Sunday, September 09, 2007

More school district news

Since some of you are asking, here we are.

I did redeem my promise to the Superintendent to make the matter public with flyers at Don Lugo HS on opening day if they continued to avoid working something out for our son. In reponse, I got a letter from their outside law firm Saturday, which I only got out of the mailbox today. It contained several significant points.

He stated that the district was "disturbed" that I had accused them of falsely certifying the 5150 against Stephen and made it public, although that is my "choice." He said the district will not engage in a public debate about the propriety of its actions, so I guesss he's telling me that I'll be debating an empty chair, which is of course their choice. He stated that the district was justified in its action because Stephen was on the rooftop of my home "posing a threat to injure himself."

Now that's a notable admission, because that incident happened in December at his mother's place, over a 3 months before they came to evaluate him on March 27th. So their lawyer has admitted that the 5150 was certified on the basis of what Stephen had done over 3 months before, which they had known about that whole time and which never bothered them until March 27th. This is far from the statutory requirement of "imminent" risk to himself or others for a 5150 certification. In effect, CVUSD's lawyer has admitted that the 5150 was indeed falsely certified.

Now it's time to consult with various counsellors to see where to go with this before getting back to their lawyer.

The lawyer did, of course, threaten me with the School Attendance Review Board if Stephen does not begin attending school and if I don't arrange for him to be home-schooled. I am arranging that, and he has in fact already gotten some instruction, and profitably, although more details need to be worked out. Anticipating this move on the part of these completely cynical people - who have certainly not cared about his school attendance up to now, refusing to do anything to make it possible - we're taking other steps to protect ourselves there. Just as they got interested in his suicidal episode a month later when they wanted to punish us and dope him up, they've suddenly gotten interested in his school attendance now that they want to retaliate against me for making their conduct public. They are completely consistent in their cynicism, and we saw it coming a long way off.

The one surprise was that their lawyer actually conceded the heart of their case by admitting the 5150 was certified on the basis of a month-old incident which they had known of all along and didn't care about until they decided they wanted to practice medicine to get Stephen to do his schoolwork - exactly as Stephen testified about the meeting in his deposition.

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