Costs Big time to Lose

 Costs Big Time to Lose

 

Gavin Grimm was a transgender student in Virginia.  The school system refused to allow Gavin to use the boys’ restroom.  This is America so Gavin’s family sued the school district.   Justice is often very slow and it was particularly  slow in this case.  It took over six years of litigation led by the American Civil Liberties Union.   About two months ago, the Supreme Court refused to review a lower court ruling.  

  As a high school student Gavin requested to use the boy’s restroom.  The school board denied his request.  There was a huge backlash and finally the school board said he could use a bathroom in the nurse’s office just for him.  Grimm found the accommodation humiliating and having to travel to an out-of-the way portion of the school to use a restroom damaging to his education.

Grim won in the U.S. District Court.   The school board appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals where the Board lost again.  The Board then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.  The Supreme Court agreed to take the case.

But then Donald Trump won the presidency.  His administration tilted toward curtailing not advancing transgender rights.  So, the Justices changed their collective mind and sent the case back to the lower court.

By this time, Joe Biden was elected president and the views of his administration shifted towards transgender rights.  In August 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4^th Circuit ruled in favor of Grimm, saying that the actions of the Board discriminated on the basis of sex and had violated the 14^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Game not quite over!  The Board appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court again.  This time the high court refused to hear the case, which meant that the lower court ruling in favor of Gavin Grimm was now officially permanent.

To the victor belongs some spoils.  Grimm and his attorneys went back to the Gloucester School Board and asked for a settlement since they had prevailed.   In the end the school board agreed to pay 1.3 million dollars to cover Grimm’s attorney’s fees and other costs associated with Grimm’s discrimination case.   The settlement came about two months after the Supreme Court allowed the lower court ruling to prevail.

Gavin Grim is now in his 20’s.   The ACLU has stated that it feels Gavin has been fully vindicated.   Mr. Grimm has declined to comment.  Most western cultures have gender neutral bathrooms.   America seems to have a real issue with that policy.   Makes one wonder how many homes have bathrooms that are separated by gender.

It's Not about Sex

 It’s Not About Sex

 

Lawyers for the Montgomery County Public Schools argued in a court case this summer that a violent locker room attack by some members of the JV football team that involved using a broomstick to commit sodomy on some other teammates was not a sexual assault.  The boys have been criminally charged with rape.  And some have pled guilty in a criminal case.

But the lawyers for the school system made an interesting argument during a July hearing.   They were arguing against legal claims made by the families of the victims.  “This is a male-on-male incident.  There is no indication that this was motivated by sexual desire.  They weren’t yelling sexual slurs about maybe homosexuality or things like that.” Said an attorney for the school system.   The families are arguing that the school system failed in its duty to provide supervision and to protect students from violence, particularly when the environment was known to be violent.

According to the school district, if these acts were non-sexual they would not be covered by Title IX which includes areas to protect students from severe sexual harassment.  If the judge would declare the attack as non-sexual then Title IX would not provide protection.  The argument was rejected by the judge.  This civil case follows a criminal case in the fall of 2018.  Two of the four students have pleaded guilty in juvenile court to second degree rape and attempted second degree rape.  The victims in this case were 14 and 15 years old.  The perpetrators were all 15 and on the JV varsity football team.   A spokesperson for the County said that these arguments were just legal arguments and that county policy did not consider sexual desire as a condition of harassment .  Prosecutors in the criminal case described the attacks as vicious sexual assaults.  The perpetrators blocked the door of the locker room while other boys pulled down the victim's pants and pushed the broom handle into the boy's rectum several times through the boys’ underwear.  Since the assault, one of the victims has transferred schools while another says that he is routinely pointed out as “the boy who got the broom”.  Similar, but not identical instances, have been tried in Tennessee and Arizona and found to be covered by Title IX.  Psychologists have said sodomy is favored as harassment because it is a quick and easy way to humiliate a victim.  Schools have a duty to protect students.  The attorney for the families has cited at least seven previous instances of locker room violence yet the school system did nothing to increase supervision nor train its coaches.  One of the students involved in the attacks had a history of aggressive sexual behavior and was transferred to the new school because of it.   The sending principal warned the receiving principal of the boy’s history. He recommended the boy be under close supervision at all times.  The receiving school’s defense was that the boy had only attended this high school for 40 days and the school had not had an opportunity to ramp up its supervision. 

The judge’s response was, “well you might not want to tell that to the jury.  The fact of the matter is if he’s such a menace he should be supervised at all times and that starts with day 1 not day 40.”

The case is ongoing but most folks would agree, rape has little to do with sexual desire and everything to do with domination and aggression and both were clear in this case.

The duty to supervise does not go away

 Teachers need to take charge

 

A child in a Baltimore City public school was hit by a flying chair.  The chair was set on its flight by another student.  Both the injured child and the pilot of the flying chair agreed there was no intent to harm the victim.

The child’s parents agreed there was no intent but their child was still injured and needed the attention of the school nurse as well as a local Urgent Care.  

The victim’s parents sued the school district because the teacher failed to protect their child from harm.  The lower court agreed with the school district that the teacher had followed protocol by getting the other children out of the classroom and that there was no intent to do harm.  

However, the parents appealed to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals.  The parents argued that the Board of Education through its agent the teacher, had a duty to exercise care for the students.  They further argued that the teacher had retreated from the classroom rather than staying behind to make sure all of the children were out of the room before she left the room.  The Court agreed with the parents saying the Board has a duty to protect students and that is conferred on a teacher by the Board.

Many courts have held that a teacher is not an insurer of student safety and have held teachers to a standard of reasonable care exercised by a person of ordinary prudence.  However, schools do have a duty to provide supervision of students and are liable for foreseeable injury when the teacher fails to provide that supervision.  In this case, the parents argued that when the student started throwing things there was a foreseeable danger of harm to the other students and that the teacher had a responsibility to protect all of the students by making sure all were removed from the classroom.  

The Court of Special Appeals returned the case to the lower court to determine if better supervision, the crux of the case, could have prevented the injury.   If better supervision could not have prevented the injury then lack of supervision, which is a school responsibility, could not be found to be the cause of the injury.

One of the key issues coming out of this case is the need and importance of supervision by school staff regardless of the circumstances- teachers need to be in charge.

And now there is more to the IEP

 And now there is more to the IEP…

 

 

Under the Education of All Handicapped Children Act-1975 (EHA), a document came into being called an Individual Education Plan (IEP) that was going to provide an individual plan of instruction for every child with a disability.  At first, the word went out that it was impossible. But the law was the law and soon every child had an IEP. Parents were required participants in the development of the IEP.  The IEP is a contract for service.  It is not a guarantee of achievement.  Since 1975, EHA has morphed into IDEA-the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.  Over the years, IDEA has also been modified, adding requirements and tweaking others.   But through all the changes the IEP has remained.  It, too, has changed.  Some states have managed to develop them online.  The pandemic has made IEP meetings more virtual than in-person.  

Now, some negative experiences with IEP requirements have wrought some changes to the IEP in Maryland.  

Many families felt that the virtual learning their children received was not of the same quality as their non-disabled peers.   Some school districts entered into a one-size-fits-all mode for all of their special ed students.   Other districts sent kids with disabilities the same work as plain students if they were all in the same class.  The work was neither individualized nor individual.

Since this is a democracy, families in Maryland went to their state legislators and they got some results.  Effective October 1, 2021, IEP’s in Maryland must include a learning continuity plan that would be implemented when emergency conditions exist that require the closing of schools, for a period of ten days or longer.  The continuity of learning plan ensures that IEP services are provided to the child despite the emergency conditions.  The continuity of leaning plan would kick in if schools were closed and school districts were providing some form of instruction to other students.  Yes, this addition to the IEP requirements is extra work.  But it will also make sure that when districts are planning for plain students, the children with special needs are not an after-thought that will be patched into the system later.  

It is very sad that it has taken an act of a state legislature to ensure that school districts remember they have children with special needs who have had a right to an individually designed program for almost 50 years!   That hasn’t changed no matter what else has.

Is my kid a little Pinocchio?

 My kid’s a little Pinocchio?

 

When did my child become a little Pinocchio?   And why does it seem worse during the pandemic?  There are multiple reasons that children do not tell the truth even when it is abundantly obvious that they will get caught.

From obvious events, as "I just saw you eat that last cookie why are you denying it" to not so obvious events as your teacher has reported you didn’t do your homework.

Although the pandemic has changed the kind of lies kids are telling, take heart, it is not increasing the frequency.  It is developmentally normal among tweens and teens.  Two development happenings lead to more lack of truth telling.  Tween and teen time is a time for a lot of brain growth so areas of the brain that might control impulsivity and inhibition are just beginning to take form.  At the same time, this is a period when kids are developing a sense of self and of independence.  This is why the peer group begins to have a great deal more influence than the family.  Early adolescence is a time why lying reaches its peak.  Then typically children begin to develop a moral sense and get that it is wrong.

Kids lie to avoid punishment, “I didn’t watch that video on YouTube”.  They learn to spare people’s feelings by saying they loved a gift that they really didn’t.  They will also lie if they feel rules are unfair, they will tell you what you want to hear about when they went to bed because they wanted to play that video game again, and again.

Begin to be concerned if a child’s lying becomes frequent about areas that involve more significant events such as, whether a child completed school assignments or telling parents where they are going.  If a child says he/she is going one place but actually is going to another one, that can raise safety issues for the child.  Lying can also damage the parent child relationship when parents cross examine the child- “Are you really telling the truth?.  

It is important to avoid cornering kids so they understand that parents need to know for the child’s safety not because they are trying to limit the child’s freedom.  Parents (and teachers) need to have rational conversations with kids explaining why the child is uncomfortable and why the adult needs the information.  Is the child lying to get out from under the pressure they feel to do well in school, fit in with peers, or because they are feeling anxious in the situation.  Don’t use the “L” word because that is emotionally charged for the child and feels hurtful.  Explain why being able to trust a child’s honesty is in the best interests of the child, not a way to enforce parental control.  Trust and honesty are  two-way streets.  Parents need to spend individual time with a child to show that they care about the child’s interests and that conversations do not only occur when the child is in trouble for doing something wrong.  Parents also need to understand that if their kids are honest most of the time with them, they have done a good job.  As they grow into adults there are going to be times in their lives when being a little Pinocchio is a good thing, just keep an eye on the length of the nose.