I just got off the phone with Rachel Hitch, of Schwartz & Shaw in Raleigh, the district's law firm. That firm, she said, does exclusively education law, and Ms. Hitch deals mostly with special education law. She was out of the office all day yesterday, and said she wanted to make sure she was responsive to my questions.
She explained to me a little bit more how the appeals process would work in this state, since it's completely different than the state I spent most of my time in (New Jersey), which, like most of the Northeast, sees many more special education cases tried each year.
I asked her what the grounds for the appeal are, and she said since no appeals brief has yet been filed, she would rather not discuss that at this point.
She said the appeals process works something like this:
"The process in North Carolina is a two-tiered process," she said. "What happens is the first step is a parent files with the Office of Administrative Hearing. ... And that's the decision that we have."
If either party disagrees with the decision, it can be appealed within 30 days to a state review officer. It's what she called a "paper appeal," meaning there wouldn't be anymore hearings at this stage. The state review officer then decides when any additional materials need to be filed.
"The next step from there would be to make its way to the traditional court system, if anyone's interested to take it any further," she said.
Well, that's that. I'll post it as I get anything further.
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Here's the statement from one of Orange County Schools' lawyers, Rachel Hitch, on the case OMM, by parent or guardian N.M. and A.M. v. Orange County Board of Education in full (minus the "FOR PUBLIC RELEASE" header):
A recent ruling by an Administrative Law Judge in the Office of Administrative Hearings has received attention from some members of the Orange County community. Most importantly, school officials want to emphasize that that the student who was the subject of the decision remains a part of the Orange County community. The well-being of students is the primary concern of the Orange County Schools and school officials hope that all concerned persons keep this student’s interests in mind.
The school system disagrees with some of the statements being made about the decision and the events leading up to its issuance. The Board of Education has voted to appeal the decision. In any event, Federal and State laws protect the confidentiality of student information and school employee personnel files. Those laws limit how much information can be publicly disclosed by the school system. In addition, the student’s parents were adamant about the confidentiality of the student’s information during the course of this case. Of course, the student’s parents have no restrictions on their statements about the situation as they see it. As always, there are two sides to every story. School officials are not permitted to discuss their account or impressions of this case.
In order to preserve confidentiality of student records and school personnel files as required by law, the Superintendent of Schools, Patrick Rhodes, has designated attorney Rachel Hitch to respond to any inquiries beyond this statement.
In case you haven't read the July 8 story, here it is. Here's a primer on some of the acronyms and education speak used in the article, as well.
thanks for the update
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