The advocacy group Disability Rights Ohio (DRO) has filed a complaint against the Ohio Department of Education and Labor for failing to deliver on its promise to provide appropriate special education to students at the Warren County Educational Services Center in Lebanon. submitted.
The Educational Service Center provides professional development, technology, administrative, and special education services to other nearby school districts. Service centers are also considered school districts under state law.
The due process charges filed earlier this month stem from an investigation into Warren County ESC by the Department of Education that began more than two years ago. The investigation was conducted after the DRO announced that it had found serious violations of state education laws at the service center.
The DRO claimed that Warren County ESC lacked adequate individualized education programs, IEPs, staff, and other behavioral services. But things don't appear to have changed much after a 2022 study by the Ohio Department of Education confirmed these claims.
Once ODE's investigation concluded, Warren County ESC was ordered to make changes to meet state standards. Under state supervision, workers at the center were supposed to participate in a professional development program on IEPs and receive free appropriate public education (FAPE).
The 91 students were expected to receive an average of 57 hours of compensatory education to make up for gaps in their previously missed IEPs. However, this order was suspended indefinitely by the ministry in January 2023. After the initial outage, the DRO contacted the state and said it found the service centers were resistant to the new instructions.
“At one point, we reached out to ODE to ask about the improvements, and the Educational Service Center, the superintendent, the attorney, and even some school district attorneys were working on what I would call a 'problem.' “It turned out to be a pressure campaign to get ODE to reverse its findings,” Christine Hildebrandt, an attorney with the Ohio Office of Disability Rights, told WVXU.
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The DRO's latest complaint alleges Warren County ESC Superintendent Tom Isaacs and others threatened the Ohio Department of Education and Labor with legal action over the findings and corrective action plan. Instead of Mr. Isaacs filing a formal complaint with the state or requesting mediation, the DRO instituted a moratorium and ultimately made significant changes to the requirements that service centers are required to comply with. He claims that he pressured the ministry to add the following. The complaint alleges that ODEW leadership secretly held meetings without informing the DRO or the families of students at the center and made adjustments at the request of the ESC.
A week after the DRO complaint against ODEW, the Warren County ESC also targeted the Department of State, filing a civil suit against ODEW in Warren County Court of Common Pleas.
The Warren County ESC argues that the DRO's initial complaint several years ago lacked evidence of systemic problems at the center and that it used complaints from a small number of families to launch the state investigation. There is.
A legal complaint filed by ESC's attorneys alleges that the center's governing board and affiliated school districts were never given an opportunity to rebut the DRO's claims or the state's findings, and that the agency lacks factual evidence. However, he said he accepted the complaint anyway.
In ESC's court filing, the department uses findings from the Warren County Wellness Center, a treatment program for students with serious mental health, behavioral and emotional issues, to identify negative outcomes across the center. He also claims that he used it to draw images.
The Wellness Center is located in Mason, separate from the education center's main building, and focuses primarily on providing mental health treatment to students who are at risk of harming themselves or others.
According to Warren County ESC, families who send their students to the Wellness Center agree to spend 80% of the school day in therapy and 20% in math and English language arts.
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Although the school's students do not receive state-mandated science or social studies instruction, ESC's attorneys argue that the wellness center is not a permanent school for students and that students most at risk are at risk. He said that the company is meeting the needs of the public.
DRO Christine Hildebrandt says the Warren County ESC's argument doesn't hold water.
“That complaint is kind of a 'kitchen sink' approach to trying to figure out what's going to stick,” Hildebrandt said. “This issue is actually an issue outside of the complaint we filed. Our complaint focused on individual students' IEPs and the services they should have received according to their IEPs. ”
Mr. Hildebrandt went on to say that the actions taken by Superintendent Tom Isaacs and Warren County ESC leaders show that they chose to remove themselves from remedial action rather than provide services that meet state standards to students in need. He said it shows that they are focused on protection.
Last Thursday, Warren County ESC attorney Gary Stedronski filed for a temporary restraining order against ODEW, which the court granted, preventing the department from taking corrective action.
“This is the first step in steering Columbus' ODEW officials away from the parental choices of children,” Stedronski said in a statement. “We look forward to presenting the full scope of the lawsuit as this case moves forward to court. I'm looking forward to it,” he said in a statement.
An ODEW spokesperson responded to WVXU's request for comment but did not issue a statement on the matter.