Kennedy HS student says he was unofficially sent home for months, describes what civil rights lawyer calls ‘blatant’ special education violations
Nicole Jones said that throughout her son TJ’s four years at John F. Kennedy High School, school administrators seemed to target him. First, they tried kicking him out, citing a dispute over his residency. Then, she said, they placed him alone in what they called a “self-contained classroom.” Finally last November — during what was supposed to be his final year at the school — they just sent him home, telling him to take his classes online at home.
“[The principal] felt that it would be ‘in my son’s best interest’ to be at home and do the work, not in school,” Jones recalled.
But Jones never agreed to the arrangement, and she said the school did not follow the legally required process to put TJ in a home-based setting.
Nineteen year-old TJ, who has bipolar disorder, received special education services at the school. Like other students in special education, TJ — who asked that we not publish his full name in this story — was required by state and federal law to be on a tailored school plan called an individualized education program. Changing his school routine so drastically should have involved evaluating all possible arrangements that could have kept him inside the school building, a meeting with his teachers and mother to review the school’s recommendation and his mother’s signature.
For the past several years, the Orleans Parish school district has been under a federal consent decree for failing to provide adequate special education services. The consent decree mandates an independent monitor provide quarterly reports and provides for increased monitoring of both a CONTINUE READING: Kennedy HS student says he was unofficially sent home for months, describes what civil rights lawyer calls ‘blatant’ special education violations | The Lens
