In December, Fannie C. Williams Charter School sent a student home and barred her from returning to class until the child was cleared by a doctor — a flagrant violation of federal special education law, according to NOLA Public School district officials, who issued a stern notice of noncompliance to the school in mid-April.
The elementary school’s staff told the student not to come back to class without a “mental health evaluation,” district officials reported, based on a complaint from the student’s family.
Because the school’s actions caused “harm to the student’s educational rights,” the district issued its most serious warning – a so-called Level 2 notice of non-compliance, signed by district accountability director Rafael Simmons.
Schools cannot kick out kids who may be acting out based on mental-health concerns. “There is simply no provision in the law that allows school districts to exclude children simply because the school feels a mental health evaluation is needed,” said Hector Linares, a civil-rights lawyer at the Loyola Law Clinic, who based his assessment on the details in the two-page warning letter.
Leaders from Fannie C. Williams did not return calls from The Lens.
But special-ed experts helped to provide a possible larger context.
Within New Orleans’ decentralized school district, Fannie C. Williams is an independent, one-site charter school that may have limited exposure to unusual special-ed cases like this one. As a result, administrators and staff may not know what’s proper or improper at all times, because they are exposed to a limited breadth of special-ed cases. New Orleans families, like many families of special-ed children across the nation, may also be unaware of their rights.
The NOLA Public Schools district remains under a decade-old federal consent decree for special-education services. In response, special-ed experts like Linares have long argued for a centralized approach to serving students with disabilities. Longtime New Orleans social worker Annie Bachrach agrees that the fragmented approach does not seem to be working.
The bigger picture is often lost, said Bachrach, pointing to the city’s high levels of poverty, violence, and trauma – all of which affect the city’s youth. “If we consider all the children in New Orleans — a certain percentage of them is going to need a higher level of services,” she said. “How are we going to address that as a community?”
A brash denial of education
After the student’s family contacted the district, Simmons’ team launched an investigation.
The girl was sent home in early December, they found. She was sent home “to ensure that this student was not a danger to herself or others,” school staff wrote. They “just wanted her to be seen by a medical professional,” according to Simmons’ warning letter.
As she racked up absences, the school reminded her family in January that she must get a mental health evaluation to return, as described by the district’s notice. (It seems like the school’s order was not absolute, because the student did attend school sporadically during that time.)
She missed 20 of 28 possible days of school between mid-December and mid-February, a two-month period that includes a lengthy holiday break at the end of the calendar year. Within that span, she missed more than 70 percent of school days.
For many in New Orleans, even getting an appointment for a psych eval is a daunting, and possibly expensive, and protracted task. “I am not surprised that conditioning the student’s return on obtaining a mental health evaluation resulted in an extended absence,” Linares said. Many parents cannot afford such an evaluation.” Even if payment is not an issue, parents must first find a doctor who can perform one “(It) can take months, due to long waiting lists,” he said.
Some parents might take a child directly to the emergency room, only to find that the child may not share their struggles with a specialist they don’t know, Bachrach, the social worker, said. And while at school, children may have difficulty controlling their emotions at school either because something there makes them feel uncomfortable – or because they feel comfortable enough. “They may be emotionally dysregulated at school, because the trigger is there or that’s where they felt safe to express that,” she said.
It’s not an easy situation, Bachrach said, as schools attempted to address the safety of other students and the capacity of staff with limited resources. But sending a child home from school can set them back academically and emotionally, making it even harder to return to the classroom, she said.
Some students who were suspended felt like they were a burden to the school. “It really impacts self esteem which also exacerbates behavioral health issues,” she said. “It doesn’t do anything to help the child or – ultimately – the school.”
Mental-health, special-ed and suspensions
Eight years ago, a very similar case popped up in the Treme neighborhood.
In 2017, Joseph A. Craig Charter School suspended a student who “seemed depressed,” according to the state officials, who issued a warning letter. The school would not allow the boy to return to class until he was cleared by a psychiatrist.
The school had to make up the student’s lost teaching time and submit policies on how it provides extra help to students and deals with mental health issues. Fannie C. Williams must do the same, according to an agreement reached with the NOLA Public School district. School district staff did not respond to questions from The Lens. But the district closed the complaint before the end of the school year, according to district staff, who reported on the matter at the Orleans Parish School Board board meeting in May.
Fannie C. staff must also meet with the child’s parents, to discuss possible classroom shifts and other additional supports, and they must explain to the district how school protocols comply with federal law governing behavioral health and changes in student “placement” – a term that includes suspension and other out-of-school punishments.
Broad federal protections are designed to protect students with disabilities, including an alphabet soup of important legal terms, starting with the commonly known Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA) and an often-referenced segment of the law known as Section 504, which protects the students who receive special-education accommodations, through a school-parent contract called an Individualized Education Plan (IEP).
It’s unclear if the student at Fannie C. Williams had an IEP. The nature of her health crises were also not described in any correspondence. Louisiana state law does allow a child in a mental-health crisis to be removed from school, but only if a judge finds a credible threat of violence. It doesn’t appear that law enforcement was involved in this child’s situation.
Students who receive special education cannot be suspended or removed from school without an evaluation, required by law. Every school must perform that required evaluation — called a Manifestation Determination Review — and parents have the right to review the document.
Fannie C. Williams did not complete an evaluation for the student, Simmons said.
Whenever special-ed students are disciplined, administrators must determine if the diagnoses and issues described in their IEPs played a role in their behavior. By kicking the student out, in the way described in the district’s notice, Linares said “the school is also in violation of the heightened disciplinary protections contained in special education laws.”
Know your rights: Manifestation Determination Reviews
Federal law includes heightened protections for disciplining students with disabilities. Because children may act out as a result of their diagnoses — special education students cannot be suspended or removed from school without an evaluation, called a “Manifestation Determination Review.” The MDR is required by law.
That language is important — the review requires educators to determine what caused (or manifested) the student’s punishable behavior. If their actions were a result of the student’s disability, the child cannot be suspended. Every school must perform an MDR and parents have the right to review the document.