Fairfax County Schools Sued Over Record on Education Plans for Disabled Students

Fairfax County and the Virginia Department of Education are facing another legal complaint about their treatment of disabled students.

A lawsuit filed by parents of disabled students says the Fairfax school system is failing to comply with the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) that requires education programs designed for the special needs of the disabled persons.

The parents are represented by the Civil Rights Clinic of Georgetown Law School and the law firms Susman Godfrey and Merritt Law.

IDEA gives parents or guardians a right to participate in the development of each student’s Individualized Education Program (IEP). If parents disagree with the IEP, they have a right to a hearing before an impartial officer within the local education system.

The Fairfax parents say they were denied fair hearings. Instead, a Freedom of Information Act search revealed that in the past 10 years, Northern Virginia children or families lost 83 percent of the appeals that were decided by a hearing officer.

Statewide, parents won less than 2 percent of nearly 1,400 appeals filed under IDEA, the search showed.

Without unbiased hearings, “school districts would be free to ignore requests for services and accomodations, with little consequence,” the lawsuit says.

A press release from attorneys for the parents says, “The data reveals for the first time that Virginia’s due process hearing system is dramatically biased towards school districts and against the parents of disabled children.”

The class action lawsuit was initiated by parents of a disabled child who were told by a social worker that they “would lose” if they challenged their child’s individualized education program, according to the lawsuit.

They then filed the Freedom of Information Act request that demonstrated the school system’s record for granting the parents’ requests. In addition to compensation, they want the state to establish an independent board to oversee the hearing officer system.

Fairfax County schools settled a different lawsuit last December that accused educators of routinely using seclusion and restraint on disabled students as young as six years old.

For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: [email protected] or phone: 202-479-7240.