How good is good enough

 Is Well Enough Good Enough?

 

Under federal and state law, if a child has a disability,  parents have the right to contest their child’s education placement.    The laws require that public schools provide a free and appropriate education (FAPE) for all children with disabilities up until age 21.   Of course, there is that pesky word “appropriate” and there is lots of disagreement about that.   Parents often disagree about what that word means for their children.

Long ago “appropriate” meant helping the child to achieve his or her full potential.  That standard has long since been abandoned.  The new standard seems to be “well-enough”.  Often public schools lack sufficient staffing to provide the level of speech therapy and other related services as determined on the child’s IEP.  And no, they often don’t inform parents of that issue.  There is also the issue of staffing of teachers.  Every Maryland school district is lacking fully licensed teachers.  Parents are not told if their child’s teacher is fully licensed.   Are the students of these teachers receiving FAPE?  The answer is maybe.  There is no guarantee that every fully licensed teacher is good nor that every conditionally licensed teacher is bad.  Parents should just be informed.  

When parents are sufficiently unhappy about the education their children are receiving, they can enter into a system called “due process”.   The process begins with a mediation and can progress all the way to a formal hearing with an administrative law judge.  Not all school complaints involve dissatisfaction with special education services.   However, for the 23-24 school year, EVERY complaint that wound up before an administrative law judge was about a family requesting non-public school placement for their children.  There were only 20 cases and the families won 18 of them.

Evidently well enough isn’t quite good enough for some families and their children.