San Francisco administrator urged staff to limit summer school for special-education students

From The Bay Citizen: A San Francisco Unified School District administrator urged teachers to re-evaluate whether to offer summer school to special education students as a way to cut costs, a move that special education teachers and attorneys say violates federal regulations. Lisa Miller, the district’s head of middle school special education, said in a Jan. 4 email to her staff that the cost of summer school had become “exorbitant” and instructed all middle school special education staff not to authorize the service without her approval. The directive appears to violate the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which explicitly requires each child’s special education plan to be agreed upon by the student’s family, educators and disability experts, not district administrators. The regulations also prohibit districts from denying student services based on cost.