Looking for lawyer input - family, juvenile, disability, education type issue

[StarBright]

I've heard there are a lot of lawyers on this forum and I could use some direction towards the right type of representation that I might need. So basically - what type of lawyer do I need? Thanks in advance!

Background (I'm not sure if this will be too much info or not enough - sorry!): My son, age 10, is not neurotypical. He misses the threshold for an autism diagnosis, but has severe anxiety, sensory, and pragmatic communications issues. He is also very bright, so his issues don't stand out immediately. Intellectually he is like a 14 year old, socially/emotionally he is more like 6-8 depending on the day.

He had a rough kindergarten and 1st grade. We spent a lot of time in a lot of therapies. He received an educational IEP at the end of first grade. He had a very successful second and third grade. At his annual IEP meeting in November they talked about dropping his IEP all together. They did drop his behavior intervention plan as it was "No longer needed".

Not long after that he had two interactions at recess that involved him being physical. After the second incident the school kept him in at recess for the rest of the year because they didn't feel like they could keep an eye on him.

He had a third incident in May on a field trip. A girl was calling him names and wouldn't stop and he ended up pushing her in the stomach (he says push, the person that told on him said "hit"). The school disciplined him, and we agreed with it - but the parents were not happy with the discipline.

We found out the last week of school that the parents were demanding their daughter not be near my son during any end of year school events or they would send police to elementary graduation to have my son arrested for assault.  Check this link to my journal for more details if I haven't provided enough: https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/journals/leaning-in-the-trailing-spouse-is-thinking-about-the-future/msg3019266/#msg3019266

I pulled my son out for the last couple of days so that we wouldn't have to worry about it, and we let him walk in the "graduation" which we coordinated with the school. 

Since a month had passed and I did not hear anything (from school or other parents), I assumed this had gone away. Last week this parent posted in multiple facebook groups discussing the incident, including their intention to bring in the police, restraining orders, lawyers etc. More details: https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/journals/leaning-in-the-trailing-spouse-is-thinking-about-the-future/msg3027704/#msg3027704

Once I knew who the parent was, I reached out and said I would be very happy to discuss the concerns with her. She responded that she had nothing to say and we would hear from them or their lawyer after they finished doing their research.

I feel like I need a lawyer to protect my kid at this point?! What type of lawyer do I need?

Happy to answer any questions. TiA

[srrb]

:(
I don't have any advice but wanted to acknowledge your pain, school challenges, and fierce love for your son. It comes from a place of similar experience with neurodiverse children. <3

[StarBright]

:(
I don't have any advice but wanted to acknowledge your pain, school challenges, and fierce love for your son. It comes from a place of similar experience with neurodiverse children. <3

aww- thank you!

[lucenzo11]

Oh my goodness, so stressful for you and sorry you have to go through all of this.

I'm not a lawyer so I can't chime in other then my reaction is that this seems like intimidation from the parents and engaging only empowers them more. They want you to be scared and fear punishment via the school or the law. So try not to feed into it and just do your own thing. They can threaten litigation all they want, but it only matters if they actually sue you. Even if you get a letter from a lawyer threatening legal action, that means close to nothing. The police threat is pretty much bogus too. Police do not arrest on command from someone, especially after time has passed unless they are actively investigating your son. Doubt it though because why would they spend their time investigating a 10 year old for something that the school already handled a month ago. Avoid the parents, don't give them any power over you. If they sue you then be ready with your lawyer.

Good luck!

[mozar]

I don’t think it’s worth getting a lawyer on retainer at this point. I also think they are empty threats. But it would be helpful to consider the long term.
A couple of options. One is teaching your son how to deal with bullying “with his words.” There are classes you can pay for and you can also teach him at home. These are important life skills anyway and he will encounter shitty people for the rest of his life.
I think you should also find him another school that is either extremely small, doesn’t tolerate bullying or uses restorative justice techniques. He shouldn’t have to endure harassment. A good teacher would have told the girl to be quiet before things escalated.
Also it doesn’t matter whether your son “pushed” the girl or “hit” the girl. Your son shouldn’t put his hands on another in anger. When I used to cover recess the rule we drilled into the kids was “keep your hands to your self.

[StarBright]

I don’t think it’s worth getting a lawyer on retainer at this point. I also think they are empty threats. But it would be helpful to consider the long term.
A couple of options. One is teaching your son how to deal with bullying “with his words.” There are classes you can pay for and you can also teach him at home. These are important life skills anyway and he will encounter shitty people for the rest of his life.
I think you should also find him another school that is either extremely small, doesn’t tolerate bullying or uses restorative justice techniques. He shouldn’t have to endure harassment. A good teacher would have told the girl to be quiet before things escalated.
Also it doesn’t matter whether your son “pushed” the girl or “hit” the girl. Your son shouldn’t put his hands on another in anger. When I used to cover recess the rule we drilled into the kids was “keep your hands to your self.

Thanks :) Not using his hands or his body is a lesson that we are constantly drilling at our house (and it didn't start until elementary school) and we have the therapies, classes, etc covered. He had no incidents for 2.5 years, and we suspect the reason it has started happening again is bullying from other kids. It has only happened at recess or in an uncontrolled environment at school.

We are also looking for new schools, affordability is an issue though.

His school just started using restorative justice two years ago, which is part of the problem these other parents have. Part of his discipline was writing a note explaining his actions. Unfortunately the explanation was "you kept calling me stupid and wouldn't stop when I asked and then I lost my temper, but I shouldn't have touched you" and the girl's parents were furious that he blamed the daughter for his actions.

[Dee18]

I sent you a PM with some possibilities for a recommendation.

[srrb]

I don’t think it’s worth getting a lawyer on retainer at this point. I also think they are empty threats. But it would be helpful to consider the long term.
A couple of options. One is teaching your son how to deal with bullying “with his words.” There are classes you can pay for and you can also teach him at home. These are important life skills anyway and he will encounter shitty people for the rest of his life.
I think you should also find him another school that is either extremely small, doesn’t tolerate bullying or uses restorative justice techniques. He shouldn’t have to endure harassment. A good teacher would have told the girl to be quiet before things escalated.
Also it doesn’t matter whether your son “pushed” the girl or “hit” the girl. Your son shouldn’t put his hands on another in anger. When I used to cover recess the rule we drilled into the kids was “keep your hands to your self.

Thanks :) Not using his hands or his body is a lesson that we are constantly drilling at our house (and it didn't start until elementary school) and we have the therapies, classes, etc covered. He had no incidents for 2.5 years, and we suspect the reason it has started happening again is bullying from other kids. It has only happened at recess or in an uncontrolled environment at school.

We are also looking for new schools, affordability is an issue though.

His school just started using restorative justice two years ago, which is part of the problem these other parents have. Part of his discipline was writing a note explaining his actions. Unfortunately the explanation was "you kept calling me stupid and wouldn't stop when I asked and then I lost my temper, but I shouldn't have touched you" and the girl's parents were furious that he blamed the daughter for his actions.

Grrrrrr! Asshole parents beget asshole children. And then to amplify it through facebook and threats. I know there is always another side to a story, but usually my ASD child acted out in response to inappropriate attention from others when their threshold for managing unwanted stimulus was breached. They weren't an instigator but were often considered the problem. Again, I'm sorry you're going through this.

[StarBright]

I sent you a PM with some possibilities for a recommendation.

Got it and responded - thank you!

[mozar]

You’re probably summarizing but there aren’t “punishments” in restorative justice, at least in the research I have done. If I was running an rj circle I would have your son say what your he wrote aloud, and then get to the bottom of why this girl was harassing him, what her goals were, and appropriate ways to behave in the future for both of them, that they come up with.
Also there shouldn’t be “uncontrolled” environments at school. Adults are supposed to be paying attention, that’s what they are being paid to do.
It sounds like they are trying things but struggle with implementation and teacher support. Which a lot of schools struggle with.

[charis]

You’re probably summarizing but there aren’t “punishments” in restorative justice, at least in the research I have done. If I was running an rj circle I would have your son say what your he wrote aloud, and then get to the bottom of why this girl was harassing him, what her goals were, and appropriate ways to behave in the future for both of them, that they come up with.
Also there shouldn’t be “uncontrolled” environments at school. Adults are supposed to be paying attention, that’s what they are being paid to do.
It sounds like they are trying things but struggle with implementation and teacher support. Which a lot of schools struggle with.

Teachers can't catch every bad interaction on the playground before it happens.  Does he qualify for one to one aide?

[mozar]

We had two teachers on the playground and the vast majority of the time one of us would catch it. Also issues would repeat themselves so if we didn’t catch it the first time we would by the second. Also we had a bunch of kids who were constantly telling on each other. If a student was continually being picked on we would have figured that out.
Most kids can figure out how to behave on the playground without teacher intervention. I think that the OPs son needs a higher level of supervision than what the current school offers (and should offer imo), and schools like that do exist.

[kite]

Not clear to me if the IEP is still in place, but I think an IEP is a benefit to NEVER surrender.  He's academically far beyond his same age peers, that will manifest in behavioral issues.  My county has a special services school district where one-on-one supervision is available and they can provide more challenging instruction until the child matures socially.  Your school district has a duty to educate your child. Full stop.

This disturbs me:

Since a month had passed and I did not hear anything (from school or other parents), I assumed this had gone away. Last week this parent posted in multiple facebook groups discussing the incident, including their intention to bring in the police, restraining orders, lawyers etc. More details: https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/journals/leaning-in-the-trailing-spouse-is-thinking-about-the-future/msg3027704/#msg3027704

Once I knew who the parent was, I reached out and said I would be very happy to discuss the concerns with her. She responded that she had nothing to say and we would hear from them or their lawyer after they finished doing their research.

I feel like I need a lawyer to protect my kid at this point?! What type of lawyer do I need?

Happy to answer any questions. TiA

The administrator of a facebook group should not allow a child to be slandered in written conversations. If the posts remain, I would (in your shoes) ask for them to be deleted and a policy instituted whereby this stuff isn't allowed.  The Karens who post this stuff think they are protecting children, but they aren't.  They are vicious bullies.  It shouldn't be tolerated.  Appeal privately, directly to the admin to delete.  Next step is a letter from a lawyer with the same request, outlining the potential for defamation penalties. Without knowing more (and I don't want to, your 10 y/o is a child entitled to privacy) it does sound like a child is being defamed. Ostracizing and bullying by adults is harmful, both to the child and to the entire community.

I don't have my own kids, but I did have foster kids and we had similar issues to tackle.

[Dicey]

Hmmm, are the parents publicly identifying your minor child who hasn't been charged with anything? If so, it would seem they're vastly in the wrong here. I'm neither a parent or a lawyer, so no advice worth paying for, just my sympathies. It sucks that you are going through this.