Chesterfield County, Virginia Public Schools Declare War On Students of Color and Their Parents With Special Needs

Kandise Lucas, Ph.D. May 24, 2009
Columnist EducationNews.org

            Parents, particularly parents of color, within Chesterfield County Public Schools are engaged in one of the greatest fights of their lives as they take on district officials that are not only content in violating the civil rights of their students, but these same officials go to extraordinary lengths to cover-up their actions, intimidate parents, and slander the reputation of students with special needs.

            The Jones family is a perfect example of the war that is going on between parents and school officials at Meadowbrook High School in Chesterfield.  For years, Mrs. Jones has served as a formidable advocate for her now, tenth grader, who has been identified as Other Health Impaired due to an extremely serious chronic medical condition.

            In her efforts to hold the staff of Meadowbrook High School accountable for complying with the federally-mandated guidelines of her daughter’s Individualized Educational Plan, (IEP), Mrs. Jones has encountered everything from grossly negligent school officials to incompetent central office staff, to threatening administrators that do not hesitate to violate district, state, and federal special education policies on a regular basis.

            In recent weeks, when Mrs. Jones exercised her rights under the Freedom of Information Act by requesting a copy of all of the district’s documentation regarding her daughter, Tim Bullis, the Director of Community Relations, made no qualms about violating his own word to provide the documents in a timely manner, but also violating the timeline outlined within the federal act itself.

            The district’s actions have resulted in the Jones filing a formal complaint with the Virginia Department of Education for their failure to comply with such legal guidelines as eligibility timeframes, implementing accommodations as required, and even ensuring that her student received the proper testing accommodations for her SAT assessment. 

            Central office officials are the primary culprits in violating the laws that they were hired to ensure were followed.  Kathryn Burnes, the Homebound Instruction Coordinator, abruptly terminated homebound services that were required with no explanation.  Both, Lauran Ziegler and Karyn Anderson, who are the Special Education Specialist and Liason respectively, demonstrated their extreme levels of incompetence when the Jones’ parent advocate had to provide them with the guidelines and forms for collecting behavior-based data for the Jones’ student.

            Furthermore, school officials have demonstrated their perceived resentment for Mrs. Jones’ advocacy on behalf of her daughter on numerous instances by insisting that she meet with them without her parent advocate, and referring to her daughter as having “Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder”, and verbalizing that they would prefer if she were not at the school.  Shawn Able, who is Meadowbrook’s vice principal, who has no formal training in either, special education or mental health issues, expressed these derogatory words. 

            The Smith family, who is the second family within the district that is fighting for the future of their African-American male student, has encountered nearly identical circumstances.  Mr. and Mrs. Smith determined that their son, who attends Midlothian High School, was not receiving the proper services, nor were the special education services that were listed on his educational plan being implemented.  As a result, they called a meeting last fall, in order to hold the school officials accountable for failing, once again to follow special education guidelines.  Reluctantly, school officials rewrote the plan in compliance with district, state, and federal guidelines.  After which point, their student began to excel academically.

            Unfortunately, their victory was short-lived, because as we all know, school officials, specifically those in Chesterfield County Public Schools, view empowered and educated parents as a threat that must be removed at all costs.  In what is believed to be a retaliatory action by the officials at Midlothian High School, it was documented that they refused to address a student that was bullying the Smith’s student for months.  The bully repeatedly verbally abused the student with special needs in several of his classes with little or no interventions by teachers or school administrators outside of his science teacher, who separated the two boys while in class.

            Despite the Smith student’s repeated conversations with school officials requesting that someone help him with the bullying student.  Nothing was done.  He spoke with his case manager, Ms. Timmer, the vice principal, Ms. Whitlow, the school counselor, Dr. Jones, and several other teachers throughout the year in order to obtain some help in terminating the verbal threats and harassment, but they all turned a deaf ear and a blind eye, repeatedly stating that they could not change the Smith student’s class due to there only being one class for students with his type of needs.

            The case manager also made several racially and medically incompetent statements when she illegally characterized the Smith’s student as “depressed” and “suicidal,” because he did not “smile” enough.  The Smiths obtained documentation from their pediatrician, who was the life long medical care provider for their student, indicating that he had never suffered from “depression” of any kind. This information was shared with school officials.

            In April of 2009, the Smith’s student had enough of the verbal threats and harassment, and engaged in a physical altercation with the bullying student.  At which point, school officials finally took action; the wrong action, and suspended the Smith’s student for the remaining part of the year.  During the initial disciplinary hearing that was to determine whether his actions were due to his disability of being emotionally disturbed, the school officials refused to discuss the issue properly and did not even have a copy of the student’s IEP to review in order to determine whether it was implemented properly.  In addition, they refused to answer any of the parent’s questions regarding the incident.  Furthermore, they claimed that they had not completed an investigation regarding what lead to the incident and refused to include the teacher that witnessed the incident and harassment within the meeting.   Finally, they refused to consider the Smith student’s statements when he indicated that he felt that he had no other choice other than fighting the other student because all of the adults were ignoring him when he asked for help repeatedly over several weeks leading to the confrontation.

            When asked why they had not intervened when the student with special needs repeatedly approached them regarding the matter, they offered no response, but school officials like Ms. Whitlow, did not hesitate make falsified statements regarding the events that took place in order to cover up the extent of their negligence regarding the incident.

            The family appealed the principal’s recommendation for a long-term suspension and was scheduled to attend a disciplinary hearing at Chesterfield’s central office.  District officials refused to permit the Smith’s parent advocate to attend the meeting.

            The Smiths are filing a state and civil rights complaint, and are now appealing the long-term suspension to the school board, claiming that school officials failed to intervene to protect their son with special needs, which was their responsibility.  Their failure to do so resulted in their son being forced to take matters into his own hands in order to protect himself from future bullying by this student.

            It is clear that for parents of special needs students, specifically parents of color, cannot rely on the officials of Chesterfield County Public Schools to operate in integrity and in the best interests of their children, or any child.  When officials from the classroom to central office do not hesitate to violate the laws whose sole purpose is to protect the most vulnerable children within our society, then these individuals should be removed immediately. The abuse, intimidation, and neglect of students and families with special needs is a systematic issue that is a cancerous epidemic throughout Chesterfield County and many other districts.

            Dr. Newsome, Chesterfield’s children and families deserve better than this, so the question that is posed to you, as the district’s superintendent, is, “will you speak up for those that cannot speak for themselves as the protector and nurturer of children, or will you remain silent and permit those under your supervision to continue to destroy the futures of children with special needs?”

            Now that we know, we will be watching…….

            (The names of the families are fictional for the protection of their students.)