<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">the school doesn't understand the situation, they let the kids tease him for being diffrent and have been no help at all, as long as his grades are up they could care less about his happyness. He currently has an IEP but it does no good to bring up the bullying at the meetings, they kind of say "sorry about that", and go on. </div></div>
Your son has an IEP and by virtue of the IEP also has the protections of Section 504 (disability law). Both are federal laws that your school district must abide by (whether they like it or not).
Bullying a child with a disability is against the law. In some cases, educators can be held personally responsible for allowing the bullying to continue.
Do some reading at the following links:
REMINDER: HARASSMENT BASED ON DISABILITY IS WRONG, ILLEGAL by the US Department of Education: https://web.archive.org/web/20130331085823/http://www2.ed.gov/PressReleases/07-2000/0726_2.html
Protecting Students from Harassment and Hate Crime: A Guide for Schools - January 1999 . Your school district and/or your State Education Agency should have written policy on bullying:
http://www.ed.gov/offices/OCR/archives/Harassment/policy1.html
Feds Say "Harassment Cannot Be Tolerated" et al. This is on a parent friendly legal website:
http://www.wrightslaw.com/nltr/05/nl.0201.htm
Suit involving bullying in United State District Court of Connecticut:
http://www.wrightslaw.com/law/caselaw/05/ct.scruggs.meriden.damages.htm
A lot of school district's have their policies on-line these days. So do State Education Agencies. Check them out. Then you might want to consider writing a letter to the Superintendent about the bullying being allowed AND the school district IEP committee members being unwilling to address the issue in difficult child's IEP. Send it Certified Mail -- CM is a "must."
My letter would probably go something like this:
Dear Mr./Mrs. Superintendent:
My son, ___, attends XYZ School. He is a victim of repeated bullying.
Even though it's my understanding it is against the District's policy to allow bullying and there are Federal and State laws against allowing bullying, I can not get my son's IEP Committee Members to address this chronic problem in his IEP.
Solutions to this problem and addressing the effects thereof need to be incorporated into _____'s IEP. Is this something I need to take up with the State Education Education Agency, OCR and/or OSEP? Can you help me?
Sincerely,
Mom
cc: District Special Education Director
Send it CM because it's a record that the school district has been put "on notice." Fax it to speed up the snail mail.
If they are smart, you'll be hearing something back from somebody pretty quickly.
Welcome to the site.
