Our sorry state
Friday, Oct 4, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Daily Southtown a few days ago…
Officials of a private facility in Harvey that houses and educates severely disabled children will soon be forced to choose between laying off staff or discontinuing education to 11 students if they can’t find a district willing to enroll them, according to a lawsuit filed last week.
The Children’s Habilitation Center, which provides education and other services to students with intellectual disabilities, orthopedic impairments, traumatic brain injuries and other severe mental and physical limitations, claimed several Illinois school districts have refused to enroll their students, in violation of state and federal law.
“This case is about how several Illinois School Districts have put their desire to save money over their legal obligation to provide a free and appropriate public education to 11 severely disabled and medically fragile children who live and go to school at (Children’s Habilitation Center),” the suit said. “Despite every party acknowledging that the children are entitled to a free and appropriate education under the law and that some Illinois school district must enroll them, each School District is passing the buck, and the children remain without a home district and without the legally required public funding for their schooling.”
The suit, filed Thursday in Cook County Circuit Court, requested that the superintendent of the Illinois State Board of Education make a district determination for the 11 students and demands a $622,527 judgment against West Harvey-Dixmoor School District 147, which previously had enrolled the majority of the students.
* Rex Huppke followed up…
Nobody wants to claim these children. No school district wants to foot the bill for the education they are entitled to by law. And nobody at the Illinois State Board of Education seems willing to step in and straighten out the mess.
The students reside at Children’s Habilitation Center, a private facility in Harvey that houses, cares for and educates children with medically complex developmental disabilities. Most of the infants and children require feeding tubes and are on around-the-clock ventilators. Many of the roughly 60 residents of the center were born into families already dealing with physical or intellectual disabilities of their own, drug abuse or incarceration.
So they often have parents who can’t be found, parents who are sometimes reachable, but unwilling to engage, or parents who have simply moved out of state, leaving their children in the center’s care.
Earlier this year, that lack of parental connection led West Harvey-Dixmoor School District 147 to unenroll eight children, claiming that since there was no proof of parents living in the district, the district shouldn’t have to pay to educate the kids. That district also refused to enroll two younger children from the center who had just reached school age. […]
I spoke with Pamela Markle, the chief executive officer of Children’s Habilitation Center. She figures that without payment from District 147 — per the lawsuit, it already owes the center more than $600,000 dating back to February — she’ll soon have to lay off educators and cut back on classes.
* Huppke then reached out to the Pritzker administration and the ISBE…
Press Secretary Jordan Abudayyeh emailed this statement late Thursday: “The administration is monitoring the situation to ensure the children are being educated and cared for, and we will work with families, educational institutions and other stakeholders to deliver the services they deserve.”
Also on Thursday, ISBE spokeswoman Jackie Matthews emailed me this statement: “ISBE’s most critical priority is to ensure that children are being educated and cared for. We have ensured that the children at CHC have been and are receiving education and services with no interruption. We are urgently attending to the matter of responsibility for the payment of services and are working toward a swift resolution.”
Just get it done already.
- Steve - Friday, Oct 4, 19 @ 11:47 am:
The state government of Illinois probably isn’t ready just yet to take on more responsibilities .
- Fav human - Friday, Oct 4, 19 @ 11:51 am:
it’s not fair to make the local district take them just because the facility is there. far better to have an assessment across all school districts that would spread out the cost. Levy the Assessment based on school-age population to make it more fair
- Ano - Friday, Oct 4, 19 @ 11:56 am:
It would be hard to imagine a person who doesn’t feel for these kids and want the best for them.
However, since school districts can produce revenue, and depend on taxpayers…………those taxpayers just don’t want to cough up more of their money for things like this. Don’t blame school districts, blame people who value their money over kids’ welfare.
- Juvenal - Friday, Oct 4, 19 @ 12:03 pm:
Is “monitoring” their new favorite verb?
You are in charge. You are monitoring…yourself?
It sounds like these children have been abandoned. Why are they not being treated as wards of the state, if their parents cannot be found?
- wondering wendy - Friday, Oct 4, 19 @ 12:18 pm:
Good point Juvenal…..there are laws in place that will remove guardianship if parents don’t do their job. I taught in a school district where this was done, and the student then received the education they are required to receive. Someone needs to step and do their job.
- Perrid - Friday, Oct 4, 19 @ 12:43 pm:
I’m pretty ignorant on this topic, but if the parents can’t be found or aren’t participating in their child’s life, why isn’t DCFS stepping in?
It’s trickier if they’ve just moved out of state, but are trying to be active in the kid’s life, but in other scenarios it’s hard to see how this is not child abandonment.
- Cook County Commoner - Friday, Oct 4, 19 @ 12:43 pm:
This is Harvey, IL, the town that was laying off police and fire employees and which the state comptroller was withholding funds to pay for pensions. There’s no money for special ed. Seems some sort of state supervision is in order.
- Amalia - Friday, Oct 4, 19 @ 12:48 pm:
this is part of a bigger problem of difficulty in dollars flowing to people with ability issues. I know a family that has been dealing with this for years and they are very involved in their sons life. help people.
- JS Mill - Friday, Oct 4, 19 @ 1:13 pm:
=Why are they not being treated as wards of the state, if their parents cannot be found?=
The state would have to petition the courts for guardianship.
If they do D-147 will be back on the hook for the cost of educational services for those students.
If I understand the issue correctly the schools are not wrong in refusing to pay for services if there is no proof of residency for the students legal guardian.
For students with an IEP residency rules are different that they are for general education students. For general education students residency (and the responsibility for education) is only dependent on where the student lives, where their legal guardian resides is not the determining factor for residency.
For students with an IEP residency is different. Students must go to school in the district where their legally established guardian resides (that is the district responsible for the education). Parents cannot just create a document to let someone else have guardianship, it must go through the court.
Schools follow this approach because these services (Special education in general) can be very expensive and should be the responsibility of the district where the parent or parents live.
- shortsue - Friday, Oct 4, 19 @ 1:40 pm:
This has been a problem that has been around for a very long time. IEPs require active parental involvement, the child to live in the district of the parent or a willingness of a placement school district to accept a transferred IEP until they can get that kid a new IEP in their district. The problem comes in that MANY special needs kids do not have parents that are active or who have an address and sometimes cannot even be found. The next problem is that special needs kids are often in “placements” for care that do not have schools within the facility that are a part of the local district (why would a district want to accept these very expensive placements…it is about $$$$). This is a tough legal quandary to work around and results all too often in youth receiving no, over very subpar, education. It has been happening for MANY YEARS in multiple residential placements throughout IL. I think Fav human has the right idea in that the money should be put into a pool for each student with an IEP based on the originating IEP district, and then paid to the district educating them. It is not an easy problem with an easy answer.
- revvedup - Friday, Oct 4, 19 @ 3:36 pm:
If shortsue at 1:40p.m. is correct, the various State agencies have been “monitoring” the situation while doing nothing to actually solve the problem. Indiana looks better every day…