The U.S. Supreme Court made a unanimous decision last week, ruling in favor of a deaf student, Miguel Luna Perez, who sued the Sturgis Public School System in Michigan for inadequate assistance during his education due to his disability.
Perez’s lawyer, Roman Martinez, claims that the school lied to Perez’s family about his schoolwork for over a decade while neglecting him the proper assistance he is guaranteed under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. According to a news article published by PBS, the school inflated Perez’s grades to make him appear as if he was on track to graduate. As graduation grew nearer, the family was informed that Perez would be unable to receive his diploma.
A Legal Victory
The Perez family sued the school district under both the IDEA and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The family reached a settlement in the IDEA claims case in which the school agreed to pay for sign language instruction as well as additional schooling. Perez graduated from the Michigan School for the Deaf in 2020. The ADA case is still ongoing.
Martinez said in an emailed statement: “We are thrilled with today’s decision. The court’s ruling vindicates the rights of students with disabilities to obtain full relief when they suffer discrimination."
Students with disabilities being denied necessary services is not a new phenomenon. For example, a 2018 Department of Education report found that "many" Texas schools were purposely denying special education benefits to students in order to save money.
Students Fall Through the Cracks
The mistreatment Perez faced was due to a lack of adequate management resources on the district's end.
Perez’s legal team told the court that the school system failed him by hiring a teaching aide that didn’t know sign language and wasn’t properly trained to work with deaf children. Records indicate that Perez was left alone for hours at a time, and still has trouble communicating due to his lack of foundational sign language skills.
Perez was left behind as a result of poor health, safety and wellness policies that should have tracked and dealt with his requests for assistance.
Schools losing track of kids within their system is more common than you might imagine. According to a study published by Edweekly, America’s public school system lost track of 1.3 million students during the 2020-2021 school year.
Where Kokomo24/7® Steps In
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