504 lawsuit?

[endobear]

Condensed version of our situation.
So my daughter is hearing impaired. 80%.
Shes had a 504 in place for a few years that states she needs access to the teachers face to be able to read lips.
Last year half the kids were remote. Half were not.
We choose to be remote. My wife reached out to the school before hand and was told the teachers would be wearing clear masks during zoom classes. Cool. OK.
Orientation day, no clear masks. Principle apologized and says it was an oversight, teachers will have clear masks going forward.. 1st day. No.masks. wife reached out to the teacher and Principle multiple times. Finally here's back and they say they won't wear them for the safety of the teachers and students.
District audiologist says they have to follow the 504 and brings them masks.
Teachers continue to not wear them.
Wife contacts the superintendent. He agrees they need to wear the clear masks to comply with her 504 and adds if masks are worn in class they need to be clear to comply to her 504.
They still refuse to wear them.

We ended up switching schools this year. They are wearing the clear masks.

There are many layers to.this hole deal but the fact of the matter is they didn't follow the 504 and im prettty sure if I hadn't got an attorney involved they wouldn't be at the new school either.

Been in mediation with the OCR, principal, 504 coordinator, school district attorney and our attorney all day. Going knowhere fast.

They are finally offering to pay for the tutoring we have done and training for teachers to deal with parent complaints and 504 issues. But not my $10,000 in attorney fees.
Do I tell.them to get fucked and sue the piss out of them? Or am i wasting my time and money?

 

[Bpracing1127]

Being hard of hearing myself. I read lips as well. This mask thing has fucked me up bad.!!! I say sue them

 

[EmpirE231]

confused here... so the teachers were wearing no masks at all?

 

[paradise]

confused here... so the teachers were wearing no masks at all?

Teachers were wearing masks where the student (OP's daughter) couldn't see their lips.

I feel like you should sue to get your money back.

Best solution (if possible in your situation) would be to find a private school that doesn't wear masks (unless you want them).

 

[Boat 405]

Condensed version of our situation.
So my daughter is hearing impaired. 80%.
Shes had a 504 in place for a few years that states she needs access to the teachers face to be able to read lips.
Last year half the kids were remote. Half were not.
We choose to be remote. My wife reached out to the school before hand and was told the teachers would be wearing clear masks during zoom classes. Cool. OK.
Orientation day, no clear masks. Principle apologized and says it was an oversight, teachers will have clear masks going forward.. 1st day. No.masks. wife reached out to the teacher and Principle multiple times. Finally here's back and they say they won't wear them for the safety of the teachers and students.
District audiologist says they have to follow the 504 and brings them masks.
Teachers continue to not wear them.
Wife contacts the superintendent. He agrees they need to wear the clear masks to comply with her 504 and adds if masks are worn in class they need to be clear to comply to her 504.
They still refuse to wear them.

We ended up switching schools this year. They are wearing the clear masks.

There are many layers to.this hole deal but the fact of the matter is they didn't follow the 504 and im prettty sure if I hadn't got an attorney involved they wouldn't be at the new school either.

Been in mediation with the OCR, principal, 504 coordinator, school district attorney and our attorney all day. Going knowhere fast.

They are finally offering to pay for the tutoring we have done and training for teachers to deal with parent complaints and 504 issues. But not my $10,000 in attorney fees.
Do I tell.them to get fucked and sue the piss out of them? Or am i wasting my time and money?

You’re pretty much fucked on the lawyer fees

 

[J DUNN]

Stick it to them. This is NOT your fault so NO reason for you to pay attorney fees to correct their sorry a$$. They have the money to pay your attorney fees, they're just playing the game. Money probably doesn't even come from them, it probably comes from their insurance company.

 

[jetboatperformance]

We recently had need of a Para legal advocate for our "autism spectrum" grandson , He is a mature man , ex teacher/principle/administrator and acts as a "go between" for issues like yours and ours (disabilities), He's actually rather famous and In our area the mere mention of him seems to strike fear in the hearts of school officials . He works freelance aas well as with attorneys , If your interested in reaching out to him DM me ..... as an aside I cant hear shit , I have hearing aids worth thousands and havent been able to bring myself to employ them

 

[Gonefishin5555]

your attorney should be able to advise you on the likelihood of recovering attorney fees. I know in divorce my attorney warned me ahead of time not to expect them to be recovered no matter how immature or stupid the side was acting. I'm going to guess and tell you that you wont be able to get them and your going to have to pay more of the fees to be told this? Doesn't sound like a good idea.

 

[monkeyswrench]

I wish I could help you. We went rounds with a district in Cali for issues with my son. I drafted a very wordy letter, citing Department of Education guidelines as well as ADA guidelines. I closed the letter by stating that, "if we have indeed reached an impasse, my attorney would be reaching out to them. Maybe a group of educated people could work things out better than myself."
It worked. Thank God...I had no money for the attorney fees, nor the services they were denying my son.

So, yes. If you have the means, sue them.

 

[ssc]

Without writing a treatise on IDEA, IEP's or the rehabilitation act of 73(which is where the 504 arises), be advised that congress included in these acts a provision to be awarded attorney fees to the prevailing party. This is something your attorney should be very familiar with. However, many attorneys try to do work in this area and have no clue. I have had many cases that involved special needs children. Your next step is to file for Due process hearing. Normally the district would settle and we would summit our billings. On occasion the district would contest them, but it was rare.

Another item that I bet less than 1% of attorneys are aware of is the "Private attorney general provision." I am speaking of Ca only. I used it to collect attorney fees for a client who was sued by the county for reimbursement of expenses due to their special needs child who committed a "crime." I tried to educate the DA, but they refused to dismiss their action. (Based on the situation, it was the school district who was responsible.) I prevailed and was awarded a sizable amount. The DA's office thought about taking it up on appeal but after some research they decided to pay. I was friends with many in the DA's office and they did give me some friendly harassment and admitted that no one had ever got fees awarded and payed before. They also admitted that they didn't want people to become aware of the law that I used.

So, bottom line is, I hope you have a qualified special ed attorney who is familiar with both the federal acts, statutes and the state remedies, if any exist in your state. They should be telling you the pro and con of moving forward.

Cheers, Steve

 

[jetboatperformance]

We (My Son, his wife and Us) were getting nowhere with the Paso Robles SD , they had "mainstreamed" our highly functioning Grandson but he lacked social skills neccesary to survive pre teen school and being off for a year from covid , he was slipping further and further behind academically , Once the advocate became involved things changed over night , well worth the 900 bucks to get the representation, The Man litterally told them where the "Bear shits in the buckwheat" .... squeaky wheel seems to get the grease. If a kid has any impairment they totally deserve extra care and consideration to move forward

 

[WYRD]

Condensed version of our situation.
So my daughter is hearing impaired. 80%.
Shes had a 504 in place for a few years that states she needs access to the teachers face to be able to read lips.
Last year half the kids were remote. Half were not.
We choose to be remote. My wife reached out to the school before hand and was told the teachers would be wearing clear masks during zoom classes. Cool. OK.
Orientation day, no clear masks. Principle apologized and says it was an oversight, teachers will have clear masks going forward.. 1st day. No.masks. wife reached out to the teacher and Principle multiple times. Finally here's back and they say they won't wear them for the safety of the teachers and students.
District audiologist says they have to follow the 504 and brings them masks.
Teachers continue to not wear them.
Wife contacts the superintendent. He agrees they need to wear the clear masks to comply with her 504 and adds if masks are worn in class they need to be clear to comply to her 504.
They still refuse to wear them.

We ended up switching schools this year. They are wearing the clear masks.

There are many layers to.this hole deal but the fact of the matter is they didn't follow the 504 and im prettty sure if I hadn't got an attorney involved they wouldn't be at the new school either.

Been in mediation with the OCR, principal, 504 coordinator, school district attorney and our attorney all day. Going knowhere fast.

They are finally offering to pay for the tutoring we have done and training for teachers to deal with parent complaints and 504 issues. But not my $10,000 in attorney fees.
Do I tell.them to get fucked and sue the piss out of them? Or am i wasting my time and money?

I say talk to your attorney and get his advice

 

[angiebaby]

After 15 years in education, it has been my experience that districts settle. They don't go to court. They are clearly in the wrong. You have an excellent case and should absolutely sue. I cannot for the life of me understand why the teachers didn't wear clear masks. This is an EASY accommodation. I'm sorry your daughter had such a crappy beginning of the year

 

[DLC]

I don’t have kids, we have 4 dogs!

that school district sure sounds stupid! Seems extremely reasonable that a teacher knowing that they have a special needs child would wear a clear mask In order for that child to read lips. Total negligence if you ask me

I wonder if that was a union deal mix up…

 

[Nordic29]

I feel for you. Both of my sons have severe hearing loss and wear hearing aids. The school years were the worst. It was pre Covid so I was fighting for microphones/speakers in the classroom. At one point, an angry 5th grade teacher set the huge classroom speaker right on my sons desk just to be a jerk. She lost her job after that. It took me going to the district superintendent. Hang in there because it gets much better in college. My youngest son will be graduating from UCSB this year and they were wonderful. They supplied note takers for every class as well as smart pens that allowed him to record each lecture right into the pen he wrote with. It was a nice change from the k-12 schools.

 

[Ace in the Hole]

I cannot for the life of me understand why the teachers didn't wear clear masks. This is an EASY accommodation.

I'd bet money it was a union decision, since its a big pissing match and the teachers didn't want to go back to work...unfortunately OP got caught in the middle. I'd sue and be very public about it.

 

[endobear]

This entire deal has been such draining. All we wanted them to do was follow her 504. There excuse now for not reimbursing us is that her test scores show she was learning average last year." Average for covid". Bs. Which she was, but only because my wife took a ton of time off work to help fill the gaps. Her test scores all the years before put her well above average.

They started at $0 after 3 hrs. After 8hrs of back and forth they offered $7,000 of the $15k in expenses we have. Such crap. It basically cost me 3k to get them to follow the law/504. Our attorney sucked. He told us to take the deal. Said it would cost 25-30k and a couple years to sue.
Im over it. They are doing what they were supposed to and that's all we really wanted.

 

[angiebaby]

We had microphones in every classroom that the teacher wore. I never wore mine unless I had a student that was hearing impaired. Our principal asked us all to use them last year because of the masks. We did and I really appreciated having them. I'm sure this wouldn't be enough for your daughter, endobear, but this was the way our district handled it. They just bought mics for all of the classrooms so it was never an issue. As a teacher eventually, you are going to have a hearing-impaired child in your classroom as well as vision-impaired. Easy fix. Just like f*#king clear masks. Teachers and administrators should ALWAYS use the following metric when making decisions: "What is best for the kids?"

It doesn't matter what her test scores were. They didn't follow the 504. By federal law, they must follow the 504. The law doesn't say "if the student continues to grow without the accommodations . . . " They did not follow the law. Sorry your attorney sucked. I understand just wanting to put it all behind you, though.

 

[endobear]

The teachers have an fm system that transmits straight to her hearing aids. Works great in person but she still relies on the lip reading.

 

[bonesfab]

Without writing a treatise on IDEA, IEP's or the rehabilitation act of 73(which is where the 504 arises), be advised that congress included in these acts a provision to be awarded attorney fees to the prevailing party. This is something your attorney should be very familiar with. However, many attorneys try to do work in this area and have no clue. I have had many cases that involved special needs children. Your next step is to file for Due process hearing. Normally the district would settle and we would summit our billings. On occasion the district would contest them, but it was rare.

Another item that I bet less than 1% of attorneys are aware of is the "Private attorney general provision." I am speaking of Ca only. I used it to collect attorney fees for a client who was sued by the county for reimbursement of expenses due to their special needs child who committed a "crime." I tried to educate the DA, but they refused to dismiss their action. (Based on the situation, it was the school district who was responsible.) I prevailed and was awarded a sizable amount. The DA's office thought about taking it up on appeal but after some research they decided to pay. I was friends with many in the DA's office and they did give me some friendly harassment and admitted that no one had ever got fees awarded and payed before. They also admitted that they didn't want people to become aware of the law that I used.

So, bottom line is, I hope you have a qualified special ed attorney who is familiar with both the federal acts, statutes and the state remedies, if any exist in your state. They should be telling you the pro and con of moving forward.

Cheers, Steve

For a lawyer Steve, you sound all right.

 

[Jefftowz]

I know a lawyer who works for a non profit called Hope for families , her name is Stephanie 323-275-1161 xt 830. Tell her Joanne Littman referred you.

 

[Chili Palmer]

This sounds like an ADA issue - you were told that the teachers would comply and they didn't. The ADA has some pretty powerful lawyers and I'm sure a letter from them would have your attorney fees refunded to you in a very timely fashion.