The Lento Law Firm's premier Education Law Team is available to effectively and strategically advocate for your Colorado K-12 student's autism spectrum disorder accommodations and services. Our attorneys are available in Denver, Colorado Springs, Aurora, Fort Collins, Lakewood, Thornton, Arvada, Westminster, Pueblo, Greeley, Centennial, Boulder, Highlands Ranch, Longmont, or another Colorado location. We can appear for you and your student in the Denver Public Schools, Jefferson County School District No. R-1, Douglas County School District No. RE-1, Cherry Creek School District, Aurora Joint School District No. 28, Adams 12 Five Star Schools, St. Vrain Valley School District, Poudre School District, Boulder Valley School District, Academy School District No. 20, District 49, Colorado Springs School District No. 11, and other districts across Colorado. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now for our premier representation for autism spectrum disorder accommodations.
Autism Spectrum Disorder Challenges
As the devoted parent of a Colorado elementary or secondary school student with autism spectrum disorder, you already know the challenges your student faces to get the required accommodations and services. Colorado educators generally respect student disabilities and special education rights. But they often do not know the ways in which autism can adversely impact learning when they fail to accommodate it properly within the school environment. You should be glad for the sympathy and compassion of your student's Colorado K-12 teachers and school officials toward your student's autism challenges. But you and your student would be better off with your student's appropriate accommodation and services. Autism is an especially challenging condition for parents and their students to gain educational accommodation and services. Let our skilled and experienced attorneys help.
Autism Spectrum Disorder Recognition
Your student's Colorado public elementary or secondary school likely advertises its commitment to complying with federal and state disability rights laws, including the laws that recognize your student's autism as a qualifying disability. You've probably seen and heard the assurances. For example, the Denver Public Schools publish online their Exceptional Student Services commitment to serve every disabled learner. For another example, the Cherry Creek School District advertises its commitment to serve every special needs student within the district. Your student's Colorado K-12 school and district likely publicize similar programs and commitments. Your issue, though, may not be getting your student's school to recognize your student's rights. It may instead be enforcing those rights effectively. Let us help you turn an advertised commitment into real action.
Federal Education Laws on Autism Services
Our attorneys can help you enforce not only your student's Colorado law rights but also your student's federal law disability rights. State special education laws generally derive their designs and commitments from the federal schemes that predated or superseded them. Those federal laws also authorize substantial federal funding for autism services and other disability services and accommodations, when the state and its local public schools comply with the federal regulatory scheme. Below is a summary of the key federal laws we can help your student enforce.
Autism Recognition Under the Federal IDEA Law
As the parent of an autistic student, you have probably already heard of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA law) and its individualized education program (IEP) requirements. Colorado law closely tracks the federal IDEA law, such that your student's Colorado K-12 school likely has IEPs and IEP teams in place for students with qualifying disabilities. Importantly, the IDEA law's Section 300.8(c)(1)(i) expressly recognizes autism as a qualifying disability. The corresponding Colorado Exceptional Children's Educational Act (ECEA) and its regulations definition of autism. The IDEA law's definition for autism is a developmental disability that significantly adversely affects your student's communication and social interaction in the education setting. You may already be aware that professionals tend to first diagnose autism by its symptoms, in the very way that the IDEA law defines those symptoms to include repetitive motion or fidgeting, stereotypical fluttering of the hands and rocking back and forth, emotional outbursts from changes in the school environment or routines, and distress from sensory over-stimulation.
Autism Recognition Under ADA Title II
Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) also expressly recognizes autism as a disability qualifying for protection against unlawful discrimination in education. The IDEA law is a special education law, while the ADA is a non-discrimination law, meaning the two schemes have different structures. They also have different definitions for disabilities qualifying for federal protection. Under the ADA, you must show that your autistic student has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity. Fortunately, though, ADA Title II regulations state expressly, and rather obviously, that autism “substantially limits brain function” and is, therefore, a mental impairment substantially limiting a major life activity. Let us help you enforce these federal law rights for your student's autism accommodation and services.
Colorado Laws Defining Autism
Your Colorado K-12 student with autism has the same protections under Colorado state law as your student has under the above federal IDEA law and ADA. Colorado's legislature ensured that its regulatory scheme for special education met all requirements of the federal IDEA law to gain for Colorado K-12 students the available substantial federal special education funding. That means that Colorado law also includes autism in its disability definitions. Indeed, as briefly mentioned above, the Colorado Exceptional Children's Educational Act (ECEA) and its accompanying regulations adopt the federal autism definition. The Colorado Department of Education also staffs an Exceptional Student Services Unit (ESSU) to provide the technical assistance, data collection, procedural safeguards, and regulatory oversight that the federal IDEA law requires. We can help you invoke these state laws, regulations, and procedures to ensure your student receives appropriate autism special education services.
Colorado Child Find Program
A first advantage that the above state and federal laws give to your Colorado K-12 student with autism is to place the burden on the school to identify your student's autism disability. The IDEA law's Section 300.111 calls this school burden the child find requirement. The child find requirement means that the school cannot blame you or your student for failing to come forward with the claim and supporting evidence that your student's autism is a disability qualifying for special education services. That obligation remains on the school, not on you, although as a devoted parent, you will surely notify the school of your student's need for special education services, notwithstanding the school's obligation to discover and address it with or without your notice. 1 Code of Colorado Regulations 301-8 Rule 2.07, Rule 4.02, and other rules mimic the federal child find requirements. We can help you invoke these state rules, too, for your student's right to the school's autism services.
Colorado Duties to Evaluate Autistic Students
Once your student's Colorado elementary or secondary school identifies your student as potentially in need of special education services, either under its child find program or through your own notice, your student has the IDEA law's Section 300.304 right to a disability evaluation by a qualified professional at school expense. You need not, in other words, hire and pay for your own evaluator. The school must do so for you and your student. This free evaluation is a key benefit of the IDEA law and the corresponding Colorado regulation Rule 4.02 and other rules, once again mimicking the federal evaluation requirement. If your student's school chooses a qualified, independent, and skilled evaluator, you and your student may learn helpful new information about your student's autism diagnosis and needs. If you already have a thorough diagnosis, the school's evaluation may confirm your student's need for specific autism accommodations and services. Let us help if you have a dispute with the school over your student's right to evaluation.
Parental Consent to Colorado Autism Evaluation
In a perfect world, your student's evaluation by a professional the school chooses should provide you, your student, and the school with helpful diagnosis and remedial services information. But evaluations are not always perfect. Your student's school officials may choose an unqualified or biased evaluator, who makes a cursory or otherwise inadequate evaluation that misdiagnoses your student's autism and need for services and accommodations. Fortunately, the IDEA law's Section 300.300 requires the school to ask for and gain your parental consent for your student's autism evaluation. Rule 4.01 and other rules of Colorado's special education regulations adopt the IDEA law's consent requirements. Depending on your student's needs, the evaluator whom the school chooses, and other factors, you may decide that your student would be better off if you withhold your consent. You may alternatively be able to advocate that the school use the diagnosis you have already gotten for your student or that the school choose a different evaluator who has appropriate qualifications. Let us help you use your consent rights to ensure that your student gets an appropriate autism evaluation.
Parental Consent to Colorado Autism Services
You may also grant or withhold your consent to autism services that your student's Colorado K-12 school recommends. You do not have to let your student undergo the accommodations and receive the services that the school's evaluator and IEP team recommend. You may decline to allow your student to participate. You may believe that your student's persistence without accommodations and services is of greater benefit to your student's character and education. If so, then the IDEA law's Section 300.300 and the corresponding Colorado special education regulations grant you that power to grant or withhold consent for the school's autism accommodations and services. Let us help if you and your student face a school dispute over your granting or withholding consent.
Colorado K-12 Autism Second Opinions
Your opportunity to demand and invoke a second opinion is another important right under the IDEA law's Section 1414 and the corresponding Colorado special education regulations. If you consent to your student's evaluation by the school's chosen professional, but that professional completes a biased, inaccurate, or inadequate evaluation denying your student's diagnosis or failing to recommend appropriate accommodations and services, you may choose your own independent evaluator to complete another assessment. If the evaluator you choose is qualified and writes an evaluation meeting the law's requirements, then your student's IEP team must consider the second opinion when shaping your student's IEP. Our attorneys can help you invoke these important second-opinion rights. A second opinion may be critical to your student's successful challenge to an inadequate IEP. Let us help identify the evaluator and ensure you get a qualified second opinion.
Colorado Autistic Student Services
You may still wonder what autism services the federal disability rights laws and corresponding Colorado regulations authorize. The federal IDEA law does not specify the autism accommodations and services; instead, it leaves that determination to the judgment of qualified evaluators and the IEP team, subject to procedural safeguards. The IDEA law does, though, mandate the guiding construct. Your student's Colorado K-12 school must provide your student with a free appropriate public education(FAPE). That mandate and its Colorado regulatory equivalent requires the school to ensure that your autistic student receives an education equivalent to the education that non-disabled students receive, providing all necessary and appropriate autism accommodations and services. Those items may include facility modification, accommodative equipment, modified instructional materials, assistive devices, classroom aides, and other services.
The Americans with Disabilities Act, as a non-discrimination law rather than a special education law, uses a different guiding principle. The ADA's Title II requires your student's school to reasonably accommodate your student's autism. The reasonableness of the accommodations and services you and your student request and demand may depend on the availability of those items, their cost, the degree to which your student would benefit from them, and whether they disrupt instruction. Let us help you and your student address and favorably resolve disputes with your student's school officials over these requirements.
Mainstreaming Autistic Students in the Classroom
The federal IDEA law also requires that your student's Colorado K-12 school keep your student in the regular classroom if reasonably possible. Segregation, isolation, and veritable warehousing of disabled students generally, and autistic students in particular, had long been a problem in schools. The IDEA law's Section 300.114 addressed that wrong by requiring that elementary and secondary schools educate disabled students in the least restrictive environment(LRE). The IDEA law does not guarantee that all autistic students will always be in the regular classroom. However, the LRE mandate gives our attorneys a tool to advocate effectively for your autistic student's inclusion, with appropriate aides, accommodations, and services.
Autism Spectrum Disorder's Learning Impacts
You would do well to keep in mind that your student's Colorado K-12 teachers and other school officials may have limited knowledge of how autism can adversely impact your student's learning. Their failure to understand and appreciate the impact of your student's autism may mean the difference between your student getting help or not getting help and the success or failure of your student's accommodation. Don't let the school officials claim ignorance of how your student's autism impacts your student's learning. Let us help you advocate effectively that the school train its teachers and other personnel in recognizing autism's impacts, including any of the following issues:
- classroom lighting triggering or overwhelming the autistic student;
- voices or noises triggering or ambient sounds distracting, the autistic student;
- movements sickening, annoying, or overwhelming the autistic student;
- physical sensations of touch, hot, or cold irritating and distracting the autistic student; and
- face to face demeanor or direct eye contact invading the autistic student's sense of privacy.
Colorado K-12 Autism Interventions
Fortunately, the medical and education professions have developed a variety of approaches for autism interventions, some of which can be successful for certain students when sensitively administered. Your student's Colorado K-12 teachers and other school officials may not know the breadth of available autism interventions. The IDEA law and Colorado's special education regulation Rule 2.04(1)(f) promise technical assistance training to the school's teachers and other professionals, as well as to you and your student if you need and request it. Don't let the school officials claim ignorance of how your student's autism impacts your student's learning. Let us help you advocate effectively that the school train its teachers and other personnel in effective methods for accommodating your student's autism. Those methods may include any one or more of the following approaches:
- changes to the classroom setting;
- new instructional designs and methods;
- different instructional materials;
- behavioral analysis and interventions;
- flexible scheduling;
- remediating or restorative therapies;
- peer modeling and support;
- adult coaching and mentoring;
- psychological training; and
- case management to integrate the above items.
Colorado K-12 Autism Rights Enforcement
As well-intentioned as everyone in your student's matter may be, you may still find that your student's Colorado K-12 school is unwilling to properly accommodate your student's autism. And good intentions are also not always present. Sometimes, parents of autistic students see the worst side of teachers, administrators, and other school personnel, particularly when those personnel do not understand your student's autism. The federal IDEA law's Section 300.504 and corresponding Colorado special education regulations provide for procedural safeguards so that our attorneys can help you enforce your student's rights against the school's intransigence. Those procedural safeguards generally ensure due process, meaning that you should have the opportunity to have us advocate your autistic student's disability rights before an independent decision maker reviewing the school's adverse decision.
Our attorneys may be able to invoke your student's administrative hearing rights, gather and present your student's evidence at the hearing, challenge the school's contrary evidence, and advocate strategically and effectively for your student's accommodation. If you have already lost your student's administrative hearing at the school or district level, we may be able to appeal that loss to a higher authority at the state level or even seek the limited court review the state's administrative procedures permit. Even if you have already lost all hearings and appeals, we may be able to negotiate alternative special relief with your student's Colorado school district's general counsel's office or other oversight officials. Let us help you pursue all avenues for relief. Your student's education is worth it.
Your Autistic Student's Colorado K-12 IEP Team
Our attorneys may also be able to help you with your student's IEP team. The IDEA law's Section 300.312 and corresponding Colorado special education regulations require your autistic student's school to constitute an individualized education program (IEP) team for your student. You are on that IEP team and entitled to notice of each IEP team meeting so that you may participate. Your student's regular classroom teacher, special education teacher, and other school officials should also be on your student's IEP team. The IDEA law and Colorado regulations require at least an annual IEP team meeting plus meetings before the school modifies your student's adopted IEP. The IEP is your student's legal document, enforceable through school, district, and state procedures, and even as necessary in the civil courts. Let us help you with IEP team issues.
Your Autistic Student's Colorado K-12 IEP Contents
Your student's IEP should also include everything your student needs for the implementation and measurement of an effective plan. The IDEA law's Section 300.320 and corresponding Colorado special education regulations state the contents of your student's IEP. Of course, the IEP should include your student's autism diagnosis and needed autism accommodations and services. However, it should also include your student's achievable educational goals and how the IEP team will measure those goals. Let us help enforce these important requirements if your student's IEP is incomplete.
Premier Colorado K-12 Autism Attorneys
The Lento Law Firm's premier Education Law Team is available throughout Colorado to help you enforce your autistic student's rights to special education accommodations and services. Our attorneys have successfully helped hundreds of students favorably resolve school disability, misconduct, and related disputes. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now to tell us about your autistic student's Colorado K-12 school issues.
