Special ed kids “missing to the system”
Deputy Chancellor Richard Nyankori assured a federal judge last fall that some of the special education students removed from private schools for placement back in DCPS had not fallen off the grid.
“I don’t want the impression out there that somehow we have lost track of kids,” Nyankori told U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman.
But plaintiffs’ attorneys in the Blackman lawsuit now say that is precisely what has happened, and that Nyankori misled the court. In a report filed with the court late Monday, they say that at least 20 special needs kids once in private schools cannot be accounted for.
“He clearly misrepresented the facts,” said attorney Ira A. Burnim of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law.
Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee has committed to returning many of the approximately 3,000 special ed students currently in private placements