Matthew Stoloff's Blog

Special Needs Camps

February 8, 2010 in Uncategorized | No comments

On this blog, I usually write about legal issues related to service animals, special education, student rights, or disability discrimination. Once in a while, though, it’s always nice to get away and not need to think about issues associated with school, employment, or independent living. Kids, especially, need to have fun, a place to get away from the stresses of life, and meet new friends they can relate to and share interests with.

Whether it’s during the day for a week or two, or overnight for several weeks, summer camp can boost a disabled child’s confidence and self-esteem and help form life-long friendships. In the past two decades, there has been an explosion of summer camps for children with disabilities. The number of special needs camp is astounding. One website lists over 70 camps for those with Asperger’s, over 100 camps for those with developmental disabilities, and over 110 camps for those with learning disabilities and ADD/ADHD. There are special needs camps for children who are amputees, as well as children with autism, burns, cerebral palsy, deafness, dyslexia, epilepsy, HIV/AIDS, muscular dystrophy, and visual impairments, among others.

These websites contain extensive listings of special needs camps across the country: Camp Resource, Family Village, Kids Camp, My Summer Camps, and Very Special Camps.com.

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Special Education Services in Charter Schools

February 1, 2010 in Disability Discrimination, Special Education | No comments

Education Week recently published a very interesting article titled Charters: Students With Disabilities Need Not Apply? Although charter schools have existed since the early 1990s, many people do not understand what it is and how it works. The almost always reliable Wikipedia provides a nice overview of charter schools; and in the very first sentence, we learn that:

Charter schools are elementary or secondary schools in the United States that receive public money but have been freed from some of the rules, regulations, and statutes that apply to other public schools in exchange for some type of accountability for producing certain results . . .

In Charters: Students With Disabilities Need Not Apply?, Thomas Hehir reminds us that charter schools are not exempt from special education law. Indeed charter schools must comply with the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, Section 504, Americans with Disabilities Act, as well as applicable state anti-discrimination laws. Randy Chapman, the Director of The Legal Center for People with Disabilities and Older People in Colorado, provides a concise overview of the laws that charter schools must comply with in The IDEA and Charter Schools. For more specific examples in Question and Answer Format, see the Pennsylvania Education Law Center’s pamphlet, Students With Disabilities Attending Public Charter Schools.

Yet, according to studies and anecdotal evidence that Mr. Hehir cites, charter schools apparently serve few students with disabilities and may be discouraging students with disabilities from enrolling.

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Disability, Sports, and “Performance Enhancing Drugs”

January 25, 2010 in Disability Discrimination | No comments

I’ll admit it: I’m not a big sports fan. In fact, I rarely watch sports except for the occasional March Madness college basketball tournament on TV. But when a famous sports star hits the front pages of the newspaper, I take notice. Earlier this month, Mark McGuire admitted what most of us had suspected all along: he took steroids and Human Growth Hormone (HGH). Mark McGuire joins a long line of other baseball stars who have admitted to taking performance enhancing drugs: Jose Canseco and Jason Giambi, among others.

But I’m not interested in those guys.

I’m interested in Doug Barron and his case against PGA Tour.

Who’s Doug Barron?

Apparently, many people did not even know who Doug Barron was until November 2009 when PGA Tour alleged that Doug had failed a drug test.

When I heard of the possibility that golfers took steroids or performance enhancing substances to improve their golfing game, I was surprised. But apparently, Doug didn’t fail the drug test because he took steroids or Human Growth Hormone to gain an unfair advantage over other players. Doug failed because he took beta blockers to treat a heart condition and synthetic testosterone because he suffers from hypogonadism. Consequently, PGA Tour suspended Doug for a year.

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Taking Care of Your Service Animal When Something Happens to You

January 18, 2010 in Service Animals | 1 comment

There is a well known saying: “Nothing is certain but death and taxes.” Let’s face it, no one likes to think about their own mortality. But those of us who have family and pets should consider having a will drawn up and/or a trust established to ensure that our family and pets are taken care of.

It is important that pet owners think about where they want their pets to end up after the owners pass away. Equally important, service animals can survive their disabled owners. But there are other reasons why it is important to consult with an attorney to prepare certain papers to ascertain that your pet is taken care of. Consider these three scenarios:
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Parents with Disabilities?: Yes, they can!

January 11, 2010 in Disability Discrimination, Uncategorized | No comments

When Kaney O’Neill was 21 years old and working as a Navy airman apprentice, she fell off a balcony and broke her neck. Thereafter, she had minimal use of her arms and could no longer use her legs. Nearly ten years later, she gave birth to her son, Aidan. In August 2009, the Chicago Tribune published a beautiful story about Kaney’s pregnancy and the support system in place for her. It appeared as though Kaney would be spending the rest of her life with her son Aidan, along with her boyfriend, caretaker, and service dog by her side.

But in just a few short weeks after giving birth, Kaney broke up with her boyfriend, David Trais. David then demanded full custody of Aidan. David alleges that despite all the support systems in place, Kaney is unfit to be a mother. In December 2009, the Chicago Tribune published a follow-up article, Disabled Mom fighting to keep her son.

Now that the case has reached the courthouse where a judge is hearing arguments from both sides, bloggers have been discussing the custody dispute, and many blog readers have defended Kaney’s right to raise her son. See Lisa Belkin’s Should A Quadriplegic Mom Have Custody?; Jeanne Sager’s Quadriplegic Mom Fights Discrimination to Keep Son; and Sarah Caron’s Is She Fit To Parent? Over 100 comments have been submitted here: Can a quadriplegic be a good parent? Her ex-bf says “No.”

Kaney’s situation is unique, but not new. Doesn’t anyone remember the story of Robert Carney who was a quadripegic and fought for the custody of his two sons? Or the story of Tiffany Callo, a woman with cerebral palsy who fought to raise her two children? Or even Sean Penn’s role in I Am Sam?

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Accommodating Service Animals

January 4, 2010 in Disability Discrimination, Service Animals | No comments

Now that 2009 has come and gone, I look through my files of cases and try to determine the most interesting service animal case I’ve come across this year. Cases involving service animals in the schools or various exotic creatures as service animals such as monkeys are certainly interesting; but, in my view, nothing comes close to McDonald v. Department of Environmental Quality, which, in my opinion, may very well be the most significant service animal case of 2009.

This Montana case is about whether an employer is legally obligated to “accommodate service animals.”

This unique case resulted in a surprising outcome, perhaps in a way that no disability rights attorney or advocate could have predicted. Equally surprising is the fact that this case has gotten scant discussion in the blogosphere. (The only two I found were this one and that one.) I hope my readers will agree that this case merits discussion.

Let’s look at what happened in this case.

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The Year of the (Service) Dog

December 28, 2009 in Disability Discrimination, Service Animals | 1 comment

Most of us who have paid attention to the placemats on the table in a Chinese restaurant will recall that the Chinese calendar is linked to certain zodiac signs which are represented by animals: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, ram, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig. The year 2009 is the year of the Ox, and the year 2010 is the year of the Tiger. The year of the Dog will not come until 2018.

But all of that is based on Chinese astrology, which has a long and rich history.

I started this blog post with a brief description of the Chinese zodiac signs because I feel it is a good segue to my topic: the year 2009 was the Year of the (Service) Dog.

I suspect that there was probably more discussion, more debate, and more litigation about service dogs and service animals in 2009 than in past years. There are several reasons for this.

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Addressing Behavior to Promote Learning

December 21, 2009 in Special Education | No comments

One does not need any formal schooling to observe that behavior can affect learning. When a student misbehaves, the mind shuts off and is oblivious to acquiring any new information that is being taught in the classroom. A student who misbehaves is no laughing matter. It impedes the student’s education. It can affect the learning environment for other students in the classroom. It can also agitate teachers and upset parents. Thus, it is important that we ask: “Is the student’s behavior voluntary or a manifestation of a disability?” If we do not ask this question, we have failed the student.

Generally speaking, parents will claim that their child’s misbehavior is involuntary and a manifestation of a disability.

In contrast, teachers and school administrators may claim that there is nothing wrong with the child’s health: the child’s misbehavior is voluntary and willful. The child is simply “lazy,” “stubborn,” “insolent,” “maladjusted,” “high-strung,” or “anti-social.”

Consider these examples:

A student is unable to focus on any particular subject for longer than 10 minutes at a time and can only complete a portion of the work within a specified period of time (laziness or a possible manifestation of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder?);
A student repeatedly talks out loud in the classroom at inappropriate times (stubbornness or a manifestation of Tourette’s Syndrome?);
A student refuses to listen to the teacher’s instructions (insolent or a manifestation of Oppositional Defiant Disorder?);
A student becomes irritated and uncooperative when subjects are not being taught according to the regular schedule (maladjusted or a manifestation of Asperger’s Syndrome?);
A student must repeatedly leave the classroom to wash her hands at inappropriate times (high-strung or a manifestation of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder?);
A student is unable to respond appropriately when assigned to a partner or team (anti-social or a manifestation of autism?).

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Can You Do This? Part IV

December 19, 2009 in Can You Do This? | No comments

Incredible choreography — a one-armed woman and a one-legged man do ballet

John Bramblitt is an absolutely amazing painter by someone who’s been blind for years!

Tony Drake is blind and autistic — but he’s also a blues guitarist and singer!

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Mohawks, Tattoos, and Facial Piercings… in School

December 14, 2009 in Student Rights | No comments

I remember my first year of high school very fondly, just like it was yesterday. I had a good friend with a mohawk. We were in a couple of classes together. He loved heavy metal music and was against social conformity. His choice of hair style was his way of expressing himself; he wanted to be different, unique. Another good friend of mine had long hair. The fact that both friends had different hair styles from many others in the school was (at least to me) a beautiful thing. I still think this way. And to this day, I still wonder if any teacher or school administrator ever asked either of my friends to change their hairstyles.

Caption: A high school student with a mohawk takes notes in class.

In 1969, several high school students, aged 13 to 16, wore black armbands to protest the Vietnam War. Concerned that the black armbands might cause a disturbance among school students, the school administration imposed a ban on wearing these armbands and subsequently suspended five students who chose to ignore the ban. The students’ parents filed a federal lawsuit against the school on the grounds that the school’s policy violated freedom of speech under the First Amendment. The case went all the way up to the Supreme Court of the United States.

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Matthew Stoloff's Blog

Special Needs Camps

Special Education Services in Charter Schools

Disability, Sports, and “Performance Enhancing Drugs”

Taking Care of Your Service Animal When Something Happens to You

Parents with Disabilities?: Yes, they can!

Accommodating Service Animals

The Year of the (Service) Dog

Addressing Behavior to Promote Learning

Can You Do This? Part IV

Mohawks, Tattoos, and Facial Piercings… in School

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