Special Ed Suit Is Filed in O.C.

The parents of four children with severe learning disabilities have sued three Orange County school districts, accusing them of providing inadequate instruction for students in need of special education.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Santa Ana against Saddleback Valley Unified, Capistrano Unified and Laguna Beach Unified, stems from Saddleback’s decision this year to close elementary classes at the district’s specialized school and move the students to other campuses.

Lawyers for the parents want a judge to certify the suit as a class action on behalf of all learning-disabled students in the three districts.

The four families are demanding that the Saddleback district restore classes for their children at Esperanza School in Mission Viejo. Esperanza, the only school in the area that exclusively teaches students with severe learning disabilities, admits children from the three districts.

This year Saddleback administrators, citing logistical and philosophical concerns, moved Esperanza’s younger students to special education classes at other schools.

Standing in a small park across from the federal courthouse in Santa Ana with other families from Esperanza who gathered to announce the suit, lead plaintiff Trisha Kihano said her 10-year-old son Tyler, who has Down syndrome and cannot speak, responded well to the concentrated attention he received at the school.

“With the teachers and the safe environment, he was doing so well. He had more freedom,” she said.

Kihano added that her son has grown more combative and disruptive since moving to a new school, where he is overwhelmed by the large student body and the special education classroom is surrounded by a chain-link fence for his safety.

Daniel Barrett, son of plaintiff Linda Shumay, suffers from Costello syndrome, a disease that retards physical and mental development. As a ninth-grade student, Daniel was not removed from Esperanza, but his mother said she joined the lawsuit out of concern that the district might close higher grades.

Also joining the suit is Pamela Nippel and her daughter Bailey, a third-grader who attended Capistrano schools before transferring to Esperanza; and Maria Ramirez and her son Manny, who has Down syndrome. The suit says Saddleback administrators manipulated Bailey Nippel’s paperwork to keep her out of Esperanza and persuaded Manny Ramirez’s mother to unknowingly sign away her son’s rights to some classes.

The lawsuit is based on the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which requires school districts to provide every learning disabled student with an individually tailored education in the “least restrictive environment.”

Michael Byrne, Saddleback’s director of pupil services, declined to comment on the lawsuit but said the district continues to provide for its learning-disabled students.

The district’s move, Byrne said, was part of a plan to provide instruction for learning-disabled students in the northern part of the district and balance class sizes among the district’s special-education programs. He also said Esperanza has become less attractive for an increasing number of parents of learning-disabled students who want their children to be integrated into a typical school instead of separated at a specialized one.

Eric Jacobson, a lawyer for the parents, acknowledged that while this may be true for students with less severe disabilities, parents like Kihano value Esperanza’s intimate environment.

“These types of schools are seen [by administrators] as segregated, instead of dedicated,” Jacobson said.

Jacobson and his legal partner in the case, Edwin Rosenberg, said the lawsuit goes beyond the issue of Esperanza. They accuse the three districts of failing to properly identify special-needs students and provide them with appropriate programs in line with federal and state laws.

Capistrano district Supt. James A. Fleming countered that the cost of special education places a heavy burden on school districts, and that cases like this one will continue to arise until the federal government starts to provide the funding promised in the special education laws.

“Who is the villain in all this?” Fleming asked rhetorically. “It’s not the parents. It’s certainly not the students. And it’s not the school districts.... The financial strain is unbelievable.”