| Los Angeles County, CA | November 4, 2003 Election |
 |
Special EducationBy Claude TodoroffCandidate for Governing Board Member; Torrance Unified School District |
This information is provided by the candidate | |
Torrance Unified is violating federal law.In 1975 the U.S. Congress passed the Individual with Disabilities Education Act (called IDEA). This act recognized that children with disabilities need intervention at an early age. IDEA states that children with disabilities can't be denied services for financial reasons. Children are entitles to get the services they need and if the district doesn't have them then the school district must get them. Torrance USD is violating this law on a daily basis. They are denying services to kids with disabilities. TUSD says that special education costs the district $10 million more per year than the funding they receive from the federal government. That is a poor excuse for not being in compliance with the law. All that is missing is a parent(s) with deep pockets to take TUSD into federal court and win a major settlement. There is waste in Special Education. We need to cut the districts legal fees. TUSD pushes parents into due process hearings which cost from $50,000 to $250,000 per case. We need to reduce the Individualized Education Plan (IEP) meeting costs by limiting district personnel to 6 people. I have seen as many as 23 district personnel at these meetings that have lasted 6 hours. Cost for this 23 memeber, 6 hour meeting was in excess of $6,000. We need to get Harbor Regional Center (HRC) to pay their fair share of the services. HRC loves to say that everything special education kids need is "educational" and therefore the responsibility of TUSD. That is nonsense and needs to be stopped. We need to work with parents and teach them about Assembly Bill 88 (AB88) which calls for insurance companies to pay for interventions. All these ideas can safe the district money without cutting services. Special Education is like a balloon. If you push on one side by cutting services the balloon will bulge out on the other side by increased legal costs. School District personnel fail to consider that if services are written in the kid's IEP then the district must provide the services. If the district wants to cut services they must call a new IEP and have the parents sign the entire IEP. If parents refuse to sign off on the new IEP the child is then in a "stay-put" situation. The district then must continue the level of services as they were or win in court to be able to reduce services. Fat chance!! |
Next Page:
Position Paper 2
Candidate Page
|| Feedback to Candidate
|| This Contest
November 2003 Home (Ballot Lookup)
|| About Smart Voter
ca/la
Created from information supplied by the candidate: October 27, 2003 23:32
Smart Voter <http://www.smartvoter.org/>
Copyright ©
League of Women Voters of California Education Fund.
The League of Women Voters neither supports nor
opposes candidates for public office or political parties.