maturity (as in he doesn't relate to or talk to kids his own age, he doesn't act appropriately for his age, etc).

So once it became obvious the charge for neglect for the bike riding/tree falling wouldn't stick the school talked CPS into changing the accusation to educational neglect because we won't allow the school to provide special ed services. No, I have no proof that's what happened but it seems the most logical explanation to me. CPS wouldn't change their investigation from tree falling to educational neglect on their own. So the most obvious answer is the school principal pressured them into it.

BTW when the CPS person called to inform me that we were going to be indicated for educational neglect I said "when you came out you only asked us about the bike riding/tree falling, don't I get a chance to defend myself against this new charge" and all she would say was "we STRONGLY recommend you allow the school to provide special education services. My manager believes that you are responsible for neglect because you have refused the services your son needs"... etc. She didn't answer me and it was like she was just reading a prepared statement and then she hung up after like 2-3 minutes.

We are going to hire an attorney to fight this. We were advised by an attorney at the beginning to only get the attorney involved if the report is indicated and that it's a waste of money to pay him if you believe you are innocent since there is a chance the claim will be unfounded. From what I was told the "evidence" needed for an indicated report is very minimal so the school principal claiming our son needs services and we are denying them would technically be enough. However I think we should be given the chance to defend ourselves from that claim and we weren't given that chance. Although we did provide the report from our expert but I guess the CPS person ignored that.

Once you file an appeal the necessary evidence to make the indicated report stick goes up quite a bit and we believe we will win. But it will cost us money.

And, frankly, I've been having anxiety attacks over the past few weeks. I'm 45 years old, 5'11" 230 pounds so I'm sure I'm overweight and at risk for a heart attack. I have a rapid heart rate, I feel anxious in my stomach, etc. Imagine how it would feel if you did something wrong at work and your boss has told you he wants to talk to you and you're walking to his office. That's how I feel about 40% of the day since about two weeks ago when the CPS person came out to interview us. I went to the doctor last Friday and told him about this and he hooked me up to a heart monitor device (all sorts of wires all over my body) and he said my anxiety/heart issue wasn't physiological so it must be psychological. He said I was in good health but could lose 20 pounds. Anyway this school issue has really taken a toll on me.

 

[Cheburashka]

This may be long but I have to get it off my chest. I need to vent somewhere so I'm doing it here anonymously. I assume I'm not alone in fighting the school so maybe someone out there has advice.

Background (5 paragraphs long)
We live on Long Island New York in a good (rated 9) school district. Our son is 9 years old. He had delayed speech and we agreed to let the school district provide speech therapy to him in K-2 (2017-2020 school years). Prior to agreeing with the school we took our son to Mary Camarata (https://latetalkersconsulting.com/about/) who is one of the country's leading experts on late talking children. She did a number of tests with our son and the end result is that she told us our son has an IQ in the normal range, has normal learning speed, but processes information in a different manner. This processing difference is why he has language delay. She also performed and autism test (she is qualified to perform those tests) and she confirmed he is not autistic. She also told us to NOT allow the school to perform an IQ test because they are done verbally and our son was guaranteed to fail a verbal IQ test due to his speech delay. She also told us the school would push autism because that is the "en vogue" thing nowadays and that districts across the country are mislabeling boys (it's almost always boys) as special needs. However the school told us that in order to get speech therapy we had to consent to an IQ test and we also had to agree to other services which we didn't want (they told us it was "all or nothing" and at the time we believed he needed speech therapy). Stupidly we agreed to the extra services if they would label him as "speech delayed" and not "autistic" which is what they wanted to label him as (just like Mary predicted).

After the testing was done the school psychologist called us in and told us about our son. She informed us that our son has a 66 IQ. IQ ranges from 70-130 with "normal" falling between 85-115. Scores outside of 70-130 are rare. (https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-average-iq-2795284) My uncle has Down's syndrome so I've spent 40 years visiting him and being around people at his group home who have low IQs. Based on my experience with these people and experience with my son I know my son does not have a 66 IQ. I also work with math and statistics at my job every day (I work for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York) so I'm well aware of how to analyze statistics. I just told the psychologist that it's essentially impossible for my son to have a 66 IQ because that is more than 2 standard deviations from the mean and essentially there is a 2% probability of his IQ being that low. I told her that our expert (Mary Camarata) said our son would score very low due to the test being verbal in nature and our son having language delay. In the end we agreed to let the school provide Occupational and Speech therapy and an in-class aid for our son because we really wanted him to get speech therapy.

Fast forward to April 2020. Throughout the past 3 years the school had been trying to talk us into removing our son from a general education class and put him in a special education class. Once again at our annual special education meeting (we had to have these meetings for our son to continue speech therapy) they pushed for a change of placement. I recorded the call because of our poor experience with this group of people. It was 3 hours long and we said "no" to changing his placement 9 separate times during the call. Nine times. After the call we filed a Freedom of Information Act request to have all communication from district employees about our son (again we didn't trust these people). In June 2020 we got a giant document dump of hundreds of pages. One thing my wife found was a draft letter from the district to the parents informing us that they were changing our son's placement to a special education class for the 2020-2021 School year based on the fact that "all parties, including the parents, are in agreement". I immediately emailed the head of the special education department and informed her that we did not agree, that I had the call recorded as proof, and that we will NEVER agree to change his placement. I requested she change the letter so it would say the parents were not in agreement with the school's recommendation. She emailed back saying, essentially, "you did agree to it and I'm moving forward with this change of placement".

So we sued the school district. It's called a "due process complaint" when you file suit against a school district. In our complaint we included the email from me to her and her response dated June 10/11 and the letter dated June 12. Our argument was simple: on June 12 the district issued a change of placement letter stating that the parents were in agreement when they had full knowledge the parents were not in agreement. The proof of that was the emails on June 10/11. Now, according to the law, the school district is allowed to move a child without parental consent however they have to go through many hurdles and provide pages of explanation in their placement change letter. Our district didn't do that so this was a slam dunk case from a legal perspective. We had our hearing before the Administrative Law Judge in early July. We began, as petitioner, and our argument was simple: We had a recording where we said "no" to a change of placement 9 times. We received this letter on June 10 as part of our FOIA request and immediately emailed the head of special education to inform her of the error in her letter and requesting her to change it. At the time the letter was issued the district was aware we did not agree therefore this change of placement letter was invalid and we requested the court to direct the school to put our son back in a general education placement. We said that if the school wants to move him without parental consent they are required by law to provide rationale for their decision including recent cognitive and behavioral testing and submit those tests and their rationale for their decision in the placement change letter.

The school district's lawyer then had her turn. Her argument was also simple: who cares? Who cares what the parents think. The district believes removing our son from a general education program is in The Best Interests of The Child. She conceded the fact that they did not fill out the letter correctly but what's the big deal? They were moving forward with the placement change because we consented to the district providing services (speech therapy) and we can not consent to one thing and then deny the school from providing anything else they saw fit. And the judge sided with the school (the entire special education system is corrupt). The judge agreed that if we consented to ANY service provided by the district we were consenting to ANY decision the district wanted to make in regards to our son. So our only recourse was to revoke our consent to any services. We had the school district issue a new letter stating that our consent was revoked and our son was considered a general education student. Our son was to receive no IEP and no special education services. This was July 2020. We also requested and were granted a change in elementary school for our son (they are a mile apart so no big deal) because our relationship with the prior school was negative.

Current Problem
Yesterday was 60 degrees here in New York. Our son wanted to ride his bike after school. So of course we let him. At 4:15 I got a call from the principal saying he had my son at his school and my son was "injured". So we went to pick him up. My son had a scratch on his chest from a tree branch he got from climbing a tree. The principal told me he called the police who turned the case over to CPS. He said we were negligent parents because we allowed our 9 year old "special needs" child to ride his bike and climb trees while we weren't watching him. He said this "injury" was a direct result of our negligence. I kept my cool and just packed up my son's bike and went home. Last night we got a visit from the night-time CPS person on staff who took a picture of our son's chest. Monday they will send out the full-time CPS person to do the investigation.

Edit to add one other piece of information: In July when we revoked our consent we got a letter from the district stating that our son is considered a general education student. So we're going to submit that letter to CPS to counter the principal's argument that our son is special needs.

According to New York state law 9 year old children can ride their bike without parental supervision. Each day there are dozens of kids at the school riding their bike, playing on the playground equipment, playing basketball, etc. There are few, if any, parents around.

We've been fighting the school for 4 years. Even though we removed him from their special education program we are still getting harassed.

I am mother of a high-functioning autistic child and an experienced elementary school teacher who has worked for multiple districts, and also once had my son in special ed then removed him because the program wasn't helping, so I think I have some useful perspective to offer. I hope you'll keep an open mind. (I'm going to address the core of your your and your son's issues in relation with the school, rather than with the legal issue that you'll have to settle with a lawyer.)

1. Obviously I haven't met your son, but it seems very likely that he is on the autism spectrum. Only a pediatric neurologist is qualified to make that determination, NOT a speech language pathologist, no matter how qualified. The school district is also unqualified to make that determination, even though districts often also insist on their own testing. Autism is a neurological disorder and a pediatric neurologist is the only one to diagnose it or to decide that it is not a fitting diagnosis. Don't panic at the thought of a diagnosis, as autism is a spectrum and very successful people can be on it, and vast improvements can be made (I know from experience) with good schools and therapy.
2. When you have a special needs child and the district or school isn't working well with him and you, it's time to find another district or school. Forget about how it's in a great district (so was ours) in the best neighborhood (so was ours) and you maybe made a lot of sacrifices to get him there (so did I). The bottom line is that if the school isn't working out, it isn't working out, and every year you spend there without effective teaching for your child is a year and a half he'll slip further behind. If things really aren't working out, don't stay and try to force things. Leave. Find another school, possibly a private school that is not exclusive, but rather accepting of students of different abilities and willing to work with you. Schools like this are rare, but do exist. My son went to one and it made a tremendous difference in his life.
3. In-school speech and occupational therapy is often as good as what the school charges you for it (nothing). I strongly recommend private speech and occupational therapy (which you can get covered by insurance with an autism diagnosis) for your son. Without that therapy, my son would not be where he is today: successfully taking part in a competitive private high school. Quite an achievement considering he couldn't speak a basic sentence until he was 4, and had all other kinds of autistic behavior issues to boot.

I suspect from the tone of your post that you're resistant to the concept of your child being autistic. I went through fear and denial when my son was younger. In the end, the diagnosis was our best friend as it allowed us to get him the targeted help he needed to make vast improvements.

 

[Cheburashka]

No public school in the United States is “free”. It’s all paid for with tax dollars. It’s why we need to move to a school choice/voucher system.

We're supposed to steer clear of politics on these boards. Your comment does not help the OP with their problem as their issue has nothing to do with vouchers.

 

[Cheburashka]

Ok this is a double edged sword, one schools do not want to provide special education services to students. Two they want as many kids as possible LABELED as special education students because it turns on the state and federal money taps.

So by saying no to having your child labeled. You probably ‘cost’ the district $100,000 per year in extra revenue. So yeah you were gonna get the hammer dropped on you.

Yes the special ed business is very profitable for everyone but the kids involved.

As an experienced teacher and mother of a former special education student I can tell you that is not true. Special education money doesn't even come close to meeting the special education students' needs. It does not enrich the school at all. Students in the special education system are a financial drain on the school, not a benefit, because their federally protected status brings a lot of federal requirements that the school has to meet, but that the federal government does not fully fund. Districts are forced to make up the difference with their own money.

 

[Cheburashka]

Our son told us he was abused by the special education teacher at his previous elementary. We requested and were granted a move to another elementary in the district, we pulled him out of special education services at the school and we are now doing private tutoring Monday and Wednesday after school. We are not disputing he "needs" help, we are getting him help from a private organization.

Yes, we reported the abuse. Yes, the previous school's principal investigated herself and her friends. No, they were not found guilty. As the current school's principal told me in January when I told him we were rejecting his offer of special ed due to the abuse my son suffered "some times kids make up stories".

That happened to my son, as well, except instead of the special ed teacher it was a special ed aide he accused of (serious) verbal abuse. You should have gone to a lawyer to press charges after the principal let it go. I should have done that, too, except it would have been a little awkward, given that the principal was also my boss. Imagine that. I pulled him from the school, and after the year was up, I left the district to teach elsewhere. I needed that principal as a reference as in the public school profession, you can't get a decent position without a strong reference from your last principal. It's a kind of control over your life that doesn't exist in most professions, but it's very much a thing in public school teaching, at least in states like mine with no unions.

I'm sorry you're going through so much stress. Take your son out of this school district. Teach him at home until you can find him an effective school, if that ever materializes. If not, realize that home schooling can often work out long term. I hope someone is available to stay home with him and do it. Financial sacrifices would be worth it at this point, for either home school or private school. Move your home if you need to.

And finally, again, please for his sake, take him to a pediatric neurologist (two, if you want a 2nd expert opinion) to get a proper diagnosis for your child. The diagnosis will lead to healing and growth if you're open to it.

 

[DVCcurious]

1. Obviously I haven't met your son, but it seems very likely that he is on the autism spectrum.
2. In-school speech and occupational therapy is often as good as what the school charges you for it (nothing). I strongly recommend private speech and occupational therapy (which you can get covered by insurance with an autism diagnosis) for your son.

I suspect from the tone of your post that you're resistant to the concept of your child being autistic.

He goes to private speech therapy as part of his Monday and Wednesday after school tutoring. I call it tutoring but it covers many things.

I don't want to get into an autism debate and I think I've already posted my views before so I'll be brief: I don't believe in "ASD". Autism is a real thing. My uncle had Down's syndrome and lived in a group home. There were autistic people there. So I know it's real. But ASD is more vague and unprovable. I have read many books on the subject and many articles (NY Times "I had Asperger's syndrome. Briefly": Mislabeled as Disabled: numerous others). I am concerned about treating something that is not real. If I'm going to be wrong I'd rather be wrong on the side of not drugging my kid (a dyslexia specialist recommended we put him on amphetamines) or treating him like he has some issue he doesn't have. So it's not that I'm "resistant to the concept of your child being autistic" or that I think it's offensive or he would be "less than" or something. Like I said my uncle had Down's syndrome so I'm very comfortable and familiar with these types of disabilities. I have just read enough that I flat out reject the spectrum idea. Frankly if you take the theory to its logical conclusion we're all on the spectrum.

We (the scientific community) understand very little about the human brain. Unless I can be given solid scientific proof I'd rather not treat my son any differently than I would a "normal" child.

As for the abuse we reported it to: the school, the district, Child Protective Services, the local police department, the hospital, the hospital's social worker. Every one said the same thing: without physical evidence they can't do anything and a child's testimony doesn't matter without any evidence.

But thanks for your replies. I appreciate your input.

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/opinion/i-had-asperger-syndrome-briefly.html

 

[Gf77]

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[DVCcurious]

What did my comment have to do with politics? The comment I responded to did not help the OP with their problem. Your comment did not help anyone with anything, so thanks for the worthless post.

Frankly there's no one on here who can really help me. As others have stated I really just need a place to vent. Some of the comments have given me things to think about and some decent advice. And I appreciate everyone's comments because even those who are critical of me are coming from someone's honest belief. And there's very few people who are willing to be honest with you in this world. Anonymity allows people to do that. It's the best (and worst) thing about the Internet.

For what it's worth I didn't think your comment about vouchers was political. It makes a good point: my family can't afford $50k per year for a private school so we are stuck working with the public school system. This is probably not the best situation for us or our child but we have no choice.

But some people see politics in everything. I mean if there was a youtube video of you singing "Lola" at karaoke you'd have protestors at your house!

I met him in a swamp down in degobah
Where it bubbles all the time like a giant carbonated Soda
S-O-D-A soda

I saw the little runt sitting there on a log
I asked him his name and in a raspy voice he said Yoda
Y-O-D-A Yoda
Yo-yo-yo-yoda

A long term contract I had to sign
Said I'd be making these movies till the end of time with my Yoda
Yo-yo-yo-yo-yoda

(that's actually pretty funny when you realize Mark Hamill was acting as Luke in a scene with Yoda in 2017's Last Jedi!)

 

[r1lissa]

Several people are telling you to get a lawyer to deal with CPS. You don’t need one. I won’t specifically say where I work, but let’s just say that’s it’s a very similar type of employment as your state’s CPS. This is an open/close case of “neglect”. Your child was not seriously injured, so you’ll likely be told to keep a better eye on him and then life goes on. Be sure to request a copy of your record after the investigation is closed.
As far as the school situation, there’s no other way to say this, but you’re now on the “sh*t list” and will always be considered a problem parent. You need a different learning environment.

*Edit to add- I just saw the part about “educational neglect” now being alleged. That does not exist in my state.