How To Win A Due Process Hearing

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How to Prepare for a Due Procedure Hearing
by Brice Palmer, Advocate

"I think I demand to request a due process hearing. How should I set for a hearing?"

Yous ask for advice nigh how to ready for a hearing or administrative review. In my estimation, preparation from the get-go is crucial to success.

In Vermont, the complaint triggers a due process hearing. Pre-hearing management by the Independent Hearing Officer provides an opportunity for the parents and school district to wade through these issues informally, before an evidentiary hearing actually begins.

Your first opportunity for effective advocacy occurs at the hearing. This is a different blazon of advocacy than advocating at IEP meetings or evaluation meetings.

Your job is to nowadays your example in an organized fashion that gives the determination-maker plenty good factual data to reach a conclusion in your favor.

For purposes of planning and organization, assume the determination maker (fifty-fifty if an employee of the school district) tin and will make an objective decision based on the facts of the instance.

I take management from Otis the Wonder Dog regarding the hunt: If you lot exercise non plan and organize the pursuit, yous are likely to wind up equally road kill.

Do not endeavor to present your instance or statement in a "lawyerly" manner. Present your case as a cogent parent who is advocating for the rights and educational welfare of your kid. The organisation allows y'all to present your arguments.

Organize the Records

First, yous must organize your child�s educational records. Once your records are organized, you lot must make curt, articulate statements most what your grievance(s) are and whether whatever of these grievances are the kind for which relief (whether annihilation can be done about it) is available through the decision maker.

For example, it is of no utilize to file a complaint alleging that X, who is Idea eligible, has non been provided with Nike basketball shoes, unless the IEP team determined that Nike basketball shoes are necessary for X to receive a complimentary appropriate education - AND - it was written into the IEP that X needs them. Whether X will be permitted to article of clothing them dwelling house is another outcome.

Explain What You Want

You lot need to explain to the decision maker what was done, how it should accept been done, why information technology should have been done that way, and what y'all desire the determination maker to do most it.

Afterward you clearly state your grievances and after you lot make up one's mind that your grievances can exist remedied past the decision maker, you must assemble facts that support your grievances (from hither on out, your grievances volition be called allegations).

Edit Your Asking

To do this, I propose yous write out your allegations. Then go back to your typhoon and strip out every adverb and modifier possible.

When I become briefs and pleadings from opposing counsel that are full of words like egregious, wanton, gruesome, always, forever, scurrilous, etc., I immediately suspect that the author has not spent the time necessary to do a complete factual investigation of the matter - and is unlikely to exist prepared to effectively argue their client�s position at that betoken. Of course, there may exist specific legal reasons for including these terms in a pleading or cursory. Even the most experienced advocates and attorneys filter information and facts through their own values and prejudices.

The field of study of drafting your complaint is a bit tricky considering lawyers draft complaints very carefully. You may not have the luxury of knowing how to draft a complaint that carefully sets forth the allegations and avoids potential pitfalls. Do non worry well-nigh this. If you enquire for a complaint asking form from your land section of instruction and make full it out properly, your complaint will likely conform to the rules.

Search your state section of instruction web site. Y'all may not detect anything - just you then once again you lot may.

Categorize Your Allegations

After yous conspicuously land your allegations, yous should categorize your allegations instead of making broad allegations.

For example, "denial of FAPE" is a broad umbrella that can be shown a zillion different means under a gazillion different fact patterns. Ask yourself just what served to deny FAPE under your particular set of facts and circumstances.

At this point, it is a good thought to ask someone else read your typhoon to test its clarity.

Find Prove That Supports Your Assertions

After you identify what information technology is that denies FAPE, or whatever broad category you affirm, y'all need to dig through the educational records and documents and await for testify that shows you are correct in your exclamation(south). This is a skill that is learned. There are those on this net who tin aid you with tips and hints.

Assume that y'all moved and your child brought a current IEP from the state of previous residence. In our feel, a schoolhouse district that receives a student with an out of commune or out of state IEP resents having to implement this IEP. In that location are whatsoever number of reasons for this. In the main, the basis for resentment is usually tied to the financial commitment necessary to implement the IEP.

There are usually unspoken reasons for resistance to implementing an IEP that is written out of district. In negotiations, unspoken objections interfere with finding a solution. To discover the reason for resistance, information technology is necessary to affluent objections out. Oftentimes, if yous ask boldly "why do you __________?" you will exist able to get the subject on the table.

Nowadays Facts to Convince the Determination-Maker

Your job is to present your facts in a coherent style and convince the decision maker that because of the school�southward actions, or inaction, your child�s educational welfare is in jeopardy, and/or your child is receiving no educational benefit from the IEP program(south) and service(due south) - and without corrective action, your child will proceed to be harmed.

I realize that this may audio like a cutting and dried clinical approach and does not judge reality in the trenches. This is a blueprint of the fashion I would approach the state of affairs from a planning betoken of view.

Advancement is a Learned Fine art

Most of us learn how to advocate from so-called "life experiences" or from mentors. Lawyers call information technology "lawyering."

My reasoning is based on an assumption that the organisation is fair and that in most cases, it works. If yous ready your case in an organized manner and the decision in your case goes against you, you will be prepared to evidence that the decision was wrong or unfairly rendered.

Although you may non remember you have advocacy skills, you probably do.

A well planned presentation, a calm mental attitude, a predetermined goal, and command over any acrimony you harbor volition achieve more for your child than anything else I can think of.

Brice Palmer, Vermont Advocate
Email: askotis@shoreham.cyberspace

Source: https://www.wrightslaw.com/advoc/tips/palmer_prepare.htm

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