and another (same topic)

Special education speedup requested

Ravenswood schools are not following court orders for program improvements promptly enough, lawyers argue in a motion on behalf of disabled students.

BY THAAI WALKER
Mercury News

Lawyers representing a group of disabled students say the Ravenswood City School District is moving too slowly to implement court-ordered changes in its special education program and have asked a federal court to intervene.

The lawyers filed a motion for contempt Monday against the Ravenswood district in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. They allege that the school district has failed to comply with a corrective action plan that the federal court instructed the district to carry out in March 1999. The court might review the motion as early as April.

The action also accuses the California Department of Education of failing to ensure that Ravenswood carried out the corrective action plan. The Department of Education is charged with monitoring school districts’ compliance with special education laws.

Bill Koski, one of the attorneys representing the students, said Monday that the district has had nearly two years to carry out the plan. But as of Jan. 31, he said, the district had completed only 32 percent of the corrective activities that it had agreed to complete by that date.

The deadline for meeting all the requirements of the plan is June, but it is clear that deadline won’t be met, Koski said. Earlier this month, the district asked for an additional two years to carry out the plan.

“We have no reason to believe that giving them another two years will make any difference,” Koski said. “We’re just asking the court to make them do what they promised they were going to do.”

But Urrea Jones, an attorney representing the school district, said the district has been unable to meet its deadlines primarily because two key administrators who oversaw the special education program resigned from the district earlier this year. The district has had a difficult time filling those positions, he said.

Jones said he had not yet seen the motion.

“It is not contemptuous,” he said of the district’s perceived lack of action. “I know the plaintiffs are frustrated — we’re frustrated. But you need people to do a job.”

The current allegations stem from a 1996 lawsuit brought against the district and the California Department of Education by the parents of nine Ravenswood students. The parents accused the district of failing to provide their disabled children with a proper education as required by the federal Individuals With Disabilities Education Act.

To avoid a trial, the district, among other things, agreed to better training for and recruiting of special education teachers and a plan to integrate children with disabilities into classes with non-disabled peers.