Letter: Molly van Wagenen on Special Education - Darien, CT Patch

To the editor:

This fall, parents of children in Special Education became aware of a memo written by the new Special Education Director, Dr. Deidre Osypuk, to her staff.

We understood the memo to have directives regarding new Special Education policies that violated IDEA, the federal regulations that govern Special Education.

Accordingly, parents made a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Stephen Falcone, requesting "a copy of each of the documents sent by the Darien SPED Administration since September regarding any area of Darien's special education procedures and policies to the various employee populations."

Parents were given a few documents from the district, but the alleged memo was not included. ?Despite not receiving a copy of the memo from the district, parents received a copy of the memo, unsolicited, from an outside source. ?Once parents saw a copy of the memo, we realized that what anecdotally appeared to be violations of individuals' Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) and PPT meetings, was actually systemic policy change. ?Parents, by law, are supposed to be involved in the creation of the education plans for their children. ?So, Darien violated the parents' rights in two ways: by falsely denying the existence of the memo and by abridging parental rights in violation of the IDEA.

To avoid potential embarrassment for the district, parents requested a meeting with the Board of Education on three separate occasions. ?On the last occasion, parents included a list of questions covering the areas on the memo. ?The Board of Education never responded to parents' requests. ?

Feeling that we had no further recourse, parents decided, as a group, to file a complaint with the state.

Our concern is not only for our own children, and is not only for children in Special Education, but is for all children in Darien Schools. ?

Parent involvement, transparency and communication, and checks on the power of individual administrators to be able to change policy without the input of other teachers, administrators, lawyers and parents is essential to maintaining the thriving district that we have entrusted to educate our children.

We did not want to bring this matter to the attention of the media. ?However, now that it is in the public realm, we would ask that community members support our Board of Education in working with the State to clarify the district policies regarding Special Education and to rectify this issue.

Respectfully,
Molly van Wagenen

Source: http://darien.patch.com/articles/letter-molly-van-wagenen-on-special-education

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