Our son Dustin is a 14-year-old boy with autism. When Dustin was born there were
immediate problems with him although we could never figure out exactly what was going
on. At about the age of two the idea of autism was suggested by his pediatrician but then
dismissed because even at that age it was evident he was extremely intelligent. During
Dustin's preschool years we continued to struggle with the problems he exhibited but we
continued to make progress and did not consider there might be a specific cause to why
he acted the way he did.
At the age of five Dustin started Kindergarten as a normal student. He attended Rural
Dell School District, a small one building district K-8 with just under 100 students. They
had a teacher to student ratio of 14:1 and there were 12 students in his kindergarten.
Academically, Dustin did fine in school; he already displayed proficiency in all subject
areas at the start of the school year. He did experience problems in the school
environment but the principal, who had a background in counseling, worked with Dustin
during the difficult times to help him through.
Midway through the year the school identified Dustin as having speech difficulties and
placed him on an IEP for speech where he started receiving SLP services through the
district. By the time he started first grade we started realizing there was more going on
with Dustin then could be explained by just bad parenting. We started looking for
answers leading us through a series of incorrect diagnoses for the next five years. First
and second grade continued much as kindergarten did. Midway through his second
grade year the teacher started finding very effective ways of working with Dustin and he
started excelling academically and was learning how to fit in better. By the end of the
second grade he had almost completed the third grade math program.
When Dustin entered third grade things began to change for him. Over the summer,
Rural Dell School District had unified with the local high school district and had become
part of Molalla River School District, a K-12 district with approximately 3000 students.
With the change, Rural Dell had a new principal and a change of philosophy toward the
students, providing a lot less individual attention and a higher requirement for
conformity among the students. Almost immediately, Dustin started struggling both in
and out of the classroom. His teacher was not willing to have students at different levels
in subjects such as math so Dustin was moved back to the start of the 3rd grade math
program even though he had already covered the subject the year before.
They continually gave him detentions to the point that he was staying after school at
least once every two weeks. The district tested Dustin for TAG but he did not qualify. By
the end of the year he had regressed academically, and never progressed to the same
point in the math program that he had at the same time the year before. Due to his
behavioral responses to frustration he started becoming socially isolated from the other
students.
In fourth grade his teacher took a special interest in Dustin and worked very hard to help
him. She immediately moved him past the fourth grade math into the fifth grade
program as he showed to her the ability to work at that level. During the year his scores
at times surpassed those of fifth graders. He was able to behave himself in the classroom
and received no disciplinary referrals from his classroom teacher. But, he did start
falling behind with his homework.
The rule was that if you did not have all assignments turned in you did not participate in
recess. By late January, Dustin never again was able to participate in recess. This
continued for the rest of the year. Outside the classroom his behavior did not go as well.
By midyear he acquired detentions faster then they could be served. By the first of May,
Dustin had accumulated more detentions then it would be possible for him to serve by
the end of the school year. By this time Dustin was showing signs of severe depression
and was giving indications of possibly being suicidal. After a meeting with the building's
staff in which they told us there was nothing they could do to help Dustin, we removed
him from school so we could start to help him with his self esteem and depression. By
the end of the year Dustin was doing quite well again. We requested to have Dustin
return to school for the last week but the district refused to let him come back.
During Dustin's fifth grade year things went from bad to worse. He was assigned back
with the same teacher he had in the third grade year. Prior to the start of the school year
we met with building staff to discuss the situation. Everyone agreed Dustin would likely
fail in this classroom setting but after discussing alternatives they felt they had no other
choice. So, he started the school year in that class even though the teacher was very
upset that she had to have Dustin in her class.
Within two weeks things started to deteriorate rapidly. Dustin was sent home from
school early most days and when he remained at school he was being sent to the office.
By the middle of October he was spending more time in the office than in the classroom.
When Terry visited the school she became aware that even if Dustin could bring his
behaviors under control it would take over a week before he had served all of his referral
punishment time and would be allowed back in the classroom. At this time he was
confined to a small room off of the office with nothing to do.
Terry again removed him from school and brought him home. During November, the
district changed his eligibility to SED. In December he started back to school on a
shortened day. For the rest of the year things were quite erratic with periods when he
did well and others when he didn't. In May, Dustin got very angry and kicked the aide
who was working with him after she grabbed his arm. For this he was expelled. The
district assigned him to a private tutoring school for a one-hour day of one-on-one
tutoring.
When the next school year began, we were informed that Dustin was not allowed back at
school and would have to continue with the one-on-one tutoring. At this time we also
received a diagnosis from a private psychologist that Dustin had autism. We informed
the district of this diagnosis and they proceeded to do their own evaluation. In February
the district changed his eligibility to Autism/SED.
For seventh grade we were able to force the district to allow Dustin to attend regular
school again. The year started out with a few problems but there were more daily
successes than failures. Soon after the year started the district began making changes in
Dustin's program. They also failed to provide all services as specified on his IEP.
Because of this, Dustin started to experience increasing problems at school. The changes
in Dustin's program continued up until November 7, when they informed us they would
not allow Dustin back at school.
From November 7 to January 24 Dustin was not allowed to go to school and received no
services from the district. On January 24 they allowed Dustin back in school for an hour
and a half per day but he was confined to an abandoned classroom in a separate building
at the back of the campus. During most of his day he worked with a wonderful SLP who
would bring other students to the room to help Dustin with social skills. Although
Dustin made no academic progress during this time, he made tremendous gains in his
communication and social skills. In April the SLP left the district and Dustin started
working with a new SLP.
The district again started making changes to Dustin's program, some without notifying
us. On May 1, we filed a complaint with the state department of education alleging 32
violations of IDEA leading to Dustin's denial of FAPE. On May 4, Dustin threw a ball at
the SLP and again was suspended from school. He was assigned to home bound and the
district provided a tutor for one hour each day till the end of the school year. On August
15, 1998 the state issued its final order on our complaint. In the final order they failed to
mention 11 of our allegations. For 12 of the allegations they accepted oral testimony
from district staff in contradiction to written documentation or relied on biased
interpretations of IDEA and ruled in the district's favor. On 9 of the allegations they
ruled that the district had violated IDEA resulting in loss of FAPE for Dustin.
At the start of this school year the district did not have an IEP or placement for Dustin so
he was denied entry into school. They did attempt to provide some home bound tutoring
but it failed miserably. In October we reached agreement on an interim placement
similar to the 1½ hours he had the previous year working with the same SLP with whom
he had made such good progress.
On the day his placement was scheduled to begin, Dale was called into the school for a
short meeting in order to make some last minute changes to Dustin's program. When he
arrived at school he was taken to a back room by the Special Education Director and told
that the district was not going to implement Dustin's placement. Instead, they wanted to
have Dustin hospitalized for a 30 day period, starting immediately. When Dale
disagreed with the placement the Special Education Director became very threatening
and insisted they do not need our permission and they would take whatever steps
necessary to make this happen.
After the meeting, the Special Education Director contacted our family doctor and when
he refused to cooperate with her she became very abusive to him. She then informed our
doctor she would get CSD to remove Dustin from our home. After those threats did not
work, the district's lawyer contacted our family's special education lawyer to solicit his
help claiming it was necessary to remove Dustin from the care of his parents. The
district was unsuccessful in its efforts to remove Dustin from our home and after about a
month finally let the issue die.
As of this time Dustin is not receiving any services from the school district and we are
trying to find a placement for him on our own. Dustin has had no consistent academic
program for the last 4 years and has only received sporadic SLP services. He has now
regressed emotionally and behaviorally to the point that it will take very intensive work
for him to ever live an independent life.
Dale & Terry Lucht
Molalla, Oregon
May 28, 1999
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