by Common Ground | Apr 5, 2024 | Courts, Current-Issue
A U.S. District Court has upheld the ruling of a New Jersey Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) that transportation to and from the corner bus stop, rather than to and from the child’s front door, did not result in denial of a free appropriate public education and did not...
by Common Ground | Apr 4, 2024 | Courts, Current-Issue
The U.S. Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights (OCR) is investigating an Essex County school district to determine whether they discriminated on the basis of race and disability when placing African American students into a self-contained therapeutic...
by Common Ground | Nov 28, 2023 | Courts
The mother of a Texas teen with intellectual and emotional disabilities has lost a federal lawsuit she filed following the tasing of her son. The suit charged that the school district and school resource officer (SRO) violated the teen’s civil rights under the...
by Common Ground | Aug 24, 2023 | Courts
The State of Pennsylvania is depriving students with disabilities of a year of instruction as young adults, according to a lawsuit filed this spring. Federal law entitles students with disabilities the right to FAPE until they earn a regular high school diploma or...
by Common Ground | Aug 24, 2023 | Courts
A New York school district has settled a lawsuit that claimed school staff failed to provide a student with autism their proper resources and care. The case went to trial and settled for $1.55M. The plaintiff’s family sued the North Syracuse Central School...
by Common Ground | Apr 20, 2023 | Courts, Parents, Professionals, Teachers
The U.S. Supreme Court in March ruled unanimously that a deaf student may pursue his lawsuit for monetary damages against a Michigan school district that allegedly failed for years to provide him with adequate sign language assistance. The court held that a procedural...
by Common Ground | Feb 8, 2023 | Courts
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case centering on how families and schools go about resolving disputes over services for students with disabilities. The case, Perez v. Sturgis Public Schools, raises two important questions under the Individuals with...
by Common Ground | Dec 20, 2021 | Courts
In November, a U.S. Court of Appeals rejected the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) request to reconsider FDA rules that ban the use of electric shock. In 2020, the FDA finalized regulations prohibiting the use of ‘electrical stimulation...
by Common Ground | Aug 26, 2021 | Courts
New Jersey has agreed to improve special education services for inmates with disabilities. The case before U.S. District Court was first brought four years ago by three inmates in the state’s adult jails who said their civil right to an education and all its...
by Common Ground | Apr 20, 2021 | Courts, Features, Professionals, Teachers
The COVID-19 pandemic and its disruption of education has had schools, parents, and advocates wondering about accountability for services for students with disabilities that were lost under school closures, and due to remote and virtual instruction. Dr. Perry Zirkel,...
by Common Ground | Apr 20, 2021 | Courts
In October 2020, the United States District Court in New Mexico issued an important ruling related to COVID and IDEA in Hernandez v. Grisham, a case originally filed as a class action. Plaintiffs challenged the state’s COVID-19 reentry policy for the public...
by Common Ground | Apr 20, 2021 | Courts
Last fall, the role of non-attorney advocates in special education advocacy came under fire when the New Jersey Supreme Court issued “Opinion 56.” The 10-page opinion would have made it more difficult for advocates who are not lawyers to help parents of special...