cc Ben Bowman Re: Brookings Harbor School District

Mon, Feb 8, 2016 6:36 pm

Sue Caldwell (clsue4you@yahoo.com)

To:you Details

On Monday, February 8, 2016 6:34 PM, Sue Caldwell <clsue4you@yahoo.com> wrote:

Greetings:

I am the parent of 2 special needs students. After finding out the IEP was falsified, I made a complaint to the principal, and then the Superindendant. I also spoke at 2 school board meetings regarding the lack of services being provided. Nothing was done, so I filed a complaint with ODE, who sent an investigator down. The district was found out of compliance, and a Portland lawyer took the case pro bono and came down to advocate for my child. We needed to force the district to implement the IEP. I felt we should of been able to find rectifiy the situation thru the parental rights handbook which I followed.

ODE made a determination including corrective action. However, Brookings did not implement the needed services for my son.

So, I went back to ODE because there was a word "may" implement in the corrective action determination, which allowed Brookings to ignore the agreement.

I went thru mediation with ODE present. There were still no positive results.

I had to go thru a second complaint with ODE as the law was ineffective, and it protected the district and not students.

I went to anti bullying communtity meetings to address what was going on in the school. One son was being threatened by another student who said he " was going to bring a gun to school to shoot my child". I told the school about it, but all they did to rectify the problem was to tell the

student to leave my son alone. The student continued to harrass my son. When the school told the student to basically quit it, the bullying just increased, and I personally called the parent who was never even informed by the school to try and address the issue ! This was a very scary time for my child, and the lack of the district to engage the situation properly enraged me.

Since ODE seemed unable to enforce the district determinations, I filed a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights in Seattle who investigated the case. Their determination left the door open as they said they could not enforce ODE determinations.

Since one of the issues was there was no speech theripist in the district, 77 students were not getting services. I fought for the entire kids to get speech, which the district agreed to do the compensentory services. However, in the agreement, the letter they sent the parents was very vague and most parents didn't understand what the district was offering, or why. Very few families took advantage as the times available were either after school (when most students were tired) or thru the kids entitled to the summer school programs, which only a few children were allowed thru their IEP. Bussing was also available, but they never told the parents that, which made getting their speech services hard on the families.

This district is not in compliance on many levels, however ODE and the Office of Civil Rights does not support the Students rights to a safe and healthy learning experience. Brookings students deserve a free and APPROPRIATE Public Education, and their rights are being violated.

Any other questions, I would be happy to respond. I have been thru a long journey with the school board, previous Superintendent ODE and the office of civil rights

Thank you for your time,

Susan M. Cruickshank