Fwd: Washington Post: Helping a Bullied Child

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In a message dated 2/17/2006 12:37:29 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,

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Editor's note: If you're an educator, please read this article. The

school's principal in this case was indicted and held accountable for

his actions. Bullying will not be tolerated.

**Helping a Bullied Child

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/14/ar20060214007

93.html>**

By Jay Mathews

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, February 14, 2006; 11:06 AM

One day in May 2004, a student at Short Pump Elementary School in

Henrico County, Va., walked up to fourth-grader Henck in the

cafeteria and said, " It would be a holy day if you were shot dead by

a sniper. "

That single incident would have been bothersome enough to and

his parents, Bill and Leigh Henck, but it was not the first time

children at Short Pump Elementary had been cruel to . He has

Asperger Syndrome, a neurobiological disorder marked in part by

social clumsiness. He was, as his father put it, a bully magnet, and

his parents did not think the school was doing enough to help him.

I am telling this story based almost entirely on Bill Henck's

account. I asked the Henrico County school system for a response, but

at first got only two short and relatively general statements from the

superintendent, which did not surprise me in the least. I have been

investigating several cases of communication between parents and

school officials in difficult circumstances, and the standard

official response to the parents, and to any reporters who might

inquire, is often as little a response as possible.

I don't blame the school officials for this. It seems to me, and the

bizarre twists of the Henck case buttress that impression, that the

educators are doing only what their lawyers tell them to do. I don't

have any cure for this, but I think relating what happened to the

Hencks, and how they achieved the momentary but still remarkable

milestone of getting the Short Pump Elementary principal indicted for

perjury, will dramatize what an awful problem we have in parent-school

relationships, and how it might be a good time to get people other

than attorneys involved.

The tale of Henck and the bullies of Short Pump Elementary

began long before what the hearing officer in their special education

transfer case called " the sniper incident. " Students had been mean to

throughout his fourth-grade year, but he did not tell his

parents about it until February 2004. When his parents called his

teacher, she admitted that she " was aware of earlier incidents of

bullying, but had not notified us, " Bill Henck said. The teacher was

not identified publicly and not made available for comment.

At least three students harassed . He told his parents he

regularly informed the teacher of what was happening, and more than

once she spoke to the students and sent them to the principal's

office. But after the sniper incident, the Hencks decided their

child, because of his disability, had to transfer to another school

for his safety and mental health, a decision that they felt was

particularly wise when they learned later that the child who made the

sniper comment was never given detention or even a suspension for that

offense.

When the Hencks made the transfer request, common under special

education rules, the Henrico County officials said Short Pump, and

only Short Pump, was the proper placement for , also a common

response in such cases. The Hencks transferred to a local

private school anyway and asked a due process hearing officer to

grant their request that the school district pay their $9,950 tuition

bill for the 2004-2005 school year.

Many parents who have struggled with the special education rules and

procedures will assume that what happened next was not good. Across

the country, the parents of disabled children are at war with our

nation's public education system, but their battles have become so

common and so futile that journalists like me rarely write about

them, in the same way that we often overlook whatever bloody little

conflicts are going on in the Third World.

I have attended special education due process hearings and watched

the school system attorneys hired to save taxpayer dollars politely

eviscerate the parents seeking more services or a payment for private

school. Often the parents are more or less defenseless against a

competent lawyer, since they often cannot afford to hire their own

attorney. A whole sector of the bar, lucrative to many of the private

specialists, is devoted to what seems to me, at least in part, the

science of intimidating, humiliating and defeating parents in these

cases. Some of the lawyers attend conferences designed to teach them

the latest tricks, all of which is completely legal in our

adversarial system.

According to Bill Henck, Tom Tokarz, the attorney for the Henrico

County attorney's office who defended the school system in the case,

took such an aggressive approach that by the end of the hearing the

Hencks were absolutely furious, which might explain why they went so

far to confront the county after the hearing.

Bill Henck said the school system failed to honor the Henck subpoena

for information in the case. He said Tokarz badgered and verbally

abused Leigh Henck when he spoke to her before and during the hearing

in October 2004. He said Tokarz waved his hands in his wife's face and

berated her several times, including mispronouncing her name in a

demeaning way. Leigh Henck pronounces her first name " Lay, " but her

husband said Tokarz twice pronounced it " Lie " and then smirked and

said, " Oh, I'm sorry. Did I mispronounce your name? "

Tokarz, a 25-year veteran of due process hearings, said these

accusations were " exaggerated and unwarranted. " He said: " I don't

recall waving my hands in Mrs. Henck's face, and my pronunciation of

Mrs. Henck's name was unintentional because it is not pronounced as

it is spelled. Furthermore, although some people may regard it as

mean or harassing, vigorous cross-examination is a time-tested way of

trying to get to the truth. "

During the hearing, Bill Henck said, both the principal, Odom,

and the teacher made false and misleading statements. Hearing officer

S. Francis Jr., who according to Henck was one of the few

officials who readily answered his questions, accepted the teacher's

statement that she did what she could to help , but was much

tougher on Odom.

" Mr. Odom offered little testimony of benefit, being uncooperative

and evasive, " Francis said in his due process hearing report. " Much

of his testimony was inconsistent with previous testimony or with

exhibits. "

Francis said Odom " made the judgment in regards to 's placement

for the next school year on the same basis that he made the judgment

that he did not have to comply with my subpoena for notes, " a

reference to Odom's statement that it was the consensus of school

officials that they did not have to answer the subpoena. " Mr. Odom

was clearly impeached and contradicted by the evidence in regard to

his knowledge of other bullying incidents of , " Francis said.

I have not known Bill Henck very long, but it is clear to me that he

is a very persistent person. School officials hate people like that.

Henck said some county officials shouted at him for pursuing the

matter. But stubborn parents like Henck tend to accomplish things

that less persistent parents like me do not because we decide such

battles are a waste of time and energy and give up.

A comprehensive account of all the things Henck did to get legal

redress for what he considered lies told at the hearing would make

this column three times as long as it is. Here is the quick summary:

He continued to call and write and call and write every relevant

legal authority until a deputy commonwealth's attorney in Henrico,

hearing Henck say his office had a conflict of interest, transferred

the case to Linwood , commonwealth's attorney in New Kent

County. took the case seriously, interviewed the Hencks,

looked at their evidence and indicted Odom on Nov. 14, 2005, on a

single count of perjury.

The charge didn't last very long. It was dismissed two months later

on the grounds that Virginia law does not provide for witnesses

taking an oath at special education due process hearings and thus

witnesses cannot be charged with perjury. The Hencks' attorney

advised them not to appeal the due process opinion because it would

be hard to beat the county, and if they lost, they faced potential

liability of more than $100,000 in a case in which they were looking

for just $9,950.

In response to my first request for a reaction to Bill Henck's story,

Henrico County school superintendent Fred S. Morton IV sent me two

statements. The first statement in full was: " We are pleased that Mr.

Odom was not convicted of perjury since our internal review concluded

that his misstatements in the due process hearing were neither

intentional nor material. However, our satisfaction with the outcome

of the criminal charge should not be taken as support or

encouragement of our teachers and administrators to lie in due

process hearings. We expect and require every Henrico County Public

School employee to tell the truth in special education due process

hearings, or any other type of hearing involving any student, because

integrity is at the core of educational professionalism. "

His second statement in full was: " One of the challenges in resolving

disputes in an educational setting is that at the core of every

dispute is a parent's child -- and that parents, generally, care more

deeply about their children than anything else. To that end, we make

every attempt to resolve disputes fairly, quickly, openly, and with a

great deal of sensitivity. However, as educators, we know that not

every parent is going to be satisfied and that despite our best

efforts, every parent is not going to believe that their child was

treated fairly. We do the very best we can and, like every other

public school division I know of, we are continually looking for ways

to improve. We have done so here and we will continue to do so in the

future. "

After seeing an early draft of this column, Morton sent a longer

statement. He said in that statement " the school division has

addressed the principal's inaccurate testimony and his failure to

fully comply with the subpoena. As a result of the father's

complaints, the school division conducted a full investigation of the

principal's conduct in the hearing. This investigation concluded that

the principal testified inaccurately about whether a student received

two days detention but that the inaccuracy was due to errors in

preparation and recollection rather than a knowing attempt to

deceive. In addition, the investigation concluded that the principal

failed to completely comply with the subpoena for records without

justification. Although the IEP meeting

notes were immediately produced to the hearing officer and were of no

consequence to the outcome, the principal was wrong not to produce

them in the first instance. "

How did Francis rule on the Hencks' request to have their private

school tuition paid by the county? Many special education parents

reading this will have already guessed. They lost, but there was much

of value in Francis' report, as he laid out the cold, hard truths of

the special education system in America.

" Although I find from the evidence that was subject to what I

shall term as harassment, teasing, bullying and threatening conduct

from other students because of his qualifying educational disability

and I find that it had at least some effect upon his social and

emotional adjustment and stability and therefore by inference must

have had some effect upon his ability to learn, I cannot therefrom

conclude that Henrico has failed in its statutory duty to this

student, " Francis wrote.

" Whether one agrees with it or not, " he wrote, " the law establishes a

minimum baseline of educational benefits that the county must offer

students with disabilities. " The law said was entitled to a

" free and appropriate public education, " not, Francis said, " the best

possible education. "

No matter how angry and disheartened the Hencks, and other parents

like them, feel about the way they were treated, all that is required

is that the school system provide specialized services that " are

sufficient to confer some educational benefit upon the handicapped

child, " Francis wrote.

Henck is apparently doing better at his private school, but the

whole experience, his father said, " has cost my family dearly. Not

only the money and time we have had to invest, but also the stress

and pain we have had to endure. "

That is too bad. The legal system doesn't seem to care much. The U.S.

Supreme Court in one of its most recent decisions made it even harder

for special education families such as the Hencks to get what they

consider justice. So it may be time to focus instead on those few

schools that have found ways to make special education work, and how

they do that. Good educators are the only people who are likely to

get us out of this mess. The lawyers, as thoughtful and dedicated as

they often are, just follow the rules, and that didn't get

Henck and his parents anywhere.