SPECIAL EDUCATOR = PARALEGAL?

The paperwork we do in Special Education is the least fulfilling (to me at least) and most stressful part of being a Special Education Teacher and I think that a great majority of us will agree with that statement. 

It has gotten to the point where we prepare legal documents and many Special Education Teachers and sometimes our administrators don’t really realize the importance or consequences of poorly prepared paperwork, until it is in the hands of a lawyer for either side. 

Please read the Special Ed Law Blog by Jen Laviano, to get an idea of the quality of what you could be facing if a parent decides that they need to go down this route.  She is very, very good and I know that I wouldn’t want to meet her in an adversarial position unless I have my ducks completely in a row.

Her blog provides a wealth of information for anyone interested in Special Education and on what a Special Educator could face if you end up in a hearing or court.  There is plenty of free advice on what to “not” to do.  My suggestion is that you subscribe to her blog and read it, it could save you a lot grief later. 

A simple word of warning – if your paperwork sucks, you loose.

Basically a Special Educator is preparing paperwork that establishes and documents to the legal system what Special Education Services a student will receive and how the school arrived at those determinations.  This paperwork is also used to show that the school has followed the requirements of IDEA, Section 504, State Regulations, FAPE and to document any agreements or disagreements that have been made during PETs, mediations, hearing or other legally enforceable meetings.  This is actually a good thing and protects both the school and student when it is done correctly and in good faith.

I have been on the other side when a school violated my daughter’s rights and nothing is more unreasonable than a parent who believes their child’s rights are being violated in bad faith.  I know I was not very nice to the school during this period.  I never went to hearing, but it was not a pleasant experience for the school personnel who did that.

The fact that anything that I/we write (my notes – yes that includes your personal notes, notices, IEPs, etc.) are all subject to legal review is rather daunting. This is the part of this job that I don’t enjoy at all and gets me all stressed out when I am preparing my paperwork – I know how important it is to do it right – but even then I can make a mistake that could come back to haunt me at a hearing or in Court.  Especially when your work is being reviewed by a lawyer, who is trained to pick apart documents for weaknesses.

Special Educators typically only take a single Special Education Law class during their teacher preparation coursework and a quick 4-6 hour conference on What’s new in Special Education Law once every 2-3 years.  We are expected to be experts in Special Education’s legal paperwork preparation by picking up the knowledge we need from either experience or by the seat of our pants. Formal or even sometimes informal teaching of how to prepare the paperwork in accordance with the law and regulation is difficult to find at best.

Is it no wonder that many Special Education  Teachers/Case Managers don’t understand how important each piece of paper they prepare is – legally until they have actually gone through the hearing process.  We simply are not taught to think this way (we are taught to be nurturing and supportive) and when the unthinkable happens – that our work is reviewed by the lawyers for both sides and we are asked to explain and justify what we have written.

The reality is that learning to the do paperwork correctly is a major part of a good Special Educator’s job. We have to be able to document, document, document everything and be able to justify – to a Hearing Officer/Judge if necessary, why we did it.

We usually are totally out of our league, even if we prepared the paperwork with the best of intentions.  That doesn’t meet the standard necessary when speaking in front of a Hearing Officer or a Judge – best intentions don’t matter, but what you did does.

So what can we as Special Educators do to protect our jobs and sanity?  The single best thing is to ensure that the lines of communication between home and school are open, honest, and realistic (don’t make agreements that cannot be kept).  This forestalls and alleviates many potential situations before they become legal issues. 

This is why I say that Special Education Teachers have become Paralegals to some extent.  That is a Paralegal’s job – preparation of paperwork/ casework that meets the Court’s standards, within the timelines required by law or  regulation.

Our employers value our ability to prepare Special Education paperwork that is legally correct, more than our abilities to teach the student in classroom.  I really think that this is unfortunate that paperwork, has become more important than teaching, but in today’s world that is how I see it and I think that many schools do as well. 

What are your thoughts on this…what have I missed, to me it is more important to get this subject out there, to get a discussion going and to try to get it right than to be right.

Do the right things for the right reasons – today and tomorrow.