Who is the lawyer that regularly represents families before the school board?

[Anonymous]

My son will most likely need to be in a Lab School like environment. I recall that there is a small firm who represents a lot of families before the DCPS school board to get tuition assistance--Does anyone know the name of the firm or a different referral? TIA.

[Anonymous]

What school is your DS in now? Is he not getting the services that he needs?

[Anonymous]

This is the firm that has been doing it for years in DC:


Fawcett & Fawcett
Address: 730 24th Street NW
Suite 15
Washington, DC 20037
Map & Directions
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Attorneys
Attorneys:
Fawcett, Myrna L., Attorney
Jones-Moon, Bonita, Senior Associate

[Anonymous]

Joy Freeman is also a great attorney and child advocate for DC Public Schools. 202 270-2538.

[Anonymous]

There is no one group. The lack of DCPS' ability to provide a Free and Appropriate Education to all residents in the District including needed special education services has created a hustle. Attprneys sue DCPS for not providing the FAPE and the Courts order DCPS to pay for a tuition at a private school that can meet the needs of the child.

There is a group called Advocates for Justice in Education that can provide you with a list of Special Education Attorneys. In the meantime, get good notes and make sure that you have exhausted your efforts with DCPS to get your child what he needs. Put your boxing gloves on...and stick to your guns and speak loudly about the needs of your child. Good Luck!

[Anonymous]

I work with Kim Glassman and she's been great - 301 651-2578.

[Anonymous]

Putting in another big recommendation for Kim Glassman, who very recently left a firm to go out on her own. She is an amazing lawyer who knows the law up and down, and cares deeply about each of her clients. I've known her personally for years, and I can't say enough good things about her ethics and her work. I don't have her card in front of me, but I think the PP posted her phone number.

[Anonymous]

FWIW, I know this is something that all children deserve but at the same time it is frustrating that about 2000 children get 1/4 of the entire school budget devoted to sending them to private school. And my guess is that it is more likely to be well-to-do and middle class families than poor families. I tutor a child that should be in a place like the Lab School or Kingsbury but her family will never get it together to sue DCPS, just like lots of poor families in this city.

If it were my child, I would most likely be doing the same thing as you all are doing but I still see this as a game that hurts the overall school system and benefits relatively few. Go ahead and flame away -- but everytime people complain about the high cost per pupil of DCPS compared to the rest of the nation they have no idea that a huge portion of it is going to private schools.

[Anonymous]

My son is represented by Kimberly Glassman and she has been wonderful. My son has had lots of Comp Ed services owned to him and Attorney Glassman has made sure my son receives the best private services there is outside of school hours. People always asked, how does your son receives therapy in the home on weekends.

Attorney Glassman is sincere, honest and a fighter. She is easy to talk to and I feel very comfortable with her and her associates. When dealing with DCPS so-called professionals, she knows how to put those jokers in there place. We make those people uncomfortable and that is what they hate most. 2CEW2

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FWIW, I know this is something that all children deserve but at the same time it is frustrating that about 2000 children get 1/4 of the entire school budget devoted to sending them to private school. And my guess is that it is more likely to be well-to-do and middle class families than poor families. I tutor a child that should be in a place like the Lab School or Kingsbury but her family will never get it together to sue DCPS, just like lots of poor families in this city.

If it were my child, I would most likely be doing the same thing as you all are doing but I still see this as a game that hurts the overall school system and benefits relatively few. Go ahead and flame away -- but everytime people complain about the high cost per pupil of DCPS compared to the rest of the nation they have no idea that a huge portion of it is going to private schools.

I'm not going to flame you, but I'm curious what you think the solution is. More specifically, I'd be interested in your opinion of why the dynamic is so different in DC than in all the other states. They have special needs students too, but their special education services aren't under court order. Why is that? What are they doing that DC should be doing? Again, I'd like to emphasize I'm not flaming you, but I'd genuinely like for you to elucidate your comment.

I think sometimes DCPS gets a bad rap across the board when actually some of the best public schools in the country happen to be here (they all seem to be geographically concentrated, but that's part of the whole picture). But given that there are excellent resources in the city, why is it so impossible to share them with the students who need them the most? Maybe if DCPS could find a way to accommodate special needs students on Capitol Hill or in Shaw by allowing them to attend Key or Hyde, their parents wouldn't need to sue DCPS to attend Lab School or the like.

[Anonymous]

My understanding is that it has to do with the specific ruling by the court. I haven't studied what has happened in other states so I don't know why it has played out this way here but I'm certain that DC can't be the only school district in the country that doesn't serve special needs students well.

And of course it wouldn't have come out this way if DCPS hadn't been badly serving special needs students to begin with so ultimately DCPS is at fault. But I'm cynical about who has the skills and resources to use this court order to their advantage. It sure isn't most of the poor families I know who live in public housing. And I'm sure it didn't help my non-special needs child who was in DCPS for most of her school career that so much money was being spent on 2000 kids. She was in "good" DCPS schools but they still didn't have the money they needed for staff like teacher aides and full-time librarians or to fix the doors on the toilets or the broken faucets.

Like I said, if my child had special needs, I suppose I would be calling a lawyer, too, but it still doesn't seem right.

[Anonymous]

Question: in the decades since the federal court rulings have created this de facto system of unmet needs = sue = Lab-type School tuition paid by DCPS .....

Why hasn't the District created a **public** Lab School, K-12? Beginning under Anthony Williams and receivership in the 1990s, that should've been easily doable (surplus space, etc.)

Is it because of the potential stigma of warehousing makes it a non-starter, do you think?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Question: in the decades since the federal court rulings have created this de facto system of unmet needs = sue = Lab-type School tuition paid by DCPS .....

Why hasn't the District created a **public** Lab School, K-12? Beginning under Anthony Williams and receivership in the 1990s, that should've been easily doable (surplus space, etc.)

Is it because of the potential stigma of warehousing makes it a non-starter, do you think?

I think that to some extent it's an unwillingness/inability to do it right. I know of one child in a private placement who DC wanted to move to what they considered an equivalent public placement. Child would have lost all individual services, would not have qualified for speech/language therapy because they only hired enough therapists to serve the least functional kids, would not have had the current behavioral plan implemented because they couldn't staff it, etc., etc. Of course the parents fought the move!

[Anonymous]

I heard that giving St. Collella's (sp) such a cheap lease on land (or was it a sale) by RFK was an effort to open up a lot of special needs slots via a charter school -- so it can't be said that Williams didn't do anything about this.

I also know from when my dc was at Hyde that there were plans to renovate the former community mental health center next door into a school for gifted kids with learning disabilities. I know that construction has begun. I'm assuming that the plan is the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I heard that giving St. Collella's (sp) such a cheap lease on land (or was it a sale) by RFK was an effort to open up a lot of special needs slots via a charter school -- so it can't be said that Williams didn't do anything about this.

I also know from when my dc was at Hyde that there were plans to renovate the former community mental health center next door into a school for gifted kids with learning disabilities. I know that construction has begun. I'm assuming that the plan is the same.

Yes, there are plans to expand special needs services at Hyde and staffing has been ramped up for this purpose. However, Hyde is what - 200 students? The vast majority of whom are in-bounds. It's a lovely plan and I wish them all the success - but it's a bit of a drop in the bucket.

I didn't know about the St. Coletta's expansion under Williams, I thought it had been around for a long time. Thing is, Special Education is a pretty broad category. Just because St. Coletta's does Downs well doesn't mean it's a good placement for, say, HFA.