Federal suit settled in Washington state over institutionalized disabled students
The Seattle Times reports that last year the State of Washington, reversing a decades-long trend, began sending disabled students to live in state institutions. At two of those institutions, the Fircrest School in Shoreline and the Frances Haddon Morgan Center in Bremerton, the students were told they couldn't attend their local public schools as they had been doing. A lawsuit and federal civil-rights complaints soon followed. Last week the lawsuit brought against the Bremerton School District and the state by Disability Rights Washington (DRW) was settled. The dispute at the Morgan Center began last year, when the school district decided to close the deteriorating building where the Morgan students went to school. The district said it had no room to move those children to other classrooms. The district also noted that providing educational facilities for kids in institutions wasn't its job under state law, but rather the responsibility of the Washington’s Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS). When the building was shut down, DSHS, which had been paying rent on Bremerton classrooms, believed it was compelled to provide a classroom at the Morgan Center in order to meet its statutory obligations. According to families and advocates, that situation harmed the students because they couldn't interact with typical peers. It also treated the children as a group, rather than devising individualized plans tailored to each student's needs.
Under the terms of the settlement, the school district and the state agreed to create individual plans for students. In addition, DSHS agreed to pay for a large portable classroom on the Bremerton High School grounds. "The Bremerton School District was in a hard place because they didn't have enough room," said Linda Rolfe, director of the state's Division of Developmental Disabilities. "I think we achieved a good settlement for everyone." Regan Bailey, director of legal advocacy at Disability Rights Washington believes the settlement may also pave the way for a resolution at Fircrest, where students learned late last year they could no longer attend Shoreline schools because the district couldn't afford the extra staff and facilities they might need.
Source: Seattle Times, 06/19/2008, By Maureen O’Hagan
[Editor’s Note: A link to the settlement agreement is included with the DRW’s press release, below.]
DRW press release on settlement