Showing posts with label USDA OCR. Show all posts
Showing posts with label USDA OCR. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Fox C-6's March 2018 Resolution Agreement and District Wide Compliance Review Letter

The other day I commented on Facebook about the ED OCR Resolution Agreement that Dr. Wipke signed in March 2018. The Resolution Agreement was signed to close the March 2010 District Wide Compliance Review. Mr. Brazeal responded to my comment with the following:
“Yes, it is true that Dr. Wipke, Superintendent, signed a Resolution Agreement as presented by OCR in March 2018. This is standard procedure in closing out a review. However, contrary to what you allege, there were no "findings" showing any violations of federal law. Hence, it is no surprise the news media didn't publish this non-story. Thus, it is not responsible to write "just think how many kids were denied 504 plans" when OCR has made no such finding, despite years of examination.”
This kind of comment from school officials is expected. Fox has been sweeping this problem under the rug for nearly a decade.

On Facebook, I responded to Mr. Brazeal's comment above and documented some of the many things that didn’t make it into the March 2018 District Wide Compliance Review letter or the March 2018 Resolution Agreement.

 The only reason that a district is asked to sign a Resolution Agreement is because OCR found compliance issues while conducting an investigation.

 This wasn't the first time Fox signed a Resolution Agreement with OCR. The district signed one on May 1, 2009 related to the same issues based on a complaint filed in August 2008. The May 2009 Resolution Agreement was "monitored" by ED OCR from May 2009 until August 2014. In August 2014, ED OCR visited Fox to do an Early Complaint Resolution and subsequently reinstated a Section 504 plan that had been removed in September 2008.

18 Actions Items for Fox for No "Findings"
It's important to understand that OCR allows school districts to resolve compliance reviews or complaints prior to the conclusion of an OCR investigation. By doing so, ED OCR does not issue any "findings" as Mr Brazeal pointed out in his response. Saying there were no "findings" is very misleading. It gives the appearance that there was nothing found by OCR during their investigation.

 However, Fox's 15 page Resolution Agreement clearly documents 18 action items that the district has agreed to do in order to fulfill the terms of the Resolution Agreement and become compliant with Section 504 and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). Several of the action items in the March 2018 Resolution Agreement were similar to those in the May 2009 Resolution Agreement.

 Below is a paragraph from the March 2018 Resolution Agreement stating that OCR will not close the monitoring of the Agreement until OCR determines that Fox has fulfilled the terms of the agreement. Therefore, Fox is currently non-compliant.
"The District understands that OCR will not close the monitoring of this Agreement until OCR determines that the District has fulfilled the terms of this Agreement and is in compliance with: the regulation implementing Section 504 at 34 C.F.R. §§ 104.3(j), and 104.35 through 104.37; and the regulation implementing Title II at 28 C.F.R. §§ 35.104 and 35.130, which were at issue in this case."
Just because a school district agrees to do things in a Resolution Agreement is no guarantee that the district will actually fulfill the terms of the agreement. Fox demonstrated that by their actions from the May 2009 Resolution Agreement.

In March 2018, Fox voluntarily agreed to resolve the Compliance Review prior to the conclusion of OCR’s investigation. It will be interesting to see how many years it takes before Fox fulfills the terms of the March 2018 Resolution Agreement.

 Resolution Agreement Not Provided to School Board
Dr. Wipke did not provide a copy of the Resolution Agreement in BoardDocs for Fox's school board members to review. When I asked why not, I was informed that it was an "administrative action". Since the OCR Resolution Agreement deals with complying with federal law, our school board members should have been provided a copy of the Agreement and the Compliance Review letter as well. Having it in BoardDocs would have also made the documents available to the local community.

 Resolution Agreement On ED.GOV
Even though Fox's Resolution Agreement and Compliance Review letter wasn't made available to Fox's school board members or the community, it is available to the general public on ED OCR's website. I have provided links to the documents below:


One of the actions items Fox was required to do was to send out notices to parents and legal guardians of each District Student:
“By September 17, 2018, the District will send a notice to the parent(s)/legal guardian(s) of each District student through the U.S. Postal Service (U.S. mail), or by email, explaining the District’s obligation to conduct a Section 504 evaluation of any student who, because of disability, needs or is believed to need special education or related services to send out notices to everyone in the district.”
Fox completed the above action item in September 2018.



The OCR"s District Wide Compliance Review specifically investigated the following as stated on the first page of the Compliance Review Letter:
"This compliance review assessed whether the District discriminates on the basis of disability against students with food allergies and other health impairments such as diabetes. Specifically, the review addressed whether the District provides individualized health plans to students with food allergies and other health impairments that do not comply with the requirements of Section 504 and Title II, thereby denying those students opportunities to participate in and benefit from the District’s programs and activities that are equal to the opportunities afforded to students without disabilities."
Since it was well documented that ED OCR knew that we were provided an Individualized Health Plan (IHP) instead of a Section 504 plan, it was easy to see why OCR opened a District Wide Compliance Review investigating the practice of providing IHP's instead of Section 504 plans. This pattern of practice had been happening around the country for years as I found in other Resolution Agreements and pointed out in previous articles. The Memphis City School district was caught doing the same thing and signed a Resolution Agreement with OCR in 2012.
8 Years To Conduct A Compliance Review
The "years of examination" that it took to complete Fox's District Wide Compliance Review is quite a story in itself. Parents and advocates who have filed complaints with the Kansas City ED OCR office have experienced and followed their lack of enforcement for more than a decade.

 It took OCR nearly 4 more years after the online defamatory comments scandal became public for OCR to complete their investigation and get the district to sign a Resolution Agreement. During that time, I continually checked in with OCR asking the KC Director and the Regional Enforcement Director when they planned to complete their investigation.

 OCR's 8 year investigation don't seem to follow OCR’s mission statement from their website:

“The mission of the Office for Civil Rights is to ensure equal access to education and to promote educational excellence throughout the nation through vigorous enforcement of civil rights.”

You can't ensure equal access to education when it takes 8 years to investigate problems in a school district.

Students Denied 504 Plans
In my Facebook response to Mr. Brazeal, I also noted the fact that there were students who were denied Section 504 plans in the district between 2008 and 2014. Ours was one of them. My remarks about denying 504 plans are true. We don't know how many students were denied 504's because most parents don't know about Section 504. Plus parents aren't willing to battle their school district because they can't afford attorneys and because they fear retaliation from the district.

 Several parents of students in our district contacted me over the years telling me that their children had been denied Section 504 plans by the district. Some of those students were eventually provided a 504 plan in 2014. That happened after the district changed law firms as well as ousted former superintendent Dianne Critchlow, fired her husband Jamie Critchlow and demoted Dan Baker, Fox's Section 504 Coordinator at the time. The Critchlow's departure and Dan Baker's demotion was related to online defamatory posts that were traced to their homes and directed at me and a couple of others in the district.

 Items Not Documented By ED OCR
ED OCR was made aware of some of the students who were denied Section 504 plans but did not document that fact in the District Wide Compliance Review letter or Resolution Agreement.

 OCR also didn't document the monitoring letters that they sent the district between 2009 and 2013. Those monitoring letters did not reflect well on the district as they noted the numerous times that the district failed to meet the terms of the May 2009 Resolution Agreement. OCR also failed to document any of the online postings that were traced to the homes of district administrators.

 Retaliation by a school district is prohibited by Section 504 law. This is documented on the last page of Fox's District Wide Compliance Review letter:
"Recipients of federal funds are prohibited from intimidating, threatening, coercing, or discriminating against any individual for the purpose of interfering with any right or privilege secured by federal civil rights law. Complaints alleging such retaliation may be filed with OCR. Under the Freedom of Information Act, it may be necessary to release this document and related correspondence and records upon request. In the event that OCR receives such a request, it will seek to protect, to the extent provided by law, personally identifiable information that could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy if released."
OCR was made aware of the online postings that were being posted on TOPIX for years. OCR was provided copies of the postings that were traced to the homes of our former superintendent and former Section 504 coordinator in 2014. OCR was also provided the comments that were posted online after the "press release" in the Post Dispatch article from August 2010 after the district "won" its Due Process Hearing.

 No Monitoring Letters for Two Years
During ED OCR's "monitoring" of the May 2009 Resolution Agreement, there was more than a two year lapse in their "monitoring" of the district. ED OCR didn't issue any monitoring letters to the district between December 2009 and March 2012. We asked ED OCR numerous times during that two year gap as to when they planned to send new monitoring letters to the district. We also asked as to how many years it would take before they actually enforce the agreement rather than changing the deadlines of the agreement when Fox failed to meet the deadlines that they agreed to.
Ongoing Efforts To Comply with Section 504 and Title II 
One very notable point in the March 2018 Resolution agreement is this statement on the first page of the Resolution Agreement:
"As part of its ongoing efforts to comply with Section 504 and Title II, the District agrees to review and, as needed, amend its Section 504 Manual and Section 504 process to ensure that the Manual and process conform with the requirements set out in the Section 504 and Title II regulations, and are consistent with the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008."
The statement, "As part of its ongoing efforts to comply with Section 504 and Title II" is a very important statement. It's been more than 10 years since Fox signed the May 2009 Resolution Agreement in which Fox agreed to update its Section 504 Manual and 504 process. However, Fox never fulfilled that part of the agreement. As part of the March 2018 Resolution Agreement, Fox is still working on updating its Section 504 Manual and Section 504 process. How can that be when ED OCR states that they do "vigorous enforcement of civil rights"? Obviously there's a systemic problem at ED OCR regarding enforcement of agreements.
Another item to point out from the March 16, 2018 District Wide Compliance Review letter is the following statement:

“Since the time OCR opened this compliance review in 2010, the District has worked to improve its process for identifying and evaluating students who may be eligible for Section 504 services and protections.”
That statement from the 2018 District Wide Compliance Review letter does not accurately reflect the responses from the district. The statement ignores the fact that the district’s legal counsel refused to update school documents and policies for nearly 4 years as documented by ED OCR in their monitoring letters sent to the district between 2009 and 2013. An article I wrote in July 2013, documents those letters as well as the letters sent to ED OCR from the district’s legal counsel informing ED OCR why they refused to make changes to district policies and documentation that they originally agreed to update.
Press Release In Legal Bills
According to the legal bills from Fox's former law firm (Mickes, Goldman, O'Toole) that I obtained via a Sunshine Request from the district, I discover that the district’s former law firm billed time to review my July 2013 article. The legal bills also documented the many times that Fox's legal counsel helped the district over the years respond to my Public Comments, emails and Sunshine Requests. The legal bills covered May 2010 through June 2014. Legals bills weren't provided for any of the time dating back to 2008 when the attorneys first got involved. My interest in getting copies of legal bills was to determine how many tens of thousands of dollars or more were spent in fighting a Section 504 plan for a student in the district.

The "press release" as noted in the legal bills was for charges in helping to get a story into the Post Dispatch.

The news article ("press release") appeared in the Post Dispatch in August 2010. Comments posted to the online article contained many bullying and threatening comments directed at our family for pursuing a Section 504 plan. The online comments from the Post Dispatch article were forward to both ED OCR and USDA OCR due to the retaliatory nature of those comments. Comments in the Post Dispatch back then were made anonymously and couldn't be traced. However, some of those who commented were identifiable by their remarks.

 Fox's former law firm (Mickes Goldman O'Toole) used the media in many of their school district cases to bully parents. I followed several of their cases across the state over the years and searched for articles related to those cases. Similar comments were posted on those articles as well that were directed at families who pursued Section 504 plans for their children.

If it hadn’t been for my constant follow up with ED OCR over the years checking on the progress of the May 2009 Resolution Agreement and the May 2010 District Wide Compliance Review, the District Wide Compliance Review probably would have never been completed or closed by ED OCR.

 Law Firm Video Told Educators Not To Provide 504 Plans
It also helped that I found a video on the Doster Mickes law firm's website in August 2008 of an attorney giving a presentation at the 2005 Missouri School Law Seminar. The attorney told educators in our state that they should not provide students with food allergies a Section 504 plan even though they may qualify for one.

I knew the family who the attorney was referring to in her presentation. I knew the family because an advocate who had helped us, had also helped them. Their child’s 504 plan was taken away as well during a Due Process Hearing in front of the school board. I contacted the family about the video I had found and they confirmed that the attorney in the video was referring to their case. The family was very upset to learn that their case was being touted by the law firm.

 Video Leads to Statewide Training By USDA OCR
In September 2008, I forwarded a link to the video from the 2005 Missouri School Law Seminar that I had found to both ED OCR and USDA OCR because I knew it wasn't right for attorneys to tell school districts to say deny a Section 504 plan if a student was qualified for one.

 Providing that video to the USDA OCR office led to statewide training by USDA OCR for all Food Nutrition Directors in the state of Missouri. Fox didn't attend the statewide training.
My July 2013 article documented the fact that I spoke at the June 2013 Fox C-6 school board meeting during Public Comments and asked the school board about the March 2010 District Wide Compliance Review and the May 2009 Resolution Agreement.

My Public Comments at the June 2013 school board meeting were documented in the board meeting minutes as, “discussed Board policies and regulations”. School board meeting minutes weren't well documented for a reason and that's why I had been asking for years for Fox's board meetings to be audio and/or video recorded. Not recording school board meetings allowed administration to keep the public in the dark regarding any concerns in the district because, concerns were poorly documented or not documented at all.

My response to Mr. Brazeal also pointed out the numerous times I had contacted ED OCR for 9 years asking them when they planned to complete the March 2010 District Wide Compliance Review or enforce the May 2009 Resolution Agreement. I was informed repeatedly by ED OCR that they were working on it and that they hoped to get it completed soon or in the next several months.
So, the real “story” is, why did it take ED OCR nearly a decade to enforce the May 2009 Resolution Agreement that the district didn’t fulfill?
Monitoring Letters Sent to Fox
Fox agreed to update board policies and 504 manuals, etc. in 2009. That didn’t happen. The District was sent numerous monitoring letters documenting that fact. So, now in March 2018 the District signed a new Resolution Agreement which closed the District Wide Compliance Review before it was completed and gave the district another window of several years to complete and fulfill that agreement while being “monitored” by ED OCR.

The end of the March 8, 2018 Resolution Agreement contains the following 3 paragraphs that outlines that OCR will be monitoring the agreement and that OCR may initiate administrative enforcement or judicial proceedings to enforce the specific terms of the agreement. However, similar language was also included in the May 2009 Resolution Agreement as well but ED OCR never initiated enforcement or judicial proceedings after years of not meeting the terms of the agreement.
"The District understands that OCR will not close the monitoring of this Agreement until OCR determines that the District has fulfilled the terms of this Agreement and is in compliance with: the regulation implementing Section 504 at 34 C.F.R. §§ 104.3(j), and 104.35 through 104.37; and the regulation implementing Title II at 28 C.F.R. §§ 35.104 and 35.130, which were at issue in this case.


The District understands that by signing this Agreement, it agrees to provide data and other information in a timely manner in accordance with the reporting requirements of this Agreement and that all actions taken to comply with the requirements of the Agreement are subject to OCR’s review and approval. Further, the District understands that during the monitoring of this Agreement, if necessary, OCR may visit the District, interview staff and students, and request such additional reports or data as are necessary for OCR to determine whether the District has fulfilled the terms of this Agreement and is in compliance with: the regulation implementing Section 504 at 34 C.F.R. §§ 104.3(j), 104.35 through 104.37; and the regulation implementing Title II at 28 C.F.R. §§ 35.104 and 35.130, which were at issue in this case.

The District understands and acknowledges that OCR may initiate administrative enforcement or judicial proceedings, including to enforce the specific terms and obligations of this Agreement. Before initiating administrative enforcement (34 C.F.R. §§ 100.9, 100.10) or judicial proceedings, including to enforce this Agreement, OCR shall give the District written notice of the alleged breach and sixty (60) calendar days to cure the alleged breach."
The March 16, 2018 District Wide Compliance Review Letter to Fox C-6 is an 11 page letter which details some of the things discovered during their interviews with the district during the 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 school years.

The March 16, 2018 District Wide Compliance Review Letter contains the following paragraph:
"Recipients of federal funds are prohibited from intimidating, threatening, coercing, or discriminating against any individual for the purpose of interfering with any right or privilege secured by federal civil rights law. Complaints alleging such retaliation may be filed with OCR. Under the Freedom of Information Act, it may be necessary to release this document and related correspondence and records upon request. In the event that OCR receives such a request, it will seek to protect, to the extent provided by law, personally identifiable information that could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy if released."


 Retaliation Violates Section 504
I have pointed the fact that retaliation or bullying is a violation of Section 504 law in numerous articles and to our school board over the years. This is why it was such an important fact when it was discovered that online defamatory posts directed at me were traced to the homes of our former superintendent, former assistant superintendent (who was demoted to elementary principal) and the home of a former assistant principal.

 What's interesting as well is the fact that an incorrect assumption and the forwarding of false information to Fox's former superintendent, Dianne Critchlow by the Lone Dell Elementary principal is what led to the really nasty defamatory online posts that were traced to Fox's former superintendent's home. It wasn't until the principal at Lone Dell apologized to one of the other plaintiffs in our lawsuit for passing on the incorrect information that I was able to confirm who had forwarded the false information to Critchlow. The Lone Dell principal and the teacher who assumed incorrectly that I was involved in the posting of signs in the District were both directly involved in the 504 issues as well.

We filed retaliation complaints with ED OCR, and provided them with copies of the posts and lawsuit. However, nothing became of those retaliation complaints. It makes you wonder what OCR considers retaliation after reading the numerous comments that were posted online and forwarded to ED OCR and USDA OCR.
ED OCR's Lack of Enforcement
The lack of enforcement by ED OCR is a story in itself. I’ve heard the same story from parents around the country who have experienced the same thing in their school districts. When it takes nearly a decade for ED OCR to do “vigorous enforcement” of the law, you quickly learn that ED OCR must be using a different definition of the word “vigorous” than everyone else.
Plus, the fact that ED OCR did not include in their March 16, 2018 District Wide Compliance Review letter any references to the denials of Section 504 plans or when Section 504 plans were taken away from students between August 2008 and June 2014 even though ED OCR was aware of those facts from district documentation and Due Process Hearings. I asked the current Director of the Kansas City ED OCR office why nothing was noted in the District Wide Compliance Review letter from the 2008 to 2014 school years. I didn't get a response to that question.

USDA OCR Non-Compliance Findings
I also noted in my response to Mr. Brazeal that USDA OCR had issued findings that found Fox and Missouri DESE non-compliant with Section 504. That non-compliance letter was issued in August 2011. This was noted in my July 2013 article along with a reference to a copy of the non-compliance letter. I also wrote an article in March 2013 regarding the USDA Non-Compliance Findings.

Perhaps items weren’t documented in the March 16, 2018 District Wide Compliance Review letter for the 2008 through June 2014 time frame because things changed in the district in June 2014. That’s when the district switched law firms, our superintendent was ousted and the district switched Section 504 Coordinators.
Following the ouster of the district’s law firm, in August 2014, ED OCR came and did an Early Complaint Resolution which resulted in the reinstatement of a Section 504 plan that had been removed in September 2008. It took nearly 6 years to reinstate a 504 plan that had been removed. That’s the reason why I have been documenting this process and the numerous things that occurred in our district during that time.

The 504 issues going on in our district is what led to my uncovering of other issues involving our former superintendent. People I’ve told about this over the years find it hard to believe all of the things that went on in our district related to this issue. That’s why I have tried to be very thorough in my documenting of it. It's easy to see why Fox wants to sweep all of this under the rug and keep it hidden from the public.
My July 2013 article, documented how slow ED OCR was at following up and enforcing the May 2009 Resolution Agreement signed by Dan Baker, Fox’s former Section 504 Coordinator. (Current Fox C-6 school board member Vicki Hanson was the Section 504 Coordinator prior to Dan Baker taking over the job when she retired in 2008.)
Another article I wrote in June 2013 pointed out some information sent to me by a parent in the Lee’s Summit School District who had read some of my articles. One thing I did not note in the article back then was the fact that the Lee’s Summit Superintendent was one of the highest paid superintendents in the state and the fact that Fox’s former superintendent Dianne Critchlow was the 4th highest paid superintendent in the state at the time. Critchlow eventually became the 2nd highest paid superintendent in the state when she “retired” in 2014 with a salary of $267,468. The Lee’s Summit superintendent was ousted in May 2016 and was the highest paid superintendent in the state with a compensation package worth $397,000.


Below is a link to the June 2013 which pointed out some of my concerns as to why it was taking the Kansas City ED OCR so long to perform their “vigorous enforcement” of Section 504 law.

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Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Board Meeting Recap Highlights District Health Services Presentation

Recap of the March 15, 2016 Fox C-6 School Board Meeting Highlights District Health Services Presentation

Last month the district posted a recap of the March 15, 2016 school board meeting on the district website.

The Board Meeting Recap included a presentation given by the Director of Nursing covering the District's Health Services. The recap stated that the District Health Services Presentation, "highlighted a focus on the application and consistency processes in the Child Find / 504." However, the words "Child Find" were never mentioned during the presentation.

Child Find requires all school districts to identify, locate and evaluate all children with disabilities, regardless of the severity of the disability from birth through age 21.

You can read more about Child Find and what schools are mandated to do under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) on the Wrightslaw website using the following link:


You can learn more about Section 504 law on the Wrightslaw website using the following link:


It's important to note that school districts receive federal funding for IDEA but do not receive any funding for complying with Section 504 law. Therefore, there is no incentive to comply with Section 504 law other than the "threat" of having their federal funds withheld when they don't comply.

Many attorneys that represent school districts know quite well that school districts will never have their federal funding withheld or revoked for not complying with Section 504 law. Therefore some attorneys resort to unethical tactics and will make false or misleading statements about the law during 504 Team meetings in order to help school districts get around the law when parents are knowledgeable about Section 504 law. Many parents don't know the law so it's very easy for school districts to deny 504 eligibility without having to bring in their attorneys.

Fox's former law firm was very willing to provide Individualized Health Plans for students with disabilities. However, many who were qualified for Section 504 Plans were denied for years. As a former attorney for Fox C-6 explained during a September 2008 504 meeting, the difference between a Section 504 Plan and an Individualized Health Plan (IHP) is that a student doesn't get the legal protections with an Individualized Health Plan that they do with a Section 504 Plan.

The reason that I'm pointing this out is because Fox is still under an ongoing District Wide Compliance Review investigation by the United States Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (ED OCR) for their Section 504 practices and whether or not they were providing Individualized Health Care Plans to students instead of Section 504 Plans for students who were qualified for Section 504. And, since it has taken ED OCR more than 6 years to complete their Compliance Review, it's easy to believe that Fox had been doing things properly for years.

After years of phone calls and emails asking what the status was of the District Wide Compliance Review, the Kansas City ED OCR Office has finally written up and forwarded a draft copy of the Compliance Review to the "acting" Enforcement Director over the Kansas City ED OCR Office. Debbie Osgood who was the Enforcement Director that responded to my requests last fall that I wrote about, left ED OCR in February 2016 according to the current "acting" Enforcement Director.

Since the Washington D.C. ED OCR Office initiated the District Wide Compliance Review in March 2010, there have been three Enforcement Directors over the Kansas City ED OCR Office.

After nearly a decade of egregious lack of enforcement of the law, it appears that the current Enforcement Director has recognized that there has been a major problem with the Kansas City ED OCR Office and is actively working on correcting the problem. It's difficult to imagine the number of students that have graduated from school while waiting for the Kansas City Office for Civil Rights to do their job.

It's been well known for years that there are major issues with the Kansas City ED OCR Office. Complaints, Investigations and Resolution Agreements have sat in the Kansas City ED OCR Office unfinished or un-monitored for years. It's been a free pass for school districts to skirt the law for years with little or no consequences.

Hopefully, the facts as to why the Kansas City ED OCR Office doesn't enforce the law like other regional ED OCR Offices will be made public in the near future. It's hard to fathom the amount of taxpayer dollars that have been spent on legal fees over the past decade as school district attorneys have been allowed to drag things out for years as the Kansas City ED OCR Office looked the other way. Emails accidentally sent out by attorneys in the Kansas City ED OCR Office document how the former Chief Attorney (now Director of the Kansas City ED OCR Office) didn't want us to know their office prioritizes it's case handling.

ED OCR's District Wide Compliance Review investigation of the Fox C-6 School District was opened in March 2010. It's difficult to believe that any investigation taking more than a year or two would be acceptable to any Director of Enforcement overseeing a regional office. So, it's quite obvious that the Enforcement Directors over the Kansas City ED OCR Office for the last decade haven't done their job as well.

Fox's District Wide Compliance Review has been open for more than 6 years. In fact, the Kansas City ED OCR Office has only completed 7 out of 17 Compliance Reviews assigned to their office over the past decade. Obviously there is a major problem in the Kansas City ED OCR Office.

 Fox's District Health Services Presentation
Back to the District Health Services presentation, I thought it was great that Fox's new Director of Nursing highlighted a focus on the application and consistency in the Child Find and Section 504 processes for the school board. I don't believe that many school board members or the general public are very well educated on Child Find and Section 504 Law and what those obligations are for a school district.

A few years ago, I was asked by a Fox C-6 board member why a student would need a 504 Plan. He wanted to know why a student would need a 504 plan since you could always sue the school district if they did something wrong or didn't do what they were supposed to do. I told him that the student should have a 504 plan if they were qualified for one because it's the law.

The problem with suing a school district is that the district has the ability to spend tens of thousands in legal fees if not hundreds of thousands in legal fees using taxpayer money to defend itself. It's much easier and less expensive for parents to request a 504 Plan for their student rather than having to sue the school district after they didn't do what they said they were going to do.

Since the district now audio records school board meetings, I was able to download the audio file for the March 15, 2016 school board meeting and listen to the presentation given by the Director of Nursing. She also had a slideshow presentation which you can find on BoardDocs along with 2014-2015 nursing services data. The slideshow has a photo of school nurses but I don't believe it's a recent photo.

Below is a link to the March 15, 2016 School Board Meeting Recap on the district website and below that is the text posted about the District Health Services Presentation in the board meeting recap.

District Health Services Presentation
Mrs. Kim Schumacher, RN, presented information to the Board and public on the state of District Health Services. The presentation discussed current health service processes that support the learning environment to foster achievement, embrace optimum health for staff and students, and optimize best support processes and practices. The report highlighted a focus on the application and consistency processes in the Child Find / 504. The presentation included future goals such as developing deeper understanding and utilization of updated policies in the health care applications that support optimum health in the academic environment and promoting awareness to current health trends and issues that keep students and staff informed about the highest level of health.
Fox's recap webpage above contains a link to the board meeting audio files where you can download and listen to the school board meetings that are now audio recorded each month. You can listen to the Director of Nursing's presentation by clicking on the link below which links to the audio file posted on the district's Google Drive. The file is in (ma4) format and is only 24MB in size. Her presentation begins at (11min 24sec).

When I listened to the audio presentation above, I noticed that the Director of Nursing never mentioned the words "Child Find". So, there really wasn't much of a highlight or much education for the school board members about the district's obligations for Child Find. She did mention "504" in her presentation in the following sentence:
"We've made progress with our 504 developments and processes with a lot of work."
Having gone through "the process" which started 8 years ago and continued for more than 6 years, I certainly hope that the district's processes have improved. In 2008 and 2009, the former Director of Nursing explained how her extensive training basically trumped our 22+ year board certified doctor's knowledge when denying 504 eligibility.

Dan Baker, who was the 504 Coordinator for the district back then removed a Section 504 designation in September 2008 and subsequently denied eligibility several times over the next 6 years before being reinstated after Dan Baker was demoted and the former law firm fired.

Independent Evaluation and Revoking Consent
Dan Baker was present during our May 2009 eligibility meeting when the school district's attorney informed us about the district's right to perform an independent evaluation. The district attorney informed us that we didn't have to have an independent evaluation if we didn't want the district to perform one.

The attorney gave us an example as to why we might not want to allow the District to perform an independent evaluation. His example at the May 2009 meeting stuck with me for years. I'm sure his example would stick with most parents. He gave us an example as to what the district's doctor may want to do as part of their independent evaluation. He wanted to let us know that if we didn't want something like that done, that we could always revoke our consent. However, if we revoked our consent, we basically waived our rights to obtaining a 504 plan.

Here is what the school district's attorney had to say from my audio recording of that 504 meeting:
"If the doctor decides they want to hang your daughter upside down by her ankles for 3 weeks, then you can always revoke your consent. But, if you don't consent, the process stops here and now."
I asked Dan Baker during our Due Process Hearing which occurred in 2010 whether or not he thought the district attorney was trying to intimidate us into not doing the independent evaluation. Dan Baker testified under oath with the following answer from the transcript of the Due Process Hearing:
"I remember something along those lines. I don’t know if it was word for word as to what you said, but I remember something along those lines. But I also remember the context that was used and he did mean what those words were as far as tying in the – I think the thing that he was trying to get across was that at any time he wanted to do a test, whether it be a skin prick test or whatever that you didn’t want her to participate in, that you could obviously withdraw and not allow us to do that. By no means, no, did he mean to use that as intimidation. I'm speaking for him And I can tell you that I was in that meeting, and he did not mean those words to come across as intimidating by any means."
I can certainly tell you that my opinion of the attorney's comment above is much different than that of Dan Baker's. It made me wonder if it was regular practice district doctors to hang children upside down by their ankles for 3 weeks in order to do independent evaluations since the district attorney had mentioned it during our meeting. Perhaps they don't, but I certainly hope that Fox's Child Find and 504 process have improved since then. I also hope that our school board members and parents become much more educated on Section 504 law and Child Find.
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Friday, December 11, 2015

Who's Watching Over the Office for Civil Rights?

I've learned a lot over the past 7+ years dealing with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (ED OCR) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Office for Civil Rights (USDA OCR).

One thing I discovered was the fact that there is a pattern of practice of complaints remaining open for years in the Kansas City ED OCR Regional Office from across the multi-state region. I have had many parents and advocates contact me over the years about complaints they've filed with ED OCR that have remained open for years.

It's even more troubling to know that ED OCR allows school districts like Fox C-6 to spend nearly 7 years trying to meet the terms of the Resolution Agreement that the district signed in May 2009 to become compliant with federal law.

How do students expect to be protected when there's no enforcement of the law or enforcement of Resolution Agreements?

From a FOIA request, I recently learned that the Kansas City ED OCR office has only completed 7 out of 17 school district wide compliance review investigations that have been assigned to them over the past 10 years.

I voiced my concerns to the Washington D.C. ED OCR office back in 2010 when I found out that the Kansas City ED OCR office was going to be conducting the district wide compliance review of Fox C-6 instead of the Washington D.C. office. My concerns have definitely been validated over the years.

Completing only 7 out of 17 compliance reviews over the past decade is a very disturbing statistic and one that should raise the eyebrows of the public as well as our U.S. Senators and Congressman. Taxpayers are paying a lot of people six figure salaries for what would be considered a failing grade if scoring their work like a test, 7 out of 17 is 41%. That's an F in anybody's grade book!

What are the directors and enforcement directors who oversee the Kansas City ED OCR office doing?

 It doesn't seem as if they are ensuring that investigations are getting done in a timely manner.

The information regarding the 7 out of 17 compliance reviews was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights in Washington D.C..

Kansas City Open Compliance Review Investigations
There is one open compliance review that was opened in 2007 investigating the Wichita Unified School District #259 in Kansas.

There are two open compliance reviews that were opened in 2009; one investigating the Bayless School District in Missouri and the other investigating the Jenks Public School District in Oklahoma.

There are two open compliance reviews that were opened in 2010; one investigating the Fox C-6 School District in Arnold, MO and the other investigating the Rapid City Area School District #51-4 in South Dakota.

It's difficult to even imagine that the Kansas City ED OCR office has only been able to complete 7 out of 17 compliance reviews assigned to them over the past decade. Why can't they complete these investigations?

It should have been very easy for the Kansas City ED OCR office to determine that Fox C-6 was non-compliant with federal law when the district wide compliance review was initiated in March 2010. The district had already agreed to sign a Resolution Agreement in May 2009 which stipulated what the district was required to do in order to become compliant with federal law.

Students Previously Denied 504 Plans Are Provided 504 Plans
In August 2014, after Fox switched law firms and the district demoted Fox's Section 504 Coordinator and assigned the assistant superintendent of secondary education to the position, several students that had been previously denied Section 504 Plans for years at Fox were finally appropriately provided Section 504 Plans. This happened after ED OCR helped with an Early Complaint Resolution after Fox changed law firms.

There are people working in the Kansas City ED OCR office that know why compliance reviews and other complaints aren't getting completed. They should use the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 to speak out about what's been going on in the Kansas City ED OCR Office. They owe it to the students who have been denied proper protection under the law for years. It's truly sad and disgraceful to think of the pain that that the KC ED OCR office has caused for families covered by their regional office over the years.

As it stands now, it’s very easy to see how school districts have been able to get around federal law for years. There's no accountability of the school districts nor ED OCR itself.

It's time for attorneys and staff in the Kansas City ED OCR Office to stand up and report what's been going on for years in that office that's been allowing compliance reviews to remain open for years and complaints to remain in limbo for years as well.

 KC ED OCR staff and attorneys probably have the same fear of reprisal in their office just like it was for teachers and administrators in our school district. Everyone was too afraid to speak up about what was going on in our school district.

I wrote to the former director of enforcement for the Office for Civil Rights over the Kansas City office in September 2015. His name is Randolph Wills. Mr. Wills did not respond to my first email inquiry regarding Fox's open District Wide Compliance review that's been open for nearly 6 years. After 10 days of not receiving a response from Mr. Wills, I emailed him again. He responded to my second email. He informed me that he was no longer the Enforcement Director over the Kansas City ED OCR office. He informed me that Debbie Osgood was the current director of enforcement over the KC Office and that he had forwarded my email to Debbie Osgood.

Debbie Osgood responded with the following email on October 1, 2015:

Mr. Simpson: 
I am pleased to respond to your email, which Randolph Wills forwarded to me as the Enforcement Director for OCR’s Kansas City enforcement office. Your email outlines your concerns regarding the Fox C-6 compliance review being investigated by OCR Kansas City. I share your concern about the time that the Fox C-6 School District compliance review has been open. The resolution of this outstanding review (as well as others) is a priority for OCR. Although I cannot give you a specific date by which the review will be completed, I want to reassure you that the Kansas City office is devoting substantial resources and attention to the resolution of this review and other pending reviews. 
You also asked about a Fox C-6 complaint being monitored. My understanding is that a number of the items in that agreement have been completed and Kansas City staff have worked with the district to resolve the remaining items. 
Debbie Osgood
OCR Enforcement Director

Ms. Osgood copied Bill Dittmeier, the current Director of the Kansas City Office for Civil Rights in her response to me. I laughed when I read Debbie Osgood’s response. Many others laughed as well when I told them about the response I received from ED OCR.

How would anyone believe Ms. Osgood’s statement that “the Kansas City office is devoting substantial resources and attention to the resolution of this review and other pending reviews” when the Kansas City office has only completed 7 out of 17 compliance reviews assigned to them over the past decade?

Three weeks ago I wrote back to Debbie Osgood, Bill Dittmeier and Randolph Wills asking why the Kansas City ED OCR office has only been able to complete 7 out of 17 district wide compliance reviews in the past 10 years. None of them responded to my email. Although I did receive Read Receipts from all three of them.

On Monday of this week, I sent my question about the Kansas City ED OCR office to Sandra Battle. Sandra Battle is is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Enforcement at ED OCR in Washington D.C. I copied Debbie Osgood, Bill Dittmeier and Randolph Wills when I emailed Ms. Battle as well as the Department of Justice. No one has responded yet to my concerns regarding this issue.

Perhaps no one wants to be held accountable.

It certainly seems that the patterns of practice in the Kansas City ED OCR office would be a concern for anyone dealing with this OCR Office. As an added tidbit of information, it took nearly 60 days for ED OCR to send a response to my FOIA request. It would appear that ED OCR is not as familiar with federal law regarding FOIA request response requirements like the USDA Office for Civil Rights is. Federal law dictates that all FOIA requests must be responded to within 20 days.

A recent USDA Office for Civil Rights FOIA response letter referenced the law in their response (5 U.S.C. § 552).

You can read about FOIA law requirements in the article below located on the U.S. Department of Justice's website:


I find it truly amazing that the Enforcement Directors for the Office for Civil Rights don’t seem to do what their job titles state that they do

You would think that the Enforcement Directors at the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights would be holding people accountable and making sure that the regional offices that they oversee are doing their job.

Perhaps it’s time that our U.S. Senators and Congressman take an in depth look into what’s going on in the Kansas City ED OCR office.

ED OCR’s Enforcement Directors don’t seem to want to answer questions as to why these compliance reviews have been open for so many years. Perhaps the Enforcement Directors will be willing to answer these questions for Congress. I have offered to testify in congressional hearings about our dealings with ED OCR. It's about time that someone starts looking into what's going on in the Kansas City ED OCR office since taxpayers are paying a lot of six figure salaries for such abysmal completion results.

You may wish to contact the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights as well to see if you can get any answers. Perhaps there are some investigative reporters that may be interested in following up on this story as well. It certainly seems to be a huge expenditure of money for very little results.

Here is the contact page:


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Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Federal Programs Overview Tonight at Fox C-6 School Board Meeting

There is a Fox C-6 school board meeting tonight.

Closed Session: 5:30PM
Public Session: 7:00PM

There is time allotted for Public Comments at tonight's meeting.


You can review the agenda and associated documents on BoardDocs:


Dr. Wipke was released by Rockwood School District a month early so his first day at Fox C-6 was moved to Monday June 1, 2015.

Fox posted Dr. Wipke's one month contract on BoardDocs for the public to review prior to tonight's school board meeting. You can review his contract using the link below from BoardDocs:


Angela Burns Baker who is in charge of Fox's Federal Programs will be making a presentation at tonight's board meeting about Title I, II and III. Her presentation documents the amount of federal money Fox C-6 is receiving for Title I, II and III schools in our district and compares their progress to the state average. Her report highlights the schools that are Title I in the district.

No where in Angie Burns Baker's report does she mention the fact that Federal Law prohibits retaliation against anyone who files a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (ED OCR). Her husband,  Dan Baker used to be Fox's Section 504 Coordinator for the district and handled ED OCR complaints for the district. 

Dan Baker has since been moved/hired as the Seckman Elementary School principal in the district after it was discovered that derogatory online posts directed at parents were traced back to his and Angie Burns Baker's home. 


I wrote the article above on retaliation only a couple of months after online attacks were made against me after I spoke at a school board meeting. In 2013, I had no idea that some of those posts would be linked to Dan and Angela Baker's home. At that time I figured that most of them were being made by the Critchlows. I didn't have proof in 2013. It took until April-May 2014 before I learned that the Baker's home was linked to posts as well.
It's also very surprising that the Bakers got to keep their jobs knowing what everyone knows now.

It is quite possible that in today's world with "Smart Homes", the posts that were linked to the Baker's home could have been made by their thermostat or their refrigerator and not by anyone living in the house. Just a thought! You never know.

I get asked quite often about what's going on with our lawsuit. Well, when the Critchlows requested to have the lawsuit moved to federal court, it added 18 months to the process due to docketing of federal lawsuits. So, the court date for the lawsuit is currently set for April 2016.

District Wide Compliance Review by ED OCR
Things don't happen very fast when dealing with federal agencies such as ED OCR and USDA OCR. Fox C-6 has been undergoing an District Wide Compliance Review with the U. S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (ED OCR) after more than 5 years. ED OCR is supposed to enforce civil rights law such as Section 504 law. USDA OCR is supposed to to the same. However, it doesn't mean that these agencies actually do their job. Education law attorneys know this. That's how school districts can go for years without have to comply with the law. That's why the legal bills that I did obtain from Fox have year after year of Dan Baker and the former law firm responding to ED OCR and USDA OCR regarding the Resolution Agreement and the USDA's Final Agency Decision that found the district Non-Compliant with Section 504 law.

I find it funny how ED OCR touted Fox's 2010 District Wide Compliance Review as one of the Compliance Reviews in their 2009-2012 Report to the President and Secretary of Education given the fact that the Compliance Review is still an open investigation.


ED used to call this an Annual Report. However, there were several years as you can see that the report was not made on an annual basis.

You can find Fox's Compliance Review on page 5 (14 pages into the report). It is linked to the state of Missouri on the map of the United States. It is listed as FAPE 2010 which was performed by the Kansas City ED OCR office.

The latest FOIA request to ED OCR has Fox's District March 2010 District Wide Compliance Review listed as an open investigation. Therefore there is nothing to report to the public at this time. It certainly seems odd that it would take more than 5 years to investigate the school district as to whether or not our district complied with federal law.

On a side note, last month, the Wentzville School District changed law firms just like Fox C-6 did last year.

Fox's Legal Bills
Some may wonder why it took 7 months for our district to fulfill my Sunshine Request for Fox's legal bills from 2007-2014 from Fox's former law firm.

It took filing a complaint with the Missouri Attorney General's Office in order to obtain the legal bills. That was after making several inquiries over a 6 month period trying to obtain them by emailing the district. Fox's CFO failed to see the public's interest in those dated invoices. 

I also had to make a few calls to the AG's office in order to prod the district into releasing the information. I was not charged for the legal bills. Mr. Brazeal reported to me that the district waived the fees of more than $800 in research time and copying the documents. Thank you Mr. Brazeal for not charging me for the information. 

Fox's legal bills from our former law firm are quite interesting. Many email responses from the district to my questions via email or at board meetings went through the district's legal counsel. 

I also found it interesting that Dan Baker's "press release" / interview was reviewed by legal counsel for the August 2010 Post Dispatch article regarding our issues with the district and their handling of Section 504.

I was very disappointed in the fact that Fox's CFO, Mr. Brazeal told me in his email response that when sending me some of the legal bills when he said,
"After an exhaustive search, it has been determined that all paid invoices from the 2007-2008 school year (including invoices from Mickes Goldman O'Toole) have been previously destroyed."
Mr. Brazeal repeated the same statement for the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 school years.

Not having those legal bills certainly makes it difficult for the public to know how their tax dollars were spent with the district's former law firm during a time of turmoil and legal wrangling over Section 504 law and their responses to ED OCR and USDA OCR.

The missing years of legal bills covered the majority of the time when Fox's Dan Baker and former superintendent Dianne Critchlow were dealing with ED OCR and USDA OCR regarding Section 504 issues.

It was May 2009 when Dan Baker signed a Resolution Agreement with ED OCR to comply with Section 504 law.

It was March 2010 when ED OCR informed the district that the District would be undergoing a District Wide Compliance Review.

Still Not Compliant after 6 Years?
When I checked earlier this year, Fox still hadn't complied with the May 2009 Resolution Agreement that Dan Baker signed and agreed to. This is probably now due to the fact that Fox hasn't updated their Policies and Regulations since they were told to do so by ED OCR in May 2009. It will now be another 12 to 18 months before the district's Policies and Regulations get updated and released.

I certainly hope that a lot of this information becomes public when the audit is released. A state audit is supposed to review federal compliance as well and it seems that Fox has had problems in this area for years.

You may also want to check out Jefferson County Penknife's recent article about Jamie Critchow's Driver's License Status. Jamie Critchlow is the husband of former Fox C-6 superintendent Dianne Brown Critchlow. He was also the former Director of Fox's Bridges program who had 2 DWI arrests in the past year. One was in Iron County and the other in the city of Arnold. Apparently, Jamie Critchlow drove himself to the Arnold courts without having a valid driver's license according to Department of Review records when he had to appear before the court for his Arnold drunk diving arrest.

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