The Fenty administration is issuing sweeping new rules governing the pricey private clinics and schools where thousands of mentally ill or disabled D.C. children have been sent for decades.
» Require staff at clinics and schools to be certified by state and federal officials
» Give the city the right to surprise inspections
» Forbid restraints and solitary confinement unless it’s an emergency
» Forbid schools and clinics from hiring or partnering with lawyers who have represented parents in special ed litigation
The new rules, posted on the city’s Web site in late June and scheduled to take effect this month, set stricter standards for placing children in so-called “nonpublic” schools and give the administration broader powers to pull kids out when they suspect there’s abuse or neglect.
The District is spending upward of $210 million per year to put about 2,000 children in those schools. But as The Examiner has reported extensively, the children have often been exposed to horrific treatment in the clinics, some as far away as Colorado. The proposed regulations, filed publicly on June 22, are the biggest concrete steps the administration has taken to dig its way out of the city’s special ed crisis since Mayor Adrian Fenty took office.
The proposed new rules forbid schools from “demeaning, violent or coercive treatment, including the use of restraints or seclusion” unless the restraints or seclusion are “necessary to protect the student or other person from imminent, serious physical harm.” It also requires schools and clinics to notify parents and city officials within 24 hours of the incident.
The rules also forbid city officials to send a child to any school or clinic that is not Medicare-certified. Several current placements lack that certification, leaving D.C. taxpayers to foot millions in bills.
The regulations also require city officials to visit sites at least once every three years and forbid schools and clinics from hiring or taking on as partners special ed lawyers or advocates who have sued the city for violations of federal special education laws.
Violations of the new rules will allow city officials to pull kids out of the clinics, according to the proposal.
Lisa Raymond, president of D.C.’s board of education and a longtime advocate of special ed reform, greeted the proposed rules with guarded optimism.
“It’s extremely important that we’re monitoring the education that our children — all of our children — are getting,” she told The Examiner. “The key is going to be implementing them and enforcing them.”
