A court ruling that the Shawnee Mission School District denied an elementary school student appropriate special needs services will have a financial impact on the district as a new school year begins.
The district has been ordered to pay $400,000 in attorney fees for the parents who brought the suit, as well as hire an independent specialist to develop the child’s education plan and hire a behavior analyst to track the child’s progress as he attempts to make up for the three semesters he had been denied appropriate services.
The district already has incurred $432,503 in legal fees from the three years the matter wound its way through various hearings and a lawsuit in federal district court.
Learning concerns first developed in 2017
U.S. District Court Judge Daniel D. Crabtree ruled last spring that the district failed to meet the requirements of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Act in its treatment of a young Westwood Elementary school student who was subsequently diagnosed with level two autism spectrum disorder as well as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
As Crabtree retold the events in his order, the boy’s parents, Natalie and Christopher Beer of Westwood, had begun to have concerns about their son’s learning and behavior patterns as early as 2017, when he was enrolled in a pre-kindergarten summer enrichment program.
The lead teacher of that program told the Beers their son may need additional support in the school year because of his difficulty following directions and social withdrawal from his peers, and she flagged him as a student the district’s special education teacher should pay attention to.
But after an evaluation at the start of the 2017 pre-kindergarten year, district experts said the student did not appear to need specially designed instruction.
Student was diagnosed with autism, ADHD
The behavioral problems persisted, however, and in the following school year, the Beers – on the advice of their pediatrician – sought genetic testing and an autism evaluation.
They also requested another evaluation from the district to see if he required special education services.
The Beers received their son’s autism and ADHD diagnosis and passed it along to the district in January 2019, according to the court document.
From there, the process bogged down and there were various delays and disagreements about the nature of the educational plan.
The family and the district finally settled on and began implementing the plan in late 2019, but no progress was noted before schools closed for the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.
State review sided with the family
Around that time, the family filed a complaint with the Kansas State Department of Education.
A hearing officer ruled the district failed to provide an individual education plan the student was entitled to as part of public education.
In a later appeal, a hearing review officer concurred with most points of that decision and the remedies suggested.
The school district has argued that it made extraordinary efforts to meet the needs of the child.
‘Inadequate and ineffective’ evaluation
Crabtree’s order found shortcomings in the way the district’s evaluation was conducted, making it “inadequate and ineffective” and unnecessarily prolonging the evaluation process.
Much of the district evaluation’s conclusions about the Beers’ son were based on out-of-date material, as a result.
Communication between the district’s evaluators and the Beers also was lacking, the court order said.
Beyond confirming the amount of legal fees incurred, the Shawnee Mission district offered no comment about the suit.
Attorneys for the Beers did not respond to a request for comment, and the Beer family could not be reached.
Roxie Hammill is a freelance journalist who reports frequently for the Post and other Kansas City area publications. You can reach her at roxieham@gmail.com.
