Showing posts with label Appropriate Education for disabled students. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Appropriate Education for disabled students. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 22, 2023

Madras HC raps a private school for refusing to admit a child with autism

Court:  High Court of Judicature at Madras

Bench: Hon'ble Jutice C.V. Karthikeyan

Case No.: W.P. No. 24973 of 2022

Case Title: The Child Vs. State of Tamilnadu 

Date of Judgement:  22.02.2023

Brief:

Fuming over the denial of admission to a special needs child, the Madras High Court rapped a school run in the name of a missionary for not following the principles of the missionary and betraying her name and Christian faith.

Justice CV Karthikeyan made the comments while disposing of a petition filed by a minor child who was denied admission at a popular missionary school in Vellore. Quoting previous judgments on admitting children with special needs in schools under the right to education act, the judge said the courts have always been sensitive to children with special needs, expressing hope that educational institutions would not betray children with special needs.

“The sixth respondent (school) has failed not only in this duty but also betrayed the name of the noble Missionary and extremely, extremely distressingly their Christian faith,” he deplored. The order was passed on the petition filed by the minor child, represented by her mother, currently residing at Gandhi Nagar, Katpadi in Vellore, seeking orders from the school to admit the child.

The child, diagnosed with mild autism spectrum disorder, was earlier admitted to a CBSE school in Padur. After the covid lockdown, the child developed some difficulties and was taken to the National Institute for Empowerment of Persons with Multiple Disabilities (NIEPMED) at Kovalam in Chennai.

The mother, a government officer, got transferred to Vellore and the father resigned from his job to take care of the child before the child was at the CMC Hospital in Vellore in 2021 for assessment and was confirmed special needs child.

After several schools denied admission citing a lack of special educators, the mother approached the missionary school in 2022 for admission. After holding a written examination and an interview with the child, the school refused admission saying that it had no special educators to take care of the child.

The mother, in her affidavit, stated that the website of the school had sported messages about having special teachers to support students with special education needs. Aggrieved over the denial of admission, she approached the concerned government authorities before moving to the High Court.

The judge said the sixth respondent/school is quite pathetically and ironically named after a third-generation American Medical Missionary in India. It makes him wonder whether those in administration today are riding on that name without following her principles or the core conduct which the noble lady adhered to.

Saying that the missionary, who lived between 1870 and 1960 dedicated her life to assuaging the plight of Indian women and worked tirelessly helping those afflicted with ‘bubonic plague, cholera and leprosy’, the judge said, “Very very unfortunately, her name is used by an institution which had taken a conscious decision to drive away a child and her parents, who had sought refuge and admission.”

Finding a touch of hollowness in the belated offer of admission to the school, he felt that such an offer should have been given voluntarily. The judge said the court would not stand in the way of decision-making by the mother. 

“I hope that if at all the mother takes a decision to admit the child in the sixth respondent, they would prove false my words expressed above and if they do so, I shall be the most satisfied person. The entire issue is in their hands,” he said concluding the verdict.

Read /Download the Judgement

Friday, January 13, 2017

US Supreme Court ready to hear the land mark case on supporting Education for Disabled Students

Pls refer to my earlier post on  20 October 2016 titled 'US Supreme Court to hear ground breaking case involving what is "appropriate education" for students with Autism in public schools' . The Justices are hearing the arguments in the case wherein a school district refused to pay for private school for a student with autism whether federal law (IDEA) requires public schools to provide anything more than minimal instruction to such children.

A law dating from 1975, now called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, subsidizes special education but also requires school districts to provide a “free appropriate public education” to disabled students. Congress didn’t specify what it meant by appropriate, and when parents have challenged public school programs as inadequate—often because they want the district to pay for a private institution instead—appellate courts have disagreed over the quality of education the law mandates.

The Supreme Court agreed to resolve the issue in a case from Douglas County, Colo., where the school district rejected a parental request to pay $40,000 tuition to send an autistic child to a private school offering specialized programs.

Neal Katyal, an attorney for the school district, told the court as long as the public school program was better than nothing, courts had little role beyond reviewing whether local officials followed procedures that the law, known as the IDEA Act, lays out for a disabled student’s educational plan.

“That’s what Congress had in mind, the idea that you’ve got to go through the checklist,” Mr. Katyal said.

“That’s wrong,” said Justice Elena Kagan. “This is not just a procedural guarantee. Yes, the IDEA has lots of procedures in it, but they’re all geared towards a particular substantive result.”

The justices likewise felt Jeffrey Fisher, a Stanford law professor representing the child, identified as Endrew F. in court papers, pushed too far in contending the law mandated that disabled students receive “equal educational opportunity” with other students.

Such a high standard could invite numerous claims forcing courts to evaluate whether a plan for a disabled child was legally equal to the opportunities provided other students, said Justice Stephen Breyer. “I foresee taking the money that ought to go to the children and spending it on lawsuits and lawyers and all kinds of things that are extraneous. That is what’s actually bothering me,” he said.

Much of the argument concerned the meaning of a 1982 Supreme Court precedent upholding a school district’s refusal to provide a sign-language interpreter for a deaf student because she was progressing well using a hearing aid. In that case, Board of Education v. Rowley, the court cited a congressional purpose “to confer some educational benefit upon the handicapped child.”

Responding to Mr. Katyal, Chief Justice John Roberts summarized the disagreement this way:

“You’re reading it as saying ‘SOME benefit,’ and the other side is reading it as saying ‘some BENEFIT,’” the chief justice said, prompting laughter across the courtroom.

The Obama administration has proposed a compromise position, and by the argument’s end it appeared likely to prevail.

The law should be read to require “significant progress towards grade-level standards, not as close as possible to grade-level standards,” Justice Department lawyer Irv Gornstein told the court. “And we think that this is just what most school boards are already doing.”

Justice Samuel Alito asked whether school officials could consider costs in determining an appropriate program.

Probably not, said Mr. Gornstein, who noted that the federal government provides about 15% of special-education costs.

“I think Congress took costs off the table in the usual case,” Mr. Gornstein said, except in extreme cases where extraordinary costs would yield little benefit to the student.

A decision in the case, Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District, is expected before July.