| Filed in 1997, T.B. v. School District of Philadelphia was a class-action lawsuit brought by the Education Law Center-PA on behalf of students who were expelled before being evaluated for special education services. “The gist of the claim was that their behaviors were such as to suggest that they might have a disability — and that the ‘child find’ requirement of IDEA meant that the district should do a screening to determine whether a full special education evaluation was warranted,” recalled Leonard Rieser, lead attorney and former ELC-PA co-director. Case in point: The lead plaintiff, T.B. was expelled “after a long history of behavioral problems, consistent academic failure, disciplinary transfers and a request by T.B.’s mother for disability evaluation,” according to court filings. ELC-PA attorneys argued the district had failed to evaluate T.B. — and scores of other students annually — for disabilities before expelling her, despite its duty to do so under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). IDEA’s “child find” mandate obligates school districts to identify, locate, and evaluate all children with disabilities. T.B.’s case was not a one-off. Rieser estimated that over two years, 70 students had been expelled and several hundred transferred to alternative schools without receiving evaluations that would have confirmed the need for special education services, according to a news account at the time of the lawsuit. In 1998 the district agreed to settle the lawsuit and created the Behavior Performance Review process, which Rieser described as, “essentially, a checklist of questions that school personnel were required to answer to determine whether a special education evaluation should be conducted.” The district’s current Code of Conduct refers to the process in the section on student behavior and discipline. In T.B.’s case, she was readmitted to school, evaluated, and provided special education services. T.B. was “probably one of the first cases to create an actual system for protecting kids with disabilities from expulsion, etc., before identification,” said Rieser, noting that pre-expulsion assessment requirements are now on the books in multiple states and districts. “The value of the case as I see it is that it establishes an ongoing process that reaches all kids, not just those whose parents or advocates (or teachers) know to raise the issue,” he said. |