When the experts at Gilroy Unified School District spoke so sincerely about how important parents are in crafting education plans for their special needs students (Dispatch, Oct. 2, 2015), and that parents need as much support as their kids in securing services, the better part of who we are tends to take them at their word.
That article was an overview of the Special Education program, who it serves and how much it costs. It serves nearly 1,500 Gilroy children and adolescents, some with profound physical, emotional or behavioral issues with which they and their parents must deal while still attempting to get a good education.
Under the law, school districts are required to make sure that happens, the education, that is. Gilroy does that at cost of $17 million, about half from the state and federal governments.
No mention was made by the district in exchanges with the Dispatch to indicate that not all parents are happy, not all think the district does a good job and that some hire lawyers to force the district to do what is legally required and, after all, what is right and just, it seems.
But no sooner had the Page One article hit the newspaper stands andwww.gilroydispatch.com than parents came forward to set things straight. Others would never do that, we are told, because they fear retaliation against themselves and their children. What is this, the old Soviet Union?
So, who to believe, parents of autistic and otherwise developmentally challenged kids? Lawyers who fight for them? Or those who are charged with providing the services but are silent about the programs’ problems when given an opportunity to discuss any and all aspects of special education? To not give the full story doesn’t seem honest and suggests someone is hiding something.
First, it’s clear that most on the front lines of providing services, the therapists, paraprofessionals, technologists, teachers, coaches and counselors do so out heartfelt goodness and a need to help others less fortunate than themselves. No expression of thanks can convey the gratitude parents and kids feel, and the community should feel, for those individuals.
On the other hand, if a system is not working as it should, if kids are deprived of their legal rights, if parents must be in pitched battle for years with the very agency charged with supporting and advocating for them and their kids, then something is profoundly wrong.
Is that what’s going on with special education in Gilroy? If Lisa Ruiz and Lydia Fernandez, mothers of special education students and featured in Editor Jack Foley’s Page One article today, are right, it is precisely what is going on with at least some special education cases in Gilroy.
And if David Tollner is right, and we suspect he is, then at a certain level in school districts it all boils down to money and not what is best, let alone what is legally required, for the student. As a lawyer, Tollner’s law firm handles only special education cases. He fights for kids and parents who are the last ones who should have to be fighting, for theirs are the greatest needs.
We asked the district for more information about these kinds of issues, but it was not able to gather the information by press time. And the district’s head of special education was tied up and could not speak with us by press time. Fair enough.
But, who would you to believe? Or is it not so cut and dry?
Our money is on Ruiz and Fernandez, their sons Michael and Christopher, respectively, and David Tollner. And hats off to them.
We urge the school board to convene a special task force to examine how responsive the district is to its special education students and parents. Then we’ll know the truth.
