Trust the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team to advocate across Minnesota for your K-12 student's autism spectrum disorder accommodations and services. We are available in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Rochester, Bloomington, Duluth, Brooklyn Park, Plymouth, Woodbury, Lakeville, Blaine, Maple Grove, St. Cloud, and other Minnesota locations. Our attorneys are ready to serve you and your student in the Anoka-Hennepin Schools, Saint Paul Public School District, Minneapolis Public School District, Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan Independent School District, Osseo Area Schools, South Washington County School District, Rochester Public School District, Independent School District No. 728, Wayzata Public Schools, Mounds View Public School District, Lakeville Public School District, Robbinsdale Area Schools, and other districts across Minnesota. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact formnow for our premier representation for autism spectrum disorder services and accommodations.
Autism Spectrum Disorder Challenges
You may have already had to fight for your autistic student's educational disability rights and interests through Minnesota schools or other state school systems. Autism is both a profound and peculiar disability, profound in its impacts but also often hidden in its triggers and their effects. Educators in Minnesota and elsewhere are generally aware of the nature of autism but may know little about your student's autism diagnosis and its effects on your student's learning. You have likely found your student's Minnesota K-12 teachers and other school officials to be sympathetic to your student's autism diagnosis and special needs. However, those same sympathetic teachers and school officials may not have the knowledge, skills, or commitment to adequately accommodate and serve your student as federal and Minnesota state laws require. Let us help you turn sympathy into action.
Autism Spectrum Disorder Recognition
Your autistic student's Minnesota K-12 school and its district likely back up the sympathy and compassion of your student's teachers and administrators with statements of their commitment to your student's disability rights and special education. The Saint Paul Public Schools is an example, asserting that the district commits itself to eliminating disparities between disabled and non-disabled student learning. The Minneapolis Public Schools make similar assertions, touting their relentless focus on meeting disabled students' needs. But once again, a difference exists between public assertions of commitment and the actions school personnel must take to fulfill those commitments. You and your student have every right and reason to hold your student's Minnesota elementary or secondary school accountable to district commitments for special education services. Let our skilled and experienced attorneys help.
Federal Education Laws for Autism Services
Federal educational and disability rights laws are the foundation for Minnesota public elementary and secondary school disability accommodations and services. Federal laws are especially important because they serve as the mechanism for Minnesota to obtain the substantial available federal funding for special education services. By complying with those federal laws, Minnesota receives millions of dollars to distribute to local school districts to pay for special education evaluation and services. Here is a summary of the main federal laws on which we can help you and your autistic student rely for special education services.
Minnesota Autism Recognition Under the Federal IDEA Law
Minnesota law follows and adopts the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA law). Your student may already have an individualized education program (IEP) in place at your student's Minnesota elementary or secondary school. If so, the school had adopted that IEP consistent with the requirements of the federal IDEA law. The IDEA law's Section 300.8(c)(1)(i) expressly protects autistic students by defining autism as a qualifying disability. Under the IDEA law, a developmental disability qualifying for federally funded special education accommodations and services must significantly adversely affect your student's learning. The IDEA law defines autism as having a significant adverse effect on student communication and social interaction, typified by repetitive motion, stereotyped actions, severe reactions to changes in settings or routines, and sensory overload.
Minnesota Autism Recognition Under ADA Title II
Minnesota elementary and secondary schools also recognize the need not to discriminate against autistic students, as Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits. The ADA is an anti-discrimination law rather than a special education law like the IDEA law. The ADA defines a disability differently as qualifying for Title II protection. To qualify for ADA protection, your Minnesota K-12 school autistic student must prove a physical or mental impairment substantially limiting one or more of your student's major life activities. But ADA Title II regulations, much like the IDEA law, expressly define autism as a condition substantially limiting brain function and therefore qualifying as a mental impairment substantially affecting a major life activity. Your student should qualify for ADA Title II anti-discrimination protection while also qualifying for IDEA law special education services. Our attorneys can help you ensure that your student qualifies for protection and services under both these federal laws.
Minnesota State Laws Defining Autism
We can also help your Minnesota K-12 autistic student rely on Minnesota state law protections for autism services and accommodations. Minnesota's special education laws for the state's public elementary and secondary school students adopt a comprehensive set of protections sufficient to qualify the state for federal IDEA law funding. Minnesota Statutes Section 125A.08, for instance, requires the state's public K-12 schools to adopt and implement individualized education programs (IEPs) for students with qualifying disabilities. Under the state's special education laws, the Minnesota Department of Education offers technical assistance and other services specifically for autistic students and their teachers, school staff, and parents. Technical assistance assurances at the state level are one thing, though, while effective action in your student's Minnesota K-12 school is another thing. Let us help if you and your student are unable to get your student's Minnesota K-12 school to provide the accommodations and services your student needs to overcome the educational impact and challenges of autism.
Minnesota's Child Find Program
You may feel as if it is your role to qualify your autistic student for Minnesota elementary or secondary school disability accommodations and services. While your notice to the school of your student's autism diagnosis and need for special education may certainly help and is appropriate, the legal obligation under the IDEA law is instead on the school to identify and address your student's need for special education. The IDEA law's Section 300.111 mandates that your student's Minnesota K-12 public school conduct a child find a program to locate and serve disabled children. Your student's school should have a program like the Child Find in place at the Minnesota Valley Education District. Don't let your student's school officials place the burden on you to prove that your student has an autism diagnosis warranting the school's special education. Let us help you invoke your child's rights so the school can identify and qualify your student for those services.
Minnesota Duties to Evaluate Autistic Students
The school's duty to evaluate your autistic student is another key element of the federal and state educational disability rights regulatory schemes. Your student's Minnesota K-12 school has the obligation to send your student to a qualified professional for the autism diagnosis and recommendations for services and accommodations. Minnesota Administrative Rule 3525.2710 details the many evaluation requirements. The evaluation must be specific and exhaustive, and, as the IDEA law's Section 300.304 provides, it must be done at the school's expense. You have likely already obtained diagnoses of your student's autism. However, the school must make an evaluation that meets the IDEA law's specific form and requirements. Under Minnesota Administrative Rule 3525.1325, the evaluation must make specific findings as to the communication issues, social interaction issues, and restricted and stereotypical behaviors your autistic student exhibits. We can help you and your student with evaluation issues.
Parental Consent to Minnesota Autism Evaluation
The IDEA law's Section 300.300 gives you the right to notice of your student's planned evaluation so that you may grant or withhold parental consent. Minnesota Administrative Rule 3525.2710 confirms the federal IDEA law's consent requirements, making clear that the school may not override your decision whether to consent. You do not have to consent to your student's autism evaluation. The choice is yours whether the school evaluates your student for autism or special education. You may rather that your student persevere without special education services. Or you may not approve of the evaluator the school chooses or the time, place, or nature of the evaluation. You may also wish to advocate that the school use evaluations you have already obtained. The decision of whether to let the school evaluate your student for autism is yours. Let our skilled and experienced attorneys help you make that judgment wisely and help you ensure that the school follows your decision on consent.
Parental Consent to Minnesota Autism Services
You also have the statutory and regulatory authority to grant or withhold consent to the autism services and accommodations the evaluator recommends and the school's IEP team wishes to carry out. The IDEA law's Section 300.300 grants you consent power over proposed services, not only over whether to evaluate your student. Minnesota Administrative Rule 3525.2710 confirms that the school must not construe your consent to evaluation as consent to services, which the school must instead separately obtain. These consent provisions keep you involved in the development and implementation of your student's individualized education plan. The consent provisions ensure that the school does not act in secret against your better judgment as to what your student needs. We can help you enforce these consent rights so that the school respects and honors your wishes for the proper accommodation of your student's autism.
Minnesota K-12 Autism Second Opinions
Congress clearly wanted to keep parents involved in the special education of their disabled students. Congress granted you another important right to ensure your reasonable control over the disability evaluation process. The IDEA law's Section 1414 grants you the right to obtain a second opinion from another evaluator, this one of your own choosing. Minnesota Administrative Rule 3525.2710 confirms your right to reevaluation, once again at school expense. You might wonder why a parent would demand reevaluation when one evaluator should generally find the same diagnosis and needs as another evaluator. But unfortunately, some evaluations are inaccurate, inadequate, or incomplete. Evaluators make mistakes, overlook symptoms, and can even exhibit bias in their opinions. In the worst case, evaluators with close connections to the school may also make decisions that they know the school favors, including decisions to deny a diagnosis or deny needed services. Your right to a reevaluation can correct these errors and biases. Your student's condition, the school's teachers and aides, or the school environment may also change, requiring your student's reevaluation. Let us help with reevaluation issues to enforce these important rights.
Minnesota Autistic Student Services
The IDEA law also broadly defines the accommodations and services to which it entitles your autistic student. The IDEA law does not list the specific accommodations and services. Instead, the IDEA law's Section 1401(9) mandates that your student's Minnesota K-12 school give your student a free appropriate public education(FAPE). How does that requirement work to authorize services? Your student's school must provide your student with the equivalent education it provides non-disabled students, accommodating your student's autism as necessary to ensure that equivalence. The FAPE requirement may thus require the school to modify the facility's lighting or noise for your student, provide protective hearing equipment, modify rules to allow your student to temporarily leave over-stimulating environments, provide aides to assist your student and provide visual cues and behavioral interventions to improve responses, among other things.
The Americans with Disabilities Act takes a different approach to your student's autism. The ADA prohibits disability discrimination rather than specifically mandating special education. The ADA's Title II mandate is not to provide a free appropriate public education but instead to reasonably accommodate student disabilities so that the school does not discriminate against disabled students. Reasonable accommodation depends on the availability, cost, effectiveness, and disruption of the proposed services, among other factors. But reasonable accommodation can require similar actions to those described above under the IDEA law.
Your Autistic Student's Minnesota K-12 IEP Team
Your student's individualized education program (IEP) is the IDEA law's primary tool for your student's autism accommodation and special education services. The IDEA law's Section 300.312 requires your student's Minnesota K-12 school to form an IEP team to determine the accommodations and services your student deserves. You have the right to be on your student's IEP team. The team should also include your student's regular classroom teacher and special education teacher. The special-ed supervisor and other administrators may also participate. The IEP that your student's team adopts, with your input, is the document that the IDEA law allows you and your student to challenge, correct, and enforce. We can help you ensure your IEP team participation. It is a central right.
Your Autistic Student's Minnesota K-12 IEP Contents
An IEP is not just a few notes of what the school might do for your student. It must instead contain specific and elaborate provisions to ensure your autistic student's proper special education. The IDEA law's Section 300.320 lists the contents your student's IEP must include. Minnesota Administrative Rule 3525.2810 further details the required IEP contents. While the IEP must include your student's autism diagnosis and the school's planned accommodations and services, it must also include your student's academic and behavioral goals, together with means to assess your student's progress on those goals. Get our help with IEP issues.
Mainstreaming Autistic Students in the Classroom
Another laudatory feature of the IDEA law is that it requires your student's Minnesota K-12 school to mainstream your student in the regular classroom when it is reasonable to do so. The IDEA law's Section 300.114 accomplishes its mainstreaming goal through its mandate that the school educate your students in the least restrictive environment(LRE). The school may remove your student from the regular classroom if your student's autism disrupts instruction, but only if the school makes reasonable efforts to accommodate and serve your student's disability to minimize those disruptions. Mainstreaming ensures that your student receives the same instruction, socialization, and support that non-disabled students receive in the regular classroom. Mainstreaming can help your student build social networks, maintain social motivation, develop social skills, and maintain a positive self-image. Mainstreaming also reduces the harmful mental, emotional, and physical impacts of segregation, isolation, and warehousing. Let us help you enforce the IDEA law's LRE mainstreaming requirement. It may be your autistic student's most important right.
Autism Spectrum Disorder's Learning Impacts
Not all educators understand the subtle impacts autism can have on a student's learning. You may find your student's Minnesota K-12 teachers and other school staff members to be highly sympathetic to your student's autism but, unfortunately, not knowledgeable as to how it affects your student. It is not your role to teach school officials about autism. Minnesota's Department of Education offers the school's teachers and other staff members abundant autism education resources under the state's duty to provide technical assistance. But we can help you advocate with those teachers and other school officials as to how your student's autism may be interfering with your student's learning and how the school needs to quickly modify facilities or instruction. You are likely well aware, but school staff members may not be aware, that autistic students can react adversely to classroom lighting, voices, loud noises, ambient sounds, movement, physical sensations, and face-to-face demeanor or direct eye contact.
Minnesota K-12 Autism Interventions
Your student's Minnesota K-12 school can very likely make a difference in the success of your student's efforts to overcome the challenges of autism. Maintain that confidence. Believe in the possibility of fruitful education. Believe in your student's development and future while ensuring that school teachers and other officials do likewise. Your student's school likely has available to it a range of interventions that could improve your student's experience and education by reducing the adverse impact of your student's autism. Those interventions may include changes to the classroom, different instructional methods, special behavioral reward and control interventions, assistive devices or equipment, restorative therapies, peer modeling and support, teacher coaching and mentoring, psychological counseling, and case management assessment and integration.
Minnesota K-12 Autism Rights Enforcement
You may have already reached the point where your student's Minnesota K-12 school teachers and other officials have refused to comply with the above laws, rules, and regulations and have refused to recognize and accommodate your student's autism so that your student can benefit from free appropriate public education. Congress anticipated that parents might need to enforce the IDEA law's rights. The IDEA law's Section 300.504 offers you and your student procedural safeguards to enforce your student's special education rights. Minnesota Administrative Rule 3525.4700 and other Minnesota Department of Education regulations translate the IDEA law's procedural safeguards into specific administrative enforcement procedures. For example, you and your student have the right to notice of IEP team decisions, to invoke a school or district hearing before an independent decision maker to review and reverse erroneous decisions, and to appeal hearing decisions to state agencies. Limited court review of appeal decisions may also be available.
The Education Law Attorney's Role
While you and your student have substantial procedural safeguards to correct erroneous IEP team decisions and school actions or inactions that fail to comply with the above special education laws, those administrative procedures are complex. Invoking them strategically and effectively requires substantial skill and experience. Our attorneys know how to identify the correct procedures to invoke, gather, and present the necessary evidence, make the right legal arguments, challenge the school's assertions, and otherwise negotiate and advocate for your student's proper autism accommodation and special education services. If you and your student have already lost all hearings and appeals, we may also be able to advocate and negotiate with the school district's general counsel's office or outside retained counsel for alternative special relief. Let us help you exhaust all avenues, including court review if necessary, for your student's best possible outcome.
Premier Minnesota K-12 Autism Attorneys
The Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team is available to help you and your autistic student enforce special education accommodations and services rights. Our attorneys have helped hundreds of students in Minnesota and across the nation. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now to tell us about your autistic student's Minnesota K-12 school issues.
