Children are our priority. Ensuring their needs are met is our goal.
While there is a regulated timeline for the assignment of hearing officers to due process hearings (see below), there aren’t federal statutes or regulations stating that the parent and school division be made aware of the hearing officer assignment at the same time.
Virginia Hearing Officer Frank Aschmann thought it appropriate to judge the skin color of a parent’s advocate, and include his judgement of his interpretation of her appearance in his due process decision.
Why?
It reads like a report modeled on a deflated balloon. “Full” isn’t a word to associate with it.
At this point in the game, states across the nation have been facing this topic since Spring 2020. Fingers crossed that a) more research is being done and b) that any related charges are minimal (or waived).
The report will be presented live. A dedicated YouTube link will be made available for public viewing of the live event. (link to come)
It includes information about IEP development, too, such as Lourrie Duddridge correcting the use of the PLOP page for present levels instead of a place used to document meeting minutes.
At about the 1:54:56 time mark, Lourrie Duddridge states: “We’ve been looking at a lot of present level of performance pages (PLOPS) and we need to just remind everybody that those documents are really for documenting the student’s present level of performance. How are they doing in their educational environment and what we propose as a team, and that those statements are written in objective measurable terms, and that we’re using appropriate data on those pages. What the page is not for is summaries of what happened–minutes of the meeting. And we’re seeing a lot of that on our present level of performance pages and what it does is clutter the IEP, and then we get present level of performance pages that are 20 pages long, because we have documented so much stuff that really isn’t relevant to the proposal itself.”
In a recent meeting, the parents and their advocate brought the bccing practice to the attention of a due process hearing officer.
The hearing officer, in turn, asked Allen, who was attending the meeting, too:
“What’s your authority Mr. Allen?”
Before I knew a hearing officer had been assigned, Blankingship & Keith, one of the law firms Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) taps into for due process hearings, started in with subpoenas.
I’d never been served—much less seen—a subpoena before those arrived.
With the help of Google and God, I got up to speed on subpoenas.
I learned they are kin to a child in a toy shop. Ask the kid what he or she wants, and the response will be everything in sight—plus the G.I. Joe with the Kung Fu grip (for those “Trading Places” fans).
