School District loses appeal on treatment of student

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2003 | 8:45 a.m.

The Clark County School District has lost its appeal of a state hearing officer's ruling that a 10-year-old special education student was not given the appropriate services she was entitled to under the law.

Mikki and Ray Cassidy have been battling with the district for more than a year over the educational needs of their granddaughter, Missy.

The Cassidys allege Missy was physically and psychologically abused by insufficiently trained teachers who attempted to manage her behavior with improper "techniques" -- including being put in a dark room as punishment, restrained and forced to stand for long periods.

A state hearing officer from the Nevada Education Department ruled in August that the district had failed to properly provide Missy with services as required by federal law for all children who qualify for special education in public schools.

The district was ordered to reimburse the Cassidys for private tutoring expenses incurred after they pulled Missy out of school last February. The district also was ordered to provide remedial services to make up for the instruction times she was denied.

In a ruling handed down late last week, a state review officer from the Nevada Education Department upheld the earlier decision and found that the methods being used by Missy's teachers did not follow the guidelines in her individual education plan. The district's failure to respond to the Cassidys' request for a change in their granddaughter's school assignment needlessly delayed a resolution to the situation, according to the ruling.

"The (Clark County School District's) failure to convene a meeting ... resulted in a four-month stalemate where CCSD essentially abdicated any responsibility for the student," Joyce Eckrem, the state review officer, wrote in her Dec. 17 ruling.

William Hoffman, senior counsel for the Clark County School District, said by law he could not discuss the specifics of any student's due process hearing.

While they've won the appeal, Mikki Cassidy doesn't expect a reimbursement check from the district to be in the mail anytime soon.

"They've dragged things out this long already, why should this time be any different?" Cassidy said. "In a perfect world they would have gotten a teacher in here already and which they now have two court orders to do."