Cooper: Making school judgments harder

Greg Hyde, left, and his wife Deborah, right, filed suit after their son, Luka, center, was not allowed to continue in a traditional classroom at Normal Park School in 2013.
Greg Hyde, left, and his wife Deborah, right, filed suit after their son, Luka, center, was not allowed to continue in a traditional classroom at Normal Park School in 2013.

United States District Judge Curtis Collier made an objective ruling Monday that the Hamilton County Department of Education had violated multiple federal guidelines protecting students with disabilities in removing a second-grader with Down syndrome from Normal Park Elementary School in 2013.

The problem is that teachers, principals and school systems have to make subjective rulings in judging whether a student belongs in a grade-level classroom or in a comprehensive development classroom.

Monday's ruling, if it is not appealed, is likely to make teachers, principals and school systems - fearing another lawsuit - gun-shy about using their best judgment about where an intellectually disabled student belongs.

It also is likely to spur more parents of children with disabilities to insist their children be moved to, or not moved out of, a traditional classroom.

We understand and respect the research that shows including students with disabilities in regular classrooms with appropriate support benefits all students. We also know that local students with disabilities - based on standardized testing from 2015, the most recent figures available - trail their nondisabled peers by about 30 percentage points.

Federal law requires students with disabilities to be educated in traditional classrooms to the maximum extent appropriate and to make reasonable progress toward individualized goals aligned in some ways with grade-level standards.

However, the words "maximum extent appropriate," "reasonable progress" and "aligned in some ways" leave room for subjective determination and analysis by teachers, principals and school systems. After all, all students, disabled and nondisabled, are different. No two students learn exactly alike so subjective determination will always be one factor in determining a student's progress.

Teachers and then-Normal Park Principal Jill Levine believed in 2013 that second-grade student Luka Hyde was unable to make reasonable progress in his traditional classroom and would benefit from more personalized instruction and support in a comprehensive development classroom. His parents disagreed and, ultimately, filed suit.

We believe the ruling could result in less overall instructional time for students because of the teachers' necessity to provide different and more detailed instruction for one or more disabled students, or it could cost the cash-strapped district far more to provide adequate support (paraprofessionals) to students with disabilities in general education classrooms.

We would never want to return to the day when disabled students were warehoused in what were practically segregated societies within schools, but we believe some type of arbitration may be necessary if teachers, principals and school systems using their best judgment disagree with parents who want their child to remain in a traditional classroom.

An expensive lawsuit, now going on for three years and which threatens to last longer if appealed, has been the unhappy result here. Surely there are better ways to resolve these types of disputes.

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