Legal Issues

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Legal Issues

• Reference Deborah R.G. Cesario of Lozano Smith
• Used with permission from author

Disclaimer The Southern California Autism
Training Collaborative (SCATC) has provided
information included in this original format of
the training manual (dated August 2007). SCATC
is not responsible for any changes made to this
training protocol by subsequent users.
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• An Autism program, as with any other special
  education program, must be designed to provide a
  Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE). In
  order to prove FAPE, answer the following
  questions
• Does the offered program meet the childs unique
  needs?
• Does the offered program provide some educational
  benefit?
• Does the offered program comport with the IEP?
• Does the offered program provide for placement in
  the least restrictive environment?

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• Methodologies are typically left to the
  discretion of the school district. Consider using
  an integrated approach but research based (i.e.
  ABA, TEACCH, PECS, Social StoriesTM)

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Autism program considerations for a Legally
Defensible Program

• Written Placement Offer
• Unique Needs
• Location
• Least Restrictive Environment
• Classroom
• Related Services
• Length of School Year
• Personnel
• Transition Planning and/or Services
• Methods of Evaluations
• This checklist is not intended to be an
  exhaustive list of the considerations in
• developing an Autism program nor are the
  components mentioned in this list
• necessary to meet the needs of every autistic
  child. Rather, this list is offered
• as a starting point when developing an autism
  program generally or for a
• particular child.

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Written Placement Offer

• Have you written into the IEP or addressed
• the
• Students unique needs?
• Location?
• Least restrictive environment?
• Classroom?
• Related services?
• Length of school year?
• Personnel?
• Transition planning and/or services?
• Methods of evaluation students progress and/or
  effectiveness of your program?

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Unique Needs/Program Issues

• Have you considered goals and objectives to
• address the students
• Language needs (including expressive language,
  pragmatics, and semantics)?
• Social skills?
• Attending skills?
• Self-help skills?
• Pre-academic and/or school readiness skills?
• Areas of academic deficit (e.g. math computation,
  math application)?
• Problem behaviors?
• Play skills?
• Independence?
• Fine and gross motor skills?

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Unique Needs/Program Issue continued

• Providing the student opportunities to generalize
  learned skills?
• Which methodologies are appropriate given the
  students present levels of functioning?
• Appropriate assistive technology services and/or
  devices?
• Appropriate alternative/augmentative
  communication strategies?
• How much direct teacher intervention, if any,
  will be necessary for the student to benefit from
  his educational program?
• Transition issues (rotating classrooms,
  structured to unstructured activities)?

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Location

• May include
• In home
• Comprehensive school
• Special Education center
• Non-public school
• Residential setting
• Clinical setting

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Does the location allow for

• Placement in the least restrictive environment?
• An opportunity to generalize learned skills?
• The acquisition of new skills?
• Appropriate mainstreaming (and/or reverse
  mainstreaming) with typically developing peers?
• Interaction with appropriate language models?
• Interaction with appropriate behavior models?
• Integration of services?
• Acquisition of school readiness skills?
• An opportunity to learn academics?

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Have you considered

• The distance from the students home?
• Placement in the students home school?
• The size of the campus?
• Safety?

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Least Restrictive Environment (LRE)

• Have you considered
• The full continuum of service options (including
  general education without support general
  education with supplementary aids and services
  special education class settings home programs
  regional programs community based programs
  nonpublic schools and agencies or a combination
  of settings)?
• Appropriate mainstreaming and/or reverse
  mainstreaming with typically developing peers?
• Interaction with appropriate language models?
• Interaction with appropriate behavior models?

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Classroom

• Have you considered
• Where the classroom is located on the campus?
• Whether the classroom is easily accessible to the
  students?
• The number of students enrolled in the class?
• The student composition of the class?
• The adult-to-student ratio?
• The physical layout of the classroom?
• Ambient noise reduction is necessary?
• How, where and when lessons and classroom
  routines will be implemented?
• Safety, transition, school and class schedules?

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Related Services (RS)

• Have you specified
• Where the services will be provided?
• How long the services will be provided
  (individual sessions length and frequency)?
• Implementation and termination dates?
• Who will provide the services?
• The type of setting (group size, classroom or
  clinic setting)?

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Have you considered

• Speech and language
• Occupational therapy
• Discrete trial training services
• Integrated play groups
• Floortime
• Small or large group activity
• Adapted physical education
• Social skills training

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Have you considered

• Transportation services
• Paraprofessional support
• Behavior plan
• Assistive technology services and devices
• Transition services
• Parent training

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Have you considered

• Service provider training
• Team meeting (including the parent)
• Case management
• Expert consultation to service provider
• Expert consultation to parent
• Disability awareness training

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Length of School Year

• Have you considered
• The impact of a break in services on the
  students maintenance of learned skills?
• The extent of the students anticipated
  regression during a break in service as compared
  with his typically developing peers?
• The time for recoupment of skills after a break
  in service?

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Length of School Year continued

• Which services, if any, should be maintained when
  school is not in session?
• Extended School Year (ESY) services?
• Vacations?
• The time periods between the extended school year
  and the traditional school year?

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Personnel

• Do program personnel have
• Necessary and appropriate credentials and/or
  licenses?
• Necessary and appropriate experience working with
  students with autism?
• Necessary and appropriate training to work with
  students with autism?
• Documentation of training, in-services,
  publications published?

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Remember

• Employment decisions are generally a school
  districts prerogative.
• Hearing officers will not order the employment of
  a particular individual or agency as long as the
  districts personnel are qualified to perform the
  duties of their positions.

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Transition Services

• Have you allowed for transition services when
• the student is transferring from one program to
  another?
• there is an anticipated change in personnel?
• the student is age 16?

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Transition

• Have you considered
• Notifying the parent in advance of all
  programmatic changes that may be a change in
  placement under California law
• Convening an IEP team meeting to develop a
  transition plan?
• The pace of the transition?
• Communication among the student, parent, and/or
  service providers?

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Methods of Evaluation

• Have you considered
• How you will evaluate the students progress?
• How you will evaluate the effectiveness of your
  program?

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Are you just complaining, or can you verify what
youre saying with data?
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Data

• Have you considered
• How data will be collected (e.g. service logs,
  videotapes, drill sheets, data sheets, charts,
  graphs, anecdotal records)?
• How often data will be collected (e.g. every
  hour, once per week)?
• On what activities data will be collected?
• By whom data will be collected?
• How data will be evaluated?
• How data will be reported to the parents, service
  providers and other IEP team members?

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Remember

• Anecdotal records alone may be insufficient
  evidence of the students progress. You should
  use some systematic form of data collection to
  evaluate progress on goals and objectives.

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Checklist for ensuring a legally sound autism
service in school

• Reference Charles L. Weatherly and Kathleen
  Sullivan, The Weatherly Law Firm in Atlanta

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• Promptly evaluate and identify students.
• Promptly develop/propose/implement IEP
• Promptly respond to parent concerns.
• Have qualified experts/professionals conduct
  evaluations.

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• Have the proper representatives present at the
  IEP meeting LEA representative, someone
  knowledgeable about the childs evaluation,
  someone knowledgeable about the childs
  disability.

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• Employ and train teachers with knowledge of an
  array of instructional strategies.
• Offer or provide staff development opportunities
  appropriate for the education of students with
  particular disabilities.
• Appropriately involve parents in the IEP process.

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• Maintain a continuum of placement options.
• Avoid determining placement prior to writing the
  IEP.
• Be able to document and support the rationale for
  decisions.
• Notify parents of their due process rights.

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• Designate specific services, but avoid
  designating methodologies in the IEP.
• Address issues of extended school year.
• Design a legally adequate IEP.
• Provide adequate transition services.
• Document, document, document

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Other considerations
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Be PROACTIVE!

• Staff prior to IEP for challenging cases
• All staff members need to be informed
• Team work is essential

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When the meeting gets heated

• Remain calm
• Listen respectfully
• Do not argue. State the facts and have the
  documentation
• Always remember why you are a teacher and keep
  the students needs as the primary focus
• When you care about the student and it shows, you
  are the winner!

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When you have planned and are implementing a
program, based on good research practices, you
have nothing to be defensive about. You are an
expert!
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Please review individual slides for specific
references.Further references to be listed.