Published by MOASBO, March/April 2010 On February 1, 2010, Mickes Goldman O’Toole celebrated its two year anniversary. And in the past two years alone, our special education department has handled approximately sixty OCR complaints against districts across the state...
Published by MOASBO, March/April 2010 Introduction As Missouri public school districts are all too painfully aware, districts state-wide are facing budgetary problems, the likes of which have not been seen in some time. Districts are left with the...
Published by MARE, January 2010 Consider this: a high school principal suspends a disabled student on September 8 for fighting and bringing a pocket knife to school. He tells the student and his parent that the suspension is “until a hearing before the school board...
Published by MOASBO, January/February 2010 On June 22, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court held that under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, parents may seek private school tuition reimbursement, even if their child has never before received special education...
Published by MOASBO, September/November 2009 The Special Education Student Substantially Likely to Cause Injury Johnny B. Goode, we’ll just call him J.G., is on his way to the Principal’s office. He is being escorted by the school' Resource Officer and a male teacher....
Published by MARE, Fall 2009 Bill Cosby hosted the hit TV show “Kids Say the Darndest Things” in the late 1990s. The premise of the show was that the host, Cosby, would ask a question to a child who would then usually respond in a “cute” way. While high school...
Published by MOASBO, September/November 2010 Re-examining the Scope of your District’s PAT Program Your school district’s Parents as Teachers (“PAT”) Program is sometimes the first contact young families have with the district. The PAT program is a wonderful way to...
Published by MOASBO, July/August 2009 Schools are facing situations where anonymous students harass, defame or publicly humiliate educators by using web sites, such as MySpace or Facebook, with increasing frequency. Many of these situations have resulted in legal...
Published by MARE, June 2009 “Missouri School Children Placed In Padded Seclusion Rooms” “Parents of Disabled Students Say Metro District is Mistreating Their Kids” These are just two of the many headlines involving the use of seclusion and/or restraint in schools...
Published by MARE, March 2009 You have seen it before: a parent is upset at the way their child’s coach is coaching, and they let him know about it. They yell and scream, threaten the coach, disrupt the game, and in your opinion, go too far. This is not the first time...
