A judge has ruled that a lawsuit by a New York City student seeking private school tuition funding after being bullied in public school for having a disability will go forward.
The student, known as L.K., charged that repeated bullying at school affected her ability to earn an education and that her school was aware of the situation and did nothing about it. The plaintiff said the school showed “deliberate indifference” to the situation, which is prohibited by Title IX, according to a summary of the case.
L.K., a 12-year-old girl with a learning disability, challenged her public school placement under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) with the help of her parents, claiming that the school improperly “predetermined” her Individualized Education Plan (IEP). The family filed the case when administrative methods at the school were not sufficient in correcting the problem.
The plaintiff in L.K. v. the New York City Department of Education is seeking reimbursement for private school tuition for the 2008-09 academic year on the basis that L.K.’s school placement was inappropriate. The IDEA, passed in 1975, requires equal access to education including proper school placement and an appropriate education for children with disabilities.
Elizabeth Thomas, spokesperson for the New York City Law Department said, “While the DOE takes bullying very seriously, it contends that in this case, the student's rights under the IDEA were not violated.”
According to the case, L.K.’s father said that daily bullying against his daughter made her “emotionally unavailable to learn.” A teacher’s aide described the classroom scene as a “hostile environment.” L.K. had reportedly been taunted, tripped and ostracized on multiple occasions.
The school showed that L.K. had succeeded academically but the judge said this does not refute claims of emotional impact. The judge also found that the DOE had made some attempts to rectify the problem, denying the plaintiff’s claim that her IEP had been “predetermined.”
Judge Jack Weinstein found that students with disabilities “are subject to increased bullying that is often directed at the disability,” which he attributed to “peer rejection” and other factors.
The judge said that bullying, which is most common in elementary school, includes physical, verbal and psychological actions and usually affects a specific group of children in each school more than the general population. The impacts can be long-term and sometimes results in violence against the aggressors.
“When responding to bullying incidents, which may affect the opportunities of a special education student to obtain an appropriate education, a school must take prompt and appropriate action,” the judge wrote. “It must investigate if the harassment is reported to have occurred. If harassment is found to have occurred, the school must take appropriate steps to prevent it in the future.”
“These duties of a school exist even if the misconduct is covered by its anti-bullying policy and regardless of whether the student has complained, asked the school to take action or identified the harassment as a form of discrimination,” he wrote.
This article was published in the September 2011 issue of Able News.
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