Leigh Law Group

DISCUSSION The Grand Jury found in its investigation that students throughout the county share similar mental health and wellness issues. These problems are not specific to one school, or one area of the county. While the underlying stressors vary widely from struggles of poverty to goals of high achievement, Marin educators interviewed by the Grand Jury report increasing levels of anxiety and depression among their students. In the 201920 school year, the San Rafael High Sc...hool District conducted 73 assessments of students out of concern that they might take their own lives. https://www.marincounty.org//reading-writing-and-therapy-- #mentalhealth #highschool #emotionaldisturbancedisability #iep #covidschooling2020

https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com//community-autism-law-e/ Too many cases we have had involve 5150's and arrests for children on the Autism spectrum. This is NOT okay. Police officers and first responders always should look at the child's IEP before determining next steps and include parents. Many parents have to wait for the call that their child has been placed on a hospital mental health hold or an arrest. It's NEVER okay. #autism #autismawareness #specialeducation #expulsion #iepgoals #emotionaldisturbancedisability

https://www.npr.org//a-quiet-and-unsettling-pandemic-toll- Don’t let your child fall through the cracks! We have helped many families come out of this with stabile programs and services. Takes a good working knowledge of the laws, the Covid special education fape requirements, serious experience and a whole lot of love for helping children! #schoolclosures #iepgoals... #specialeducation #DisabilityRightsAreCivilRights See more

https://news.yahoo.com/covid-wards-full-children-first-1457 Many schools choosing to stay closed, others in hybrid models- with a second strain schools are going to be forced to change up the process again. #COVID19 #schoolclosures

Education Secretary DeVos resigns in response to the riot at the U.S. Capitol yesterday.

Timelines for IEP reassessments, transfers, due process hearings https://bit.ly/35tOGnG

Timelines for individualized education program assessments https://bit.ly/3kmGBaG

U.S. District Judge William Alsup rejected a class settlement between the U.S. Department of Education and student borrowers seeking forgiveness from "predatory" for-profit college loans, after Education Secretary Betsy DeVos sent perfunctory denial letters he said undermine the proposed settlement and "hang borrowers out to dry." Read the federal court decision here: https://www.courthousenews.com//10/DeVosSettlement-DENIAL. #studentloans #highereducation #schoollaw

How Covid will affect discipline is still an unknown. We have already had three cases of discipline due to on camera behavior.

** Administrators at Bayside Martin Luther King Jr. Academy in Marin City have suspended in-person classes for middle school students and told some to quarantin...e after one student tested positive for COVID-19. Bayside MLK students told to quarantine after classmate contracts coronavirus By MATTHEW PERA | [email protected] | PUBLISHED: October 15, 2020 at 6:18 p.m. | UPDATED: October 15, 2020 at 6:58 p.m. Administrators at Bayside Martin Luther King Jr. Academy in Marin City have suspended in-person classes for middle school students and told some to quarantine after one student tested positive for COVID-19. Students in sixth, seventh and eighth grades reverted to online classes on Thursday. The soonest they will return to classrooms is Wednesday, said Itoco Garcia, superintendent for the Sausalito Marin City School District, in an announcement to families. Garcia said school administrators learned on Wednesday that a sixth grade student had tested positive for the coronavirus. The student had already been in quarantine for about a week before testing positive because a household member had contracted the virus. The student had last been at school on Oct. 7, Garcia said. Garcia told families that sixth grade students should quarantine to the greatest extent possible, even if you are asymptomatic. He said the students should also be tested for COVID-19. Seventh and eighth grade students were not told to quarantine. According to Garcia, public health officials told school administrators that students in seventh and eight grade could continue in-person classes. But he said the school’s three middle school teachers have been told to quarantine until Oct. 21 and cannot teach in person. Thankfully all staff are currently reporting good health and are leading distance learning while they quarantine at home, Garcia said. He said the students were given laptops before they were sent home on Wednesday. Grades TK through 5 continued with in-person classes on Thursday. Garcia’s announcement comes just a month after the school campus reopened for the first time since coronavirus restrictions were announced in March. The TK-8 school was among the first in Marin to open for in-person classes, although its start date, initially scheduled for Sept. 8, was delayed a week after one of the staff members contracted COVID-19. The school is following strict safety protocols to limit the spread of COVID-19, according to administrators. Students are given daily temperature checks and health screenings and required to wear masks and maintain distance from each other. They are grouped into cohorts of up to 13 students that each have dedicated recess times. The school’s sixth grade is made up of one cohort, and its seventh and eighth grades are made up of one combined cohort, according to Garcia. Dr. Matt Willis, Marin County’s public health officer, said grouping students into cohorts limits the risk of transmission across the school if there is an exposure. He said administrators at Bayside Martin Luther King Jr. Academy followed public health protocols by closing the cohort that was exposed to COVID-19. This is part of our strategy for safely reopening schools, Willis said. I think we need to expect some of this in the coming months. We cannot define success as zero cases. Willis said students and school staff members who contract the coronavirus are typically not infected at school. School protocols, and organizing kids into cohorts, helps prevent community-acquired infections from spreading within the school, he said. This is why controlling the transmission in our community is so important to safely reopening schools.

https://www.americanbar.org//are-special-education-servic/ The American Bar Association released a good article on rights of children in special ed....click on the link to read more.

MVUSF slowing down the return to school during Covid.

https://www.cbsnews.com//autism-employment-60-minutes-20/

https://www.eastbaytimes.com//construction-underway-for-/ Kind of a big deal because this may give special education students with more classroom opportunities since in the past IEP teams often told our clients there were limited placement options!

https://www.marinij.com//marin-students-virus-infection-/

https://www2.ed.gov//qa-provision-of-services-idea-part-b- New guidance on Covid and special education compliance.

With love and sympathy. The world won’t ever know a greater advocate- we were honored to win a case for her and Feda’s son. She has never given up. Honoring Feda - she was a former client and together we won against her school district many years ago. She was tenacious and an outspoken advocate for disabled children. She and her son died tragically in a house fire. Life can be so unfair- I have so many stories about that time I spent with her/ every single one is amazing. Hug everyone you love - even if you aren’t close with someone anymore- you don’t need to feel the pressure of reconciliation- but we can all Honor the moments of glory we had with people we cherished and have lost.