This episode features Frances Shefter, a seasoned special education attorney, discussing the intricacies of special ed law, advocacy, and how parents can effectively navigate the system to secure the best outcomes for their children. Topics include legal rights, the evaluation process, predetermination, and when to seek legal help.

keywordsspecial education law, IEP, advocacy, legal rights, education attorney, parent rights, IEP process, independent educational evaluation, legal compliance, special ed advocacy

key topics

1. Legal rights of parents in special education
2. The evaluation and IEP process
3. Predetermination and legal compliance
4. When to seek legal help in special education
5. How to effectively advocate for your child's needs

titles

1. Unlocking Your Child's Rights: A Guide to Special Ed Law
2. Navigating IEPs and Legal Rights with Frances Shefter

Sound Bites

1. "Trust your gut and ask questions."
2. "Know what the issues are and be prepared."
3. "Legal help can often save time and money."

Chapters

00:00Introduction to Special Education Law

00:01Frances Shefter's Journey into Special Education Law

05:04Understanding the Role of Parents and Schools

09:28Navigating IEP Meetings and Legal Representation

15:02Collaboration Between Attorneys and Parents

17:23The Role of Educators in Child Advocacy

19:34State Variations in Educational Compliance

21:23Challenges in Meeting Educational Needs

25:25Navigating the IEP Process and Parental Rights

31:10Requesting Evaluations and the Role of Attorneys

Resources

1. Frances Shefter Law
2. specialedrising.com
3. https://www.gofundme.com/f/join-rays-respite-care-mission

Francis Schefter, thank you so much for being here on the show. Yeah, it's my pleasure. You're the first person I'm getting to talk to about law, special ed law, I think, you know,

Hahaha

Thank you for having me. ⁓

when your child is identified, you're clueless. You have no idea what to turn. And so I think it's really, this is an important episode for parents to know who are fresh to the scene, but also parents who have been in it for a long time and need to know what their rights are when it comes to fighting for their child's services. And right now with the way things are setting up governmentally, services are now even more and more in jeopardy. So maybe we could talk about that a little bit.

But I would like to just know more about you at the beginning and have you tell people about yourself and how you got involved in special education law.

Sure, so.

my career started with early childhood education. That's what my undergrad was in and I taught for a few years before going back and getting certified in special education and then eventually doing my master's in special education. So after seven years in the classroom, I moved to special ed coordinator. So I was the LEA for the school. And after two years of that, the school district wanted me to go into central office, like compliance. And I was like, something doesn't feel right anymore.

And so I went to law school and it just kind of made sense to be a special education attorney because I speak the language. I've done this. I always say I'm the only person at an IEP table that can say I've been in five positions because I've been general ed, I've been special ed, I've been LEA, obviously I've been attorney and I also have two children on IEP. So I've also been mom. So it's a very different perspective that I bring to any table.

Yeah.

That's so great.

my goodness.

sure, you bring a lot of depth, that's incredible. What was it about the compliance that you noticed that motivated you to act and become a lawyer?

So I was working at an alternative middle and high school. So my school was where the middle and high school kids in comprehensive high schools were kicked out temporarily, suspended for long term, quote, quote, expelled, because they can't expel them. They still need to require FAPE. And the kids then needed to

be able to come back or not come back. I saw a lot when I took over the department, there was somebody that was there before me and we got audited by the state of Florida a month after I took over. And I literally spent weekends before that audit, like entire weekends cleaning up the mess. And it was so frustrating because the parents didn't know.

boy.

You know, and it was just, felt like this isn't about the kids anymore. This is about the paperwork and the compliance and all that stuff. And

I went into teaching because I wanted it to be about the kids and I want the kids, the children, the students to be, get a better understanding, be educated the way they should be in an environment that they should be. And I wasn't seeing that happen. it just kind of, I was like, this doesn't feel right anymore. It's time to shift and see where we go from there.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Right? Fair enough.

Yeah, it occurs to me again, a common theme is, working together, parents and the system and the districts and the schools, working together, you know, as a team. And that just doesn't happen enough, it seems to me. And certainly from my experience, there was, fained

process, but when it came down to what was really going on, there's a fear of informing families because it's going to come back on you, as a school. And that's just unfortunate that we live in that kind of environment where we're not able to communicate exactly what's going on. So we can kind of work together cooperatively and make a better situation for our kids because it is about the kids in the end.

Right.

Yeah. And I mean, as a former teacher,

things come down from higher ups, that it's clear that it's not exactly what should be happening. But when your boss tells you you have to do something a certain way, you have to do something a certain way. you know, and I feel for teachers and I understand it that like I can see it in the teachers faces sometimes that they agree with us, but they can't say anything.

Yeah.

Right, their hands are tied. Yeah.

Right. And it's frustrating

because it's, know, teachers go into teaching to be about the kids. And when higher ups, whether it's the principal or central office, tie their hands, it gets really frustrating.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

It does and it really is defeating and it makes you as a teacher from both of our perspectives I would say I don't speak for you but for mine and I'm assuming it's similar for you it demotivates you you know it makes it difficult to come to work when you know that you have the auspice of this hanging over your head and you can only go so far and then I remember having a principal tell me to lie to a parent and I was just like my god I mean do you really need to hide things that badly I mean it's just it wasn't common but it did happen towards the end of my

career and it was just really really stunning to me and so disappointing and I really feel like a lot of parents are in the dark and

I know advocacy is really important and I'd like to get into the law aspect of it because I think parents don't know what their options are. And maybe we could just kind of start from there. As far as like what parents conception or understanding or misconception about special ed law is and maybe some way to get over kind of the fears or doubts or hesitations that they might have in hiring a lawyer to help them out. And then we can go into like reasons why they would do that.

Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing is that as parents, we want to trust the school. We want to trust the teachers. We want to think they're doing what's right for our kids. Most of the time they are to the extent that they can. One of the things I hear often is that the schools tell parents, we don't do that here or it's not in our budget. And both of those are completely illegal.

Bye.

You know, it doesn't matter if it's in your budget or not. It doesn't matter if you have done it ever before. This is what needs to happen. This is what my child needs. We have the reports, your own reports, the school zone reports that say this is what my child needs. And if you guys can't do it, OK, so then who can? Where are you going to send him? ⁓

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Mm-hmm.

And that's the biggest thing I see is that parents, they accept that it's not in the budget. And reality is we get it, but that's not a reason to say no. And yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and I think too, know, parents are so busy. There's so much going on that it's really, it's so time consuming and stressful to then take on this next project in a sense, to fight. And that's why I really feel like it's not common knowledge about the kind of help that's out there for parents. So could you speak about where you come into the picture and how you come into the picture for parents?

Yeah, I, you know...

I love advocates. think advocates are great and all advocates have a place. My thing is, is once you get to a point of disagreement adversarially, then it's time to bring in an attorney because, you know, while there are a few advocates that can bring it to that level, oftentimes they need the attorneys. And the difference is, is that when you go to an IEP meeting with an advocate,

you're still just with the school system. When you bring an attorney to an IAP meeting, the majority of the school systems bring their own attorney and somebody from central office, or at least somebody from central office or somebody from compliance. And then what happens is that the school's informed sometimes when they're doing things wrong, or it's just a little bit more,

Mm-hmm.

know, I's are dotted and T's are crossed. You know, a lot of meetings I've gone to, I've had a client say, my gosh, that is the first time I felt that the IEP team was prepared. and so every other meeting before I came, the school was like last minute throwing it together, not prepared. So that was a difference. I've also had situations where

Thank you.

Hmm. Mm-hmm.

Huh. Wow.

The school was saying something and I'm like, yeah, you can't, that's not legal. And they kept saying it. And finally the school's attorney said, Ms. Schefter, can you and your client step out for a few minutes? Right, exactly. And then, you know, sure. And we come back and it's a whole different story.

I need to educate my people.

you know, I don't go in adversarial ever. I, you what I always say is I come in and play nice until you tick me off and do something wrong and then I'll be a bulldog if I have to. But my focus, yeah, my focus is always on the child. I get people that call and like, oh, well, I want to sue and I want to hold them accountable. And I'm like, okay, that

Yeah, yeah. I think I agree that's the right approach.

Mm-hmm.

is a different approach, not an approach I take ever, because I want to get your child the support and services your child needs as soon as possible. And that's the path I want to take. And if you want something different, then I'm not a good match for you and I can send you to a different education attorney.

Mm-hmm.

Right. Right.

Right, because going in with the bulldog attitude can really just end the meeting right there, really. And any chance for cooperation is probably out the window. So when do you find parents, when they're advocating or they have advocates, what are they capable of doing before it kind of escalates to a due process situation?

Right.

So usually it's getting an IEP done appropriately, getting the right services in place. If you're going for a more restrictive environment, change of placement, oftentimes at that point you need to bring in an attorney unless the school's agreeing.

There are times that schools agree, but if they're giving a lot of pushback, then you need the attorney to come make those arguments. I bring a different perspective because I always say I'm an advocate also because I know how to go in and pick apart the IEP and use the data that they've given us to make arguments for why our position is right on their own data and then put it back to them. Yeah, where...

Wow, that's great.

Advocates can make those arguments, but they don't have the legal umph behind it.

Can you give a little insight into that? How you go about, picking apart the data? So parents, just to kind of educate parents so maybe they have a little better idea when they're looking at the IEP what to look be looking for.

sure so

Yeah, so there was one case, I talk about this one often several years ago, a child, we were trying to get eligible for learning disabled. And the teacher was adamant, no, no, no, she's on grade level, she's on grade level, she's on grade level. It was a third grade student. If you know anything about dyslexia and dysgraphia.

up until third or fourth grade, they compensate. Kids with dyslexia and dysgraphia compensate and they can hide it. So they're on grade level. This was a situation when you looked at the whole scores, there was not the two standard deviations discrepancy. But then when you looked at the subtests, I had

Mm-hmm.

The psychologists say, well, if subtest scores are below seven, know, six and a half would be one and a half standard deviations and she'd be eligible automatically. And I went, what? Okay, so if there's any subsections that are six.

Yeah.

or below, she'd be eligible. And the psychologist is like, yes. I'm like, okay, look at spelling, fluency, and I forget what the third one was. And the psychologist is like, yep, she's eligible. And like, it was like a little thing like that that I knew to listen and look for. Yeah, and that, you know, I also know how to look at what, I know what they're saying, how the teachers say things.

Yeah, there you go. ⁓

and look for them, right?

in code basically. know, like there was a time when I taught we weren't allowed to say anything obnoxious about, not obnoxious, but anything bad about a student. And so we came up with the phrase of, you know,

Well, not but negative, but yeah.

student is very active and enjoys hands-on activities. And any teacher knows that means this kid's bouncing off the walls, touching everything, hitting everything, and that, you know, because it's that language where parents wouldn't necessarily know that. And that's the difference that I can bring also is that like just knowing what the language means and how to interpret it to get what we want put on the IEP.

Yeah,

Right.

And how does that help parents by using that kind of coded language? Because then they're not being honest about what their child's like in the classroom, Then the parents don't know. Because then, you know, I've had parents who are like, that behavior at school doesn't happen at home or vice versa. This behavior is happening at home. Is it happening at school? And if there's not that, if there's like deceptive language, then that's really, again, not benefiting the child. The parents then don't know what to do and how to act moving forward.

Exactly.

And a lot of times when there's behaviors at home, the schools like to say often, that's a home problem, not a school problem. Right.

⁓ yeah, go ahead.

Yes. Right.

Right.

But usually it's because the child's masking at school all day, not getting the appropriate supports, and then falling apart at home because it's their safe space. And that's always the argument I have to give and do the pushback to because schools, they like to put it back on the parents of like, that's your problem, not our problem when they can.

Right, right.

⁓ Mm-hmm.

Yeah, because really it is two different worlds, right? So the child exists in two different worlds simultaneously, and so they're going to behave a certain way with their teachers that they were going to, than they are with their parents and vice versa. And that's going to create, it's going to paint completely different pictures sometimes.

Yeah, because I'm working with a family and it's just like the behavior at school that doesn't happen at home. how, what's going on, you know? But then what to do to get to the next level of understanding. Where do parents go from there? So if they have the questions and the school's not being honest with them, an advocate isn't going to be able to put them any closer necessarily is what you're saying. That's when a lawyer stepping into the situation will be more helpful. Yeah.

Generally, yeah.

Once it gets to a point of disagreement or, I hate saying the trust is broken, but that happens also when the trust is broken with the school and the parent. ⁓ Or the parents are like questioning things and not getting answers. You know, like, well, wait a minute, the data says this, you're, you know, the data is showing that he's not progressing, but you're.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

IEP goals say that he is progressing, which is it? These don't match. And those are things that, you yes, there are some great advocates out there that can handle that and the schools will listen. But the majority of the time I found that the schools don't listen to the advocates. ⁓ And, you know, it's sad because there's been times I've had clients come to me and they're like, yeah, I've been paying an advocate for two years and made absolutely no progress.

Cheating, right?

Mm-hmm.

And it's like parents go to advocates because they're less expensive than attorneys. But what they don't realize is that two years paying an advocate is probably about the same as paying an attorney for six months to do stuff. the attorney is going to get it done in six months, or going to tell you they can't.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Mm-hmm. What does

collaboration look like with an attorney and their client in this situation? how much involvement does the client have or do you pretty much take over, say, in a meeting? Are the parents kind of relying upon you to speak and represent them entirely or is it a collaborative experience where, you how do you prepare them kind of deal?

Yeah. So

for me, before every meeting, I have what I call a pre-meeting with my clients. I review all the information, the pre-meeting documents, whatever that may be, draft IEP or evaluation reports, whatever that is. And then my clients and I talk about it. I talk about what their goals are, what they see, what they think is wrong. I tell them what I'm seeing is wrong or needs to be tweaked. And we have that conversation.

And then I asked the clients, what do you want? There are times that I say the clients like, I just want you there in the background and to jump in when there's legal things. There are other times the clients like, I'm out, I'm done. I'll sit there. You do it all. You know, and it depends. I, of the phrases I love telling clients is that there's nothing in an IEP meeting that you can say.

Right.

that I can't say what my client is trying to say is and put it in the verbiage that the school needs to hear to make a change on the IEP.

Mm-hmm.

So that said, basically you're kind of implying that let the attorney speak because you know the language.

Well, it's also, it's, those cases, I'm like, you can be the parent and be emotional and express your frustration. Go for it. Don't be afraid to talk. If you say something that I'm like, okay, that's good, but let's phrase it differently, then I can jump in and say that I can phrase it differently. ⁓ You know, I had a client one time, I love him. He went off.

Right.

Understood. Gotcha. Great. OK.

like just basically said, I don't want a response from you all, but how you as educators can sit in this room and do this to my child, how do you call yourself educators? It was longer than that and a lot, know, very, well, no, he was very eloquent, but yeah, he was, but it was very like, how do you guys sit there and do this to this child?

Mm-hmm. A little fuller. lot more colorful, probably. Oh, he was? Okay, good.

Yeah.

It's an exasperation at that point. Yeah.

Yeah, like it's just,

why is this okay? And just put it back on them. And those were the situations that I sat back. He didn't want me involved. He was good and he was able to say his piece and we ended the meeting and that was the end of it. Because by that point we had gotten what we wanted.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

I wanted to ask about predetermination when you're going into these meetings, but first thing, but now you just brought this up because I wanted to I want to kind of get a clearer picture about how districts misrepresent compliance or abuse the system and where they don't meet compliance. Can you speak to that a little bit? Do know what I'm asking?

Nice.

as in regards to predetermination.

Well, that was a separate question, but so let's just look at it as, because it brings up the question of like when the father says, how can you do this to my child, So what are the schools doing to try to avoid being compliant? And does it vary from state to state as well, as far as compliance,

Okay.

It does to an extent. mean, it is federal law, but states are allowed to make things. make a shorter timeline. They can't extend the timeline. Make, you know, like if the, if the timeline says 60 days, a state or a county can say 45 days. They can't say 90 days.

So the federal law is like kind of the umbrella and then the state law can hone it in a little more. Like for example, documents in advance. Federal law is reasonable time in advance of the meeting. Maryland says five business days. Virginia says five business days. Tennessee says 48 hours.

so they can make.

Okay.

So for a Monday morning meeting, Saturday morning is okay to send you the documents. Yeah, it's very crazy. So that's what it is. What's reasonable? The states have a lot of leeway to determine what they think is reasonable.

That's crazy. Yeah.

I always found that with my school that was one of the things we were really good at with the IEP is getting the copy, getting the document to the families with sufficient amount of time. mean at least two weeks if not more. felt like

Right.

I'm always flexible. You know, where most of my work is in Maryland and DC. And generally they get it to me five days in advance. I usually tell the schools, depending on what's going on, like with snow days or things, that two or three days is okay. But I always tell them, if you get it to me in advance, my client and I will review it. I will send you the IEP with my notes on it.

And then at the IEP meeting, can just hit the points that we disagree on and make the meeting shorter. And usually the schools are like, wait, what? An attorney saying a short meeting? You know, because they expect, an attorney, it's going to be three hours. Yeah, but.

That's

⁓ Right, Yeah, now it's like

shorter and more impactful because you're getting right to the point.

Exactly. Like, you know, we can all read. I hate when I go to evaluation review meetings and the teachers sit there and read the report. I always stop them and I'm like, the reason we, right? Like the reason you gave it to us in advance is so that we can read it and meaningfully participate in the meeting. So I don't need you to read it to me. Can you just give me the highlights or do we just want to discuss where we have questions?

Mm-hmm.

I have the report. Yeah. Yeah.

Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it's just a matter of making them feel like, everybody's got a reason for being there. ⁓ A contributing, member. sure.

Right. Yeah. and I know a lot of them get nervous, like, my gosh, I have to do it

right because there's the attorneys are here and you know, but I'm like, a little. I'm not that type of attorney, you know.

Sure.

So I wanted to ask you about predetermination when you're going into these meetings. Is everything planned out? And also on both sides, the district itself, are they going in? you feel like, because I've gone to meetings where I've showed up and I had this one parent who I understood that we had agreed upon an approach.

And when I got to the meeting, she was coming out of a pre-meeting with the whole team already. So when I sat down, completely changed. They had convinced her to go 180 degrees the other way. And I was just shocked. was like, you already had a meeting without me there. I mean, I'm a teacher. I'm not an attorney, like you had this meeting and it was understood. We had this kind of predetermined conversation. So, you know, what does that look like in real life predetermination of these meetings,

Right.

Yeah.

I mean, predetermination, it's what it looks like is you go into an IEP meeting and you have the IEP team and one person from one of the programs.

So not a neutral person that knows about all the programs, but one person from one of the programs. So for example, learning center. they have, you know, the school system brings in obviously the school that the child's working with and one person from learning center. Well, it's clear they're going learning center route because they don't have anybody else. Whereas if they have an instructional specialist that...

Mm-hmm.

does everything like an autism instructional specialist that can talk about everything, it's not as obvious. The reality is, just like I have a pre-meeting with my client, the school system has a pre-meeting. They know what they want, they know what they're gonna push for. We know what we want, we know what we're gonna push for. Hopefully we're on the same path, or we can meet in the middle, or then we go the other route that we have to mediation or due process.

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Right,

right. Yeah, we used to have pre-meetings with families just to see where they were at, And I encourage that for the parents that I work with to have meetings prior to the IEPs so at least they know what your concerns are. And so when they're at the meeting and vice versa, so there's no real surprises, try to fine tune the meeting before it even happens is what you're trying to do too.

Yeah.

I encourage my clients to talk to the teachers, not necessarily do a pre-meeting, but like kind of unofficial talk to the teacher to figure out where the teacher is. Yeah, because the teachers kind of, they'll tell my client something, but will basically say, I can't say that at the meeting.

Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of what I meant. Just a conversation. Well, the meeting, but yeah.

Mm-hmm.

I've

had clients tell me like, the teacher said X, Y, Z, but they...

said they're not, they can't say anything and they advised me to go get assistance. And for me, what that does is that tells me that the teacher is in the same place we are. And now I know how to look at the teacher's data to use it against the, not against the school, but to be able to pull out when the school's saying, no, no, no, no, he's making progress. I know the teacher agrees that he's not. So now I can look at what the teacher's written.

Mm.

but this is what's happening. And basically take the teacher off the hook, but use the data to get where we need to be.

So you're benefiting the teacher as well. They're probably grateful for that.

Yeah, I

say it all the time when I'm at meetings. It's never about the teacher. I'll say, we appreciate everything you're doing. We know you're doing the best you can with your resources. It's just not the right fit for this child, and we need something different. Because a lot of...

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Yeah, because a lot of times I know teachers feel like, can teach, I can implement this IEP. And we're like, that's not the issue. Yes, but you have 35 kids in your class. So no, you can't. If you were left in the classroom to teach the way you wanted to teach, you'd probably be fine. But the reality is you can't. And with what resources you're given, it's just not possible sometimes. Yeah.

It's not possible, right.

And that's gotta be very hard for families to hear because their child's obviously, mean, an IEP is a legal document so that these goals need to be met or at least we're trying to achieve them. that kind of frustration, what can parents do?

because it's just a frustrating thing if you have thirty five kids in a classroom and a parent can't meet, then what's the point? know, where do you go from there?

Well, and that's where I come and ask the question to the parents of what do you want? What is your, like if you had a magic wand, what would it be? And you know, some clients are like, well, he's got friends in the neighborhood school. I want him to stay in the neighborhood school. And then I'm like, okay, well then let's craft an IEP that can give him the supports.

Mm-hmm.

Now, the reality of it is, as we all know, we can craft a great IEP. We can't force the school to actually implement it. We can't make somebody you know, force them to do their jobs, basically, unfortunately. But that's where, okay, let's get creative and see what we can do to support your child to make it at least a better school environment for everybody.

So you're saying that if you're suggesting these goals, the school doesn't have to necessarily agree to put them in the IEP Like, you have to come to an agreement in the IEP meeting, But if it's in the document, they have to, but you're saying that They don't necessarily follow through.

right.

Yeah, and that's unfortunately what happens. And I get that a lot is that parents are like, but they didn't implement the IEP. And okay, so now we need to look at they didn't implement the IEP and that's where it comes down to, but what do you want? If they're not implementing the IEP, bringing me to a meeting isn't gonna make them implement the IEP anymore.

Mm-hmm.

Okay, because that's

So there's no real recourse to that in getting them through a legal pathway to actually meet that.

The recourse of that is the way the law is written is that if the IEP isn't being implemented and the child is not making progress, then you look at a more restrictive environment. And that's when you go to a special ed classroom, a special ed school.

Mm-hmm.

And

that's so unfortunate because it's not necessarily the student then. It's the system. It's the classroom setup. the system. And so it works against the kids.

Exactly. Yeah.

And that's

why, you know, I've had, I had a client one time, a potential client, with a middle schooler that was just diagnosed with dyslexia and dysgraphia. And I'm like, okay, I can get an IEP with supports in place. The reality is a middle school does not have the capability to teach the way your child needs to be taught of the basic reading skills. They just don't have that. And I said, honestly,

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Go hire a tutor to work with your child. Don't spend the money on me. Spend the money on a tutor. Get the tutor that's trained in OG or Wilson or Kilpatrick, whichever it is, that works for your child to teach them to read to bring them up to where they need to be.

Mm-hmm.

Because again, I can get it in the IEP, but middle schools don't have that reading component to go back to the basics that kids with dyslexia and dysgraphia need.

Mm-hmm.

So then, a failure to implement these goals, is that a legal violation that can be acted upon or you're saying it's like, it's not really the option at this point.

⁓

It is legal that can be actioned upon. that is, they're not implementing the IEP. That is definitely a violation. But where I go with, where do you want your child to be? That's the remedy we're looking for. And so I always go when I meet with clients to, if I was standing in front of an administrative law judge, what would be my arguments? What would be my evidence?

Okay.

And so the level to prove is not only is there a procedural violation, but there's a substantive violation, meaning, OK, the school didn't review the IEP within the annual. They were three months late. Procedurally, that's black and white, you know, like, yes, but right. Substantively, what harm was it to the child?

Yeah, sure. He missed the meeting, right?

Mm-hmm.

If they were still implementing as they should be, the other IEP, and he was still getting services and still making progress, there's no harm. And so when it's not implementing the IEP, what's the remedy available? The way the law is written, the remedy is available is compensatory education.

Mm-hmm.

meaning that the school system pays for tutoring or whatever services they've missed, or a more restrictive environment. And that goes back to what do you want as a parent? Because we can have the best case in the world and prove...

Mm-hmm.

The kids not making progress, they're not implementing the IEP, the teachers are doing the best they can, but they can't do anymore. We can prove it, but if you don't want your child to go to a special education school, there's no other remedy. And that's the difficulty we have that the parents need to weigh the options and think through what they truly want.

Mm-hmm.

You're stuck.

Okay, let's switch a little bit to the beginning process when parents are now faced with wanting to request testing. Can you talk about that process? And also, at what point do parents, in this realm or even in other situations, parents get to a point where they now have run out of resources or run out of the fight and they need to go to an attorney? At what point does that kind of like...

the switch get flipped.

So when parents request an evaluation, federal law is that they have to meet within 30 days. And so the school can't say, yeah, he's getting good grades. He's fine. The school has to have whatever they call it, a child find meeting and multidisciplinary team meeting. Everybody does it slightly different of what they call it. But they have to have that initial meeting to address the concerns. Parents think the child

Hmm.

has a disability, something is going on. The parents send a letter in writing to the principal, special ed coordinator, of what they think is going on. And I always say be specific, of I think there's a learning disability, he's behind in this, I think there's an attention issue, he's taking too long with homework, whatever the specifics are. And then you sit down at the table. At that point, the school needs to discuss, there's three options. One, that there's enough data that we have that we find the

eligible for special education. Two, we see that there might be something there but we need more data so now we're going to do assessments. Or three, don't see any issues, we're not going to assess.

After that meeting, very important, you must get a PWN, a prior written notice, which I know is always confusing because it says prior but it's after the meeting. But the PWN, that is such an important document. In that document, the school needs to put their reasoning of why they refuse to do what the parents requested.

I think.

and what their data support is. Usually, I recommend if the school refuses to evaluate, I always recommend asking for an independent educational evaluation. And that always gets interesting because

When you request an independent, an IEE, an independent educational evaluation, there's two things that happen. The school system can either say, yes, we agree, here it is. Or they can file for due process saying, we've done evaluations, they're valid. And go to court saying, what we have is good, the parent shouldn't be getting another evaluation. Well, they didn't evaluate, so they don't have evaluations.

Mm-hmm. Right.

Mm-hmm.

But some school systems take it as, well, it's not an IEE request because we didn't do evaluations. But usually what I've found is that then the school will evaluate. Because, OK, if you're not going to take it as an IEE request, our next step is to go in front of the administrative law judge. And a school system doesn't want to go in front of the administrative law judge and say, yeah, no, we did nothing.

Okay.

Right, sure.

So they then come back to the table and agree to evaluate.

Okay. Can you explain the IEE a little bit for people so they understand what this is?

Sure. So

an independent educational evaluation, when a school system does an evaluation, if the parents disagree with the outcome, they disagree with what? Not necessarily just the recommendations, but the outcome.

My child can do more than that. That was an off day. I don't think that's right. And the school is using this assessment to make determinations. The parents can say, we disagree. We don't think it was a valid representation of my child. We want an independent educational evaluation done. And that means that the school pays for the parents to find a private evaluator and for a private evaluator to evaluate.

and that's separate from you.

Yeah, that's I mean that's something that I can help with getting but yeah, that's separate from me The parents can do that. They just need to know if parents are gonna request an IEE The school has to respond in a reasonable amount of time and there's two ways to respond Provide the authorization or file for due process against you What's a reasonable amount of time? 30 days I would say is reasonable six months is not reasonable and so

Mm-hmm. Not reasonable. And if they file for due process,

then they have to get, the families need to get an attorney.

Right. Well, and what I always say is if a school system files for due process against you, just go get it done privately because the time and energy and the cost of an attorney to defend it, it's cheaper to go pay $5,000 to get a private evaluation done.

Mm-hmm.

It's not always worth it. I mean, now you can, if you want to go litigate it, that's fine. But for me, I always say from the parent perspective, it's not worth the stress and anxiety and going to court for a couple of How much time off work are you missing for preparing and going to, even if you don't hire an attorney, if you're doing it on your own?

Right.

Where do parents find private evaluators?

So I am in a group, well in the DMV area, DC, Maryland, Virginia, called Wiser of DC. like that's...

a lot of referral sources. But what I always say is reach out to, I always have a referral source. You know, I do my show, I have 137 episodes now, I think, where I interview people in the community to find, you know, whatever. Parent groups are usually great places. if you find a Facebook parent group, if you're involved in parent groups, talk to other parents with special ed kids, like, hey, who did you use? And those things.

Okay, congratulations.

Mm-hmm.

Okay, so

⁓

networking. Yeah.

Yeah, it's not working. And then find somebody that you know that networks. If you know somebody that's in BNI or other networking groups, say, hey, look, do you know anybody that does

And that's like, keep a referral source all the time that anybody in my office can go into the system and put in, you know, evaluator for, occupational therapy or psychoeducational and spits out names and numbers to provide to people.

Okay, real quickly, at what point to parents you feel the next step is an attorney? And then the financial cost to the parents as far as hiring an attorney, what's that look like?

So when the parents get to the point of I can't do this anymore, I can't fight anymore, even with an advocate, or they get to a point of deadlocked, complete opposite, we can't go any farther. School says A, we say B. Those are the times.

What I offer is a strategy session. It's not a consultation. It's a paid one hour with me to talk through all the options and talk through what are the true remedies you could get. Where do you want to go? What your goals are and what that will look like. it includes engaging with me to some level or engaging with another attorney. Sometimes it's not worth the fight.

depending on where you are. I've recommended like if you have the option of homeschooling honestly do you want to fight this anymore? You know and what does that look like? ⁓

Right.

it's cost wise, hard to say because it depends on what the situation is and where we're going. And that's what the strategy session for is like, okay, so this you can do on your own. These are the steps you would take. If you engage with me fully engage with me, this is what it would cost. If you want me to be in the background, just reviewing the documents and then sending it to you, the comments, then this is what it would cost. And so that's what we're

Mm-hmm. Okay.

Okay.

looking at. It's not as expensive as some people think. I mean, it's expensive. Yes, attorneys are expensive. But what's what's your child's future worth?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, now it's true. mean, it's just families are so strapped, you know, it's really a difficult time. I guess it's always a difficult time for a lot of families, but particularly now it's very difficult with the cost of living. And so, yeah, I just...

Right. And that's,

I wouldn't say that's why I offer the strategy session, which is 450 an hour of my time to basically talk through everything. And I do an action plan that potential clients get after the fact that tells them exactly what steps they need to take if they're doing it on their own. So it's just a sounding board, getting some legal advice of what the school is doing. Is this okay or not okay?

Yeah, just.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

and that seems like a reasonable, affordable price. I mean, know $400 is $400, but still it's not thousands of dollars. So you're saving them.

Right. Right, exactly. And there's no commitment.

It's 450 and you get a plan of action. It's not just a consultation of saying, yeah, you have a case. This is what it will cost to hire me. It's, yeah, you have a case. These are the steps you need to take to get where you want to be. Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

That's really cool. That's really cool.

Well, do you have a final message that you want to leave parents in helping to protect their kids?

Yeah, knowledge is power. If something doesn't feel right, trust your gut. We've got it. Parents have that gut for a reason. Trust your gut. Question. Ask questions. If the school is zipping through something you don't understand, stop them and say, hey, wait a minute, explain that more. Do your research. Know what the issues are. Be able to say, well, but the federal law says this.

You know, even as a parent, you can put it out there. Schools are going to perk up when they hear that, wait a minute, this parent knows what they're talking about. And they've done some research. So just go in prepared.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, wonderful. Thank you for the education today.

Of

course, thank you.

Thank you for your insights

into things. mean, You touch all these bases, you know, as a parent, as an attorney, as a former teacher. I mean, it's amazing. the insight that you bring, I hope people will reach out to you because honestly, too, to find somebody, I mean, you know, attorneys get a bad rap. when you have an attorney who's being honest with you and telling you, I'm not going to take advantage of you. In fact, I'm going to try to like get you out there on your own as best as you can. That's all you can ask for. So thank you for what you do. Appreciate it.

course thank you

and for people that might be wondering I'm licensed in Maryland DC and Florida so I can provide legal services but it is federal law so I am an advocate throughout the throughout the nation and American schools overseas as well so yeah so Schefterlaw.com

⁓ wonderful. Okay. How can people reach you?

shefterlaw.com is my website. I have tons of free resources. You can schedule an intake with my intake specialist. It's a case analysis, not really an intake, where I have a trained person that will talk through questions to see if having a strategy session with me does make sense or not. Yeah, so it's not even like...

Okay, so it's a filter through

a filter before a filter. It's kind of cool. Yeah. Sure. Great.

Right, because I don't want to waste anybody's time or anybody's money.

my intake person is trained extremely well on getting the right questions answered to find out is it a good fit for a strategy session or not.

That's awesome. Well, Francis, thanks so much for your time. It's so great to talk to you. And I wish you all the best. when I'm working with families, I'll let them know about you for sure.

Thank you, Mark, and thank you for having me on the show.

My pleasure. Have a great day.