You may retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Education Law Team to help your Maine primary or secondary school student gain the disability services and accommodations that state and federal laws require. Don't let your student with disabilities suffer frustration, embarrassment, and academic losses simply because school officials will not comply with your student's negotiated individualized education plan (IEP) or will not adopt an appropriate IEP. Our attorneys are available for IEP representation in Portland, Lewiston, Bangor, South Portland, Auburn, Biddeford, Saco, Augusta, Windham, Gorham, or another Maine city or town. Call 888.535.3686 now, or complete this contact form telling us about your student's IEP matter.
The Difference Qualified IEP Representation Makes
You know the frustrations of dealing with school disability specialists, regular classroom teachers, and administrators who fail or refuse to listen to you and refuse to address and accommodate your disabled student's needs and concerns. Don't let others determine what's best for your student when you know better, and the school hasn't addressed your concerns. You and your student have the legal right to participate meaningfully in your student's IEP negotiation, implementation, and adjustment. Our appearance on your student's behalf, bringing the legal knowledge and academic administrative skills your student needs, can convince school officials to listen to and effectively address your concerns. School officials will pay attention to skilled and experienced IEP attorneys. We can help your student pursue appeal and oversight channels where school officials refuse to provide needed disability services and accommodations.
Avoid Unqualified IEP Representation
Advocating for disabled students in a school administrative setting requires special knowledge, skills, and experience. Local criminal defense attorneys, estate planners, and civil litigators generally lack detailed knowledge of disability laws, rules, regulations, and practices and lack the academic and administrative skills necessary to obtain effective relief for disabled students facing IEP issues. Our attorneys have the knowledge, skills, and experience your student needs for the best possible outcome. Don't retain unqualified representation. Get the qualified representation you need.
Facing Maine IEP Frustrations
The problem is that disability services and accommodations can cost money. They can also require a teacher, aide, or administrator to spend additional time and effort addressing individual student needs. Individualizing instruction can disrupt a teacher's customs and habits, creating major or minor annoyances. You've likely dealt with poor attitudes and outright refusals from teachers and administrators who don't want to spend the money, devote the time and resources, and change settled and comfortable habits and practices. Yet you also don't want your student lagging behind. You also don't want your student held only to lower academic standards. That's what the federal IEP process is meant to address: holding school officials responsible for providing the special services and accommodations necessary for your disabled student's free, appropriate public education. We can help you face your IEP frustrations by putting in place an effective plan of action.
Overcoming Maine IEP Frustrations
Disputes with school officials over your student's IEP can be frustrating, annoying, and draining. They can also lead to your student lacking the services and accommodations that would keep your student up on academic studies or catch your student up after having fallen behind. Maine is generally a great state in which to raise and educate children, including students with disabilities. But as a parent of a student with a disability, you know how teachers and other school officials can ignore and misunderstand your child's special needs. You may also know the types of services and accommodations that could make a critical difference to your student's academic success, including things like modified instruction, modified schedules, modified materials, and special furnishing, lighting, sound protection, and equipment. Our attorneys can help you overcome your IEP frustrations to obtain the best available relief.
Maine School District IEP Representation
Maine schools, like schools in other states, often rely on their school district for special disability services and support on disability accommodations. Maine has approximately 122 school districts supporting 127 high schools. The larger of those districts include the Portland Public Schools, Yarborough Public Schools, Gorham Public Schools, Bangor Public Schools, Yarmouth School Department, Elizabeth Public Schools, Five Town Community School District, Biddeford Public Schools, and Augusta Public Schools.
Whether your student's district is large or small, the district office may be where you will find the resources and expertise to address your student's IEP needs. Our attorneys know how to reach, diplomatically but firmly communicate and advocate with, and negotiate with school district officials for improved disability services and accommodations. Our attorneys have not only the knowledge and experience but also the reputation and relationships to gain the trust of district officials. We also know the services and accommodations schools will generally provide when convinced of the need to do so. Let our attorneys help your student with creative, effective, and appropriate win-win resolution of your IEP dispute.
Maine's Commitment to IEP Implementation
Maine's Department of Education commits itself to the federal laws that mandate IEP implementation. The Department maintains an IEP Committee composed of Department of Education representatives with special needs education, training, and skills, and representatives of several of the state's larger school districts. The IEP Committee develops, publishes, and reviews IEP manuals and materials for use at the local level. The IEP Committee does so to ensure that Maine public schools comply with federal disability laws, in particular the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requiring schools to offer all students, including students with special needs, a free appropriate public education (FAPE).
Maine's establishment and funding of the Department of Education's IEP Committee means that you should have the backing of state officials in your student's local school dispute over the form or implementation of your student's IEP. Our attorneys can help you invoke that state authority. Maine has, in short, equipped its local schools to comply with the federal disability laws that simultaneously guarantee substantial federal funding to local schools.
Maine Department of Education IEP Manual
Maine's Department of Education displays its commitment to IEP implementation in a Special Education Required Forms Procedural Manual. The Manual walks local school teachers and disability specialists through each form that the local school should be using to ensure appropriate development and implementation of your student's IEP. The forms include ones for notifying parents and students of an IEP meeting, determining whether a student needs an IEP, documenting the attendance or non-attendance of certain teachers, developing the IEP itself, gaining your consent to your student's disability evaluation, and inviting other officials to your student's IEP meeting, referrals for special education services and revoking those referrals, determining eligibility for special learning disability or speech and language services, and summarizing your student's performance under the IEP. Our attorneys can help you and your student invoke these forms and the structure the manual and forms provide, to ensure your student gets needed accommodations and services.
Maine Department of Education IEP Eligibility
One of the key documents that the Maine Department of Education's Procedural Manual requires the local school to use is the Form for Determination of Adverse Effect on Educational Performance. A significant first step in the IEP process is to measure and document how your student's disability is negatively impacting your student's academic work. The IEP team must complete the form when first determining your student's eligibility and need for IEP services. The form and its attached required documentation should form the basis for the services and accommodations the IEP team then agrees to provide in the IEP itself. Under federal disability laws, the school has the obligation to identify students with disabilities. In practice, you may have to advocate for disability services and accommodations, but the burden remains on the school.
Maine Department of Education IEP Process
Determining eligibility for special accommodations and services is just the first step in the IEP process. The IEP process then brings together the IEP team, of which you and your student are a part. You and your student may participate in IEP team meetings, whether school officials welcome your participation or not. You should receive formal notice of each IEP team meeting. The IEP team uses the meetings to write and revise your student's IEP. Once the IEP team adopts the plan, the school must implement it, including providing any special education services the IDEA law lists necessary for your student's free appropriate public education under the same standards as those for non-disabled students. You should also have the right to consent to your student's evaluation, reevaluation, and special education services. Our attorneys are available to help if your student's school is not following the mandated IEP process.
Maine Department of Education IEP Implementation
The Maine Department of Education's Procedural Manual also establishes the process for your student's IEP development and adjustment. Your student's IEP team should be following that process to ensure a coordinated and comprehensive plan. The process includes appointing the mandated IEP team members, scheduling the required IEP team meeting, notifying all participants of the meeting's time, date, and place, and then negotiating and adopting the IEP at the meeting. The IEP team should then distribute the plan to all school teachers, staff, and officials for prompt implementation. The school must provide the services and accommodations the plan requires. The law then requires an annual IEP team review to make appropriate adjustments to the plan. An adjusted plan begins the implementation cycle anew. Our attorneys can help if your student's school is not implementing your student's IEP according to this process.
Maine Department of Education IEP Team Meetings
Parents of students with special needs often complain that things related to their student's IEP seem to happen behind their backs. The Maine Department of Education's Procedural Manual makes clear that the school must involve you in your student's IEP development, adoption, and adjustment by holding IEP team meetings and including you in those meetings. School officials should not be adopting your student's IEP or adjusting it without holding an IEP team meeting to which they invite you and your student. If school officials fail to hold an IEP team meeting or do so without inviting you, then they have violated federally mandated IEP procedures.
Conduct of IEP Team Meetings
You should observe and participate in open discussion of your student's special needs at an IEP team meeting. The IEP team may come to an agreement by sharing their observations, insights, and expertise. The IEP team may also review evaluations conducted by medical or other specialists and other documentation. Use the IEP meeting to obtain, review, discuss, and challenge evaluations, other documentation, and opinions and views. If your student's IEP team does not include you in open, frank, and fruitful discussions of your student's needs, then let our attorneys help. We may be able to attend your student's next IEP team meeting, communicate with IEP team leaders and school administrators about the IEP team meeting, or equip you to better participate in the IEP team meeting.
IEP Team Members
The Maine Department of Education's Procedural Manual also makes clear who must be on your student's IEP team. You, first of all, are an IEP team member. So, too, is your student, although you and your student may decide whether your student should attend, depending on your student's age, maturity, and special needs and interests. Your student's general education teacher and special education teacher are other IEP team members. The IEP team may invite others, such as another general education teacher whose instruction the IEP may affect. IEP team members may decline to attend a meeting on a subject that does not involve their instruction, activities, or expertise. School principals, assistant principals, or other leaders may also attend to ensure appropriate coordination of staff and services. Our attorneys can help if your student's school fails to include any of these members in IEP team meetings.
Federal IEP Laws Maine's Department of Education Recognizes
Congress' Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is the federal law mandating individualized education plans (IEPs). As briefly mentioned above, the IDEA law's key phrase is to require that all schools receiving federal funding provide all students with a free appropriate public education (FAPE). The FAPE concept determines what your student's school must provide in special education services to your qualifying student. The IDEA law also dictates the qualifying disabilities, one or more of which your student must exhibit, to require the school to adopt an IEP and provide the IEP's special education services. The IDEA law also names the assistive devices and other equipment schools must offer to qualifying students. Our attorneys can help you and your student enforce these IDEA law rights.
Qualifying for an IEP Based on Disability
The IDEA law generally recognizes as qualifying disabilities only impairments having to do with hearing, speech, vision, cognition, emotions, orthopedics, autism, and brain injury, although the law also recognizes “similar health impairments and learning disabilities.” That broad definition gives your student a substantial opportunity to qualify, depending on your student's condition.
Schools, though, may be more generous than the IDEA law requires. Some schools freely adopt IEPs for struggling students without rigorously applying the law's list of qualifying disabilities. Your student may be seeking or receiving special services without yet having shown a qualifying disability. But parents, school officials, regulators, and courts may also apply the IDEA law's definitions of qualifying disabilities broadly. Your student may qualify as disabled under a fresh referral and evaluation if the school refuses to provide special services because your student has not yet shown a qualifying disability. Let our attorneys help your student qualify if the school challenges your requests for services on that basis.
Other Federal Disability Laws Maine Department of Education Recognizes
The Maine Department of Education and its IEP Committee will recognize these two other federal disability-rights laws, requiring local schools and their teachers and officials to comply.
Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act
Disabled students have federal accommodation rights under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, known popularly as the ADA. Title II of the ADA is an anti-discrimination law. Title II of the ADA prohibits disability discrimination. Schools must not use a student's disability to deprive the student of services, privileges, programs, and benefits that non-disabled students enjoy. Your student's school may have to comply with ADA Title II to ensure that your student has access to school instruction and activities if your student does not qualify for an IEP.
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 is another federal source of student disability rights. Section 504 is like Title II of the ADA in that Section 504 prohibits disability discrimination. When a student does not qualify for an IEP, the school may instead adopt what they call a 504 plan if the student is unable to participate in instruction or activities because of a disability. Unlike the IDEA law, Section 504 does not limit the qualifying disabilities. Once again, your student's school may have to comply with Section 504's non-discrimination mandate, even if your student does not have one of the IDEA law's qualifying disabilities for an IEP.
Maine Department of Education IEP Laws
Maine's legislature has adopted legislation carrying out the requirements of the above federal school disability-rights laws. Those laws provide for local special education programs, qualifying for federal special services funding. They also provide, in Maine Statutes Section 7205, for the state commissioner of education or designate to provide technical assistance to local schools for complying with federal laws to qualify for federal funding. The legislation also provides for an administrative dispute-resolution procedure, including, in Maine Statutes Section 7207-B, a due-process hearing for parents who object to a school's failure or refusal to adopt or implement an IEP. Our attorneys can help you invoke those procedures.
Maine Department of Education IEP Administrative Rules
The legislation Maine's legislature adopted to carry out the requirements of the above federal school disability-rights laws also authorized the Maine Department of Education to promulgate related administrative rules and regulations. Those rules and regulations appear in Maine Administrative Code Section 05-071 Chapter 101. The administrative rules and regulations run into hundreds of pages, repeating and substantially refining the state's legislative mandates. Consider some of their more significant provisions below.
Maine Administrative Rules for IEP Dispute Resolution
The Maine Department of Education administrative rules and regulations on disability rights include elaborate dispute-resolution procedures. The rules guarantee you, as a parent of a disabled student, the right to challenge the school's IEP determinations. You and your retained attorney may first invoke mediation in an attempt to resolve the matter without resorting to the administrative procedure. You may instead file a complaint with the Department of Education, including a request for a due process hearing. Prehearing procedures include settlement conferences and motions to clarify, limit, or expand the issues. Your request for a hearing gives you the right to subpoena witnesses to the hearing, present those witnesses and accompanying exhibits at the hearing, and cross-examine adverse witnesses. An independent administrative law judge conducts the hearing and issues the decision, with which school officials must comply. Our attorneys can help you invoke and conduct the hearing.
Appealing Maine IEP Dispute Resolution Results
The Maine Department of Education administrative rules and regulations give you the further right to appeal any adverse decision. An appeal takes the decision denying IEP rights to a higher authority for review. Appeals of administrative decisions denying IEP rights go to the Maine Superior Court in the county in which the school lies. You must file the appeal within ninety days of the decision. Appeals are highly technical matters requiring skilled and experienced representation. Let our premier Education Law Team help.
Premier IEP Representation Across Maine
The Lento Law Firm's premier Education Law Team is available in Portland, Lewiston, Bangor, South Portland, Auburn, Biddeford, Saco, Augusta, Windham, Gorham, or another Maine city or town to represent your student in IEP advocacy. Our attorneys have the specific knowledge, skills, and experience to effectively handle academic administrative matters regarding disability accommodations and services for your student's best possible outcome. Call 888.535.3686 now to tell us about your student's case, or complete this contact form.
