The federal government is investigating three disability discrimination complaints against the school district.
The first case, which the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights received in May, alleges the Morgan Hill Unified School District discriminated against students with disabilities during the 2007-08 school year.
Superintendent Alan Nishino said the district's attorney is working on the cases and that he was confident the legal challenge would be resolved quickly.
"Obviously, you would like to resolve these issues before they get to this point but you can't help when (people file claims)," Nishino said.
U.S. Department of Education spokesman Jim Bradshaw said the complainant who filed first, in May, alleged the district did not evaluate students in a timely manner, follow adequate procedures for evaluation and placement of students nor implement students' individualized educational programs, or IEPs. All these failings, the complainant says, amount to discrimination by the district because it did not provide students with disabilities a "free appropriate public education."
The second case, filed in July, claims the district didn't implement a student's IEP.
The third case, also filed in July, makes similar claims, and said the district "unilaterally changed the student's placement" and "failed to adequately respond to internal complaints that the student was subjected to disability-based harassment."
Bradshaw declined to say whether the three cases were filed by the same person, citing privacy laws. Bradshaw said the Office of Civil Rights handles about 5,000 complaints a year for the 15,000 school districts and 4,300 colleges and universities nationwide. The majority of those complaints involve disability discrimination allegations, he said.
Bradshaw said 90 percent of these investigations are complete within six months, but the more complex cases take longer. Resolutions could be as simple as guiding a district in remedying the situation to as harsh as cutting off federal funding to the offending district or referring the case to the Justice Department.
"This is the ultimate penalty, a last resort," Bradshaw said. "But it is a resort."
Bradshaw noted that opening a complaint for investigation "in no way implies that the Office of Civil Rights has made a determination on the merits of the case."
The district's special education department has had a continually abrasive relationship with special education parents. Parents have complained of an administration that doesn't respond to complaints. Special Education Director Salli Welsh resigned in May. An April Freedom of Information Act request filed jointly by special education parent Lisa Pampuch and Trustee Shelle Thomas was largely denied by the district in June. One of the documents district officials did provide, though, was a three-year comparison of special education-related legal fees. According to this document, the district spent $2,896.10 on legal costs for special education in 2004-05, but that number spiked the following two fiscal years to $27,905.18 for 2005-06 and $64,716.68 for 2006-07.
In April, parents and district officials formed the Special Education Advisory Committee to address global, rather than individual, concerns about the district's special education programs.
Nishino also said with new Special Education Director Chris Rizzuto on board now, "I think we'll be fine."
Natalie Everett Natalie Everett covers education and city issues for The Times. Reach her at (408) 779-4106, ext. 201, or neverett@morganhilltimes.com.
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