It's good to see that Fox's $40M Prop P bond issue was passed by voters last week.
Meramec Heights Elementary and Antonia Elementary have long overdue upgrades needed to bring them into ADA compliance.
New School Board Members Elected
Also, congratulations to our new Fox C-6 school board members. It’s interesting to see that we now have 5 people on our school board member who were either directly involved or are related to someone who was directly involved with the 504 issues that I have been following up on since 2008.
ED OCR Did Not Issue A Monitoring Letter for 16 Months
What’s also interesting is the fact that OCR did not issue a “monitoring letter” to Fox C-6 for 16 months after the district submitted a “monitoring report” to OCR.
Fox submitted a monitoring report to OCR on December 12, 2018 with the final changes to Fox's 504 Manual. Originally, Fox agreed to update the district’s 504 Manual by June 3, 2009.
OCR didn't send a "monitoring letter" to the district until April 17, 2020 approving the changes that were submitted to OCR in December 2018. I obtained a copy of OCR’s “monitoring letter” from the district a few weeks ago.
OCR's Delay Was Due To Being "Understaffed"
I contacted OCR to find out what caused the delay. Kansas City OCR’s excuse for the 16 month delay was due to their office being “understaffed” and having to work on new complaints and district wide compliance reviews. It's been the same excuse I've heard for years.
What's odd is that OCR told me last July, that they hoped to complete their review of the changes before the start of the 2019-2020 school year.
Parents and Advocates Need To Know How Kansas City ED OCR Handles Complaints
There’s a lot to cover on this ongoing issue. It’s definitely worth the effort documenting how OCR handles complaints. Parents and advocates need to know just how long it may take their school district to comply with Section 504 and how long OCR can drag out a complaint once it goes into the “monitoring” phase after the signing of a Resolution Agreement.
Fox's Compliance Review Would Make A Great Law Student Research Paper
Fox’s District Wide Compliance Review would be a great example for a research paper for law students as to how OCR conducted a Compliance Review. It took 8 years for OCR to perform Fox’s District Wide Compliance Review. It took OCR 8 years investigate whether or not Fox C-6 was providing Individualized Health Plans to students with disabilities instead of Section 504 Plans.
Before OCR completed their investigation and issued any findings, Fox agreed to sign a Resolution Agreement in March 2018 which closed the complaint and moved it into the “monitoring” phase.
OCR Decided Not To Look at What Occurred Prior To 2015
To top it off, OCR also informed me that what occurred in the district between March 2008 and December 2014 related to the 504 issues wasn’t really looked at because so many people had left the district. It just happens that the law firm that was responding to OCR during that time left the district as well. The law firm was released by the district in 2014 during the Critchlow fiasco.
All I can say is, Wow!
Accountability seems to be a thing of the past.
