Earlier this year, Newark public schools settled a decade-long, class action federal lawsuit brought by parents of children with disabilities.
The case was filed in 2001 on behalf of six students with disabilities whose parents were seeking special education and related services from the Newark school system. The plaintiffs claimed that it took years of pleading in order to get the district to evaluate their children to determine eligibility. Under state and federal law, the district was to have done an evaluation within 20 days of the plaintiff’s request. According to attorneys at the Education Law Center, one of the plaintiffs said there was also a time lag in preparing education programs for eligible students.
The law requires a plan to be implemented within three months of parental consent, but, according to the suit, that was happening in fewer than ten percent of the cases.
The parents of the six students named in the suit were also represented by Gibbons, P.C. and the Seton Hall Law School Center for Social Justice.
The Newark public school district and the state Department of Education (DOE), also a defendant, settled the suit, both agreeing to safeguards to ensure Newark schools are complying with the law. Under the terms of the settlement, Newark school staff members will be trained to identify students in need of special education services by their behavior and academic performance, and the district will switch from paper-based record-keeping to an electronic database and produce compliance reports.
The state DOE will provide the district with $1 million in federal funds under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to provide special-needs students from the past two school years with services they missed while on waiting lists, and has designated an independent monitor to see that the district complies with the law.
The settlement also requires the Newark school system and the New Jersey DOE to pay $350,000 to cover the parents’ attorneys’ fees. All of the students named in the suit have since graduated from high school.
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