A Florida judge has ruled that a southwest Florida school district placed a child with disabilities into a program for students with the lowest IQ’s in order to avoid reporting his state test scores.
The case involves a 3rd grade student from Sarasota Florida who had been making steady and satisfactory academic progress in a mainstream class with supports and modifications. Shortly before state testing began in 2012, district officials placed the boy into a program designed for those with severe cognitive impairments – less than 1% of all students. The boy spent the next 6 years in the program where he earned near-perfect scores on the alternative assessments but received minimal instruction.
In 2017, responding to pressure from the USDOE, the district moved the student back into a general education setting, but offered no tutoring or mental health counseling to ease his transition as he went from a student earning academic awards to one of the slowest students in a mainstream classroom. The boy became deeply depressed and suicidal.
Attorneys for the boy showed that data collected by classroom educators was then altered by school district leadership in an attempt to force him back into the program
In his ruling the judge found that the change in placement when the boy was in 3rd grade was “related to quickly removing the student from (state) testing.” The district has been ordered to pay the cost of intensive tutoring and private school to help the student regain skills.
Special education advocates believe the district transferred the student along with many others into the program to avoid the consequences of low-scoring students taking state tests used to determine school grades, teacher bonuses and district grades. Attorneys and advocates in Florida have gathered evidence suggesting there may be thousands of students statewide in a similar situation, and have plans for a class action lawsuit.
