CLEARFIELD, Utah — A hearing officer with the Utah State Board of Education found that the Davis School District violated a student’s right to Free Appropriate Public Education, which is a legal right for children with disabilities that requires schools to meet individual special education needs for each student.
There are only a limited amount of due process hearings each year and that’s because it’s an expensive step for families.
Parents who have success in the hearings in Utah are actually somewhat rare. According to the family’s attorney, this is only the third in the last 17 cases where the officer decided in favor of the student.
In November of last year, a 14-year-old North Davis Jr. High school student with a variety of behavioral and mental health issues, including disruptive mood dysregulation disorder, met with a school counselor.
During the meeting, the boy said “some days he feels like he would like to just go kill a lot of people and then kill himself,” which the district viewed as a threat and decided to send him to Renaissance Academy, where Davis School District students go if they’ve committed a “safe school violation.”
The boy's parents, Nicholas and Barbara Moulder, say their son has no history of violence and it was an outburst caused by his disorder. They added that the district refused to meet with them to discuss the transfer.
"They didn’t want to hear our side, they didn’t want to talk to us, they immediately put a label on our son. And he has a hard enough time as it is, and they were just condemning him even more," said Barbara Moulder.
The officer deemed the district’s investigation into the threat was done with “anything less than good faith and genuine concern for the safety of all students.” However, he decided the district “overreacted to the threat" and that it was “unreasonable," adding there’s “no evidence that Renaissance Academy could provide any of his supports better than” his original school.
According to the officer, the district failed the boy’s right to Free Appropriate Public Education by ordering him to go to the alternate school and by refusing to meet with his parents.
The district says it will continue working on balancing the rights of a student and the rights of school safety.
"One takeaway that we take from this is our responsibility to provide access for the parents to raise those questions," said Asst. Superintendent John Zurbuchen.
The Moulders will remain advocates for other families with children with disabilities to make sure they're heard and understood.
"I wanted to be on the people that could fight and have a voice for those parents that can't or don't know how to fight," said Barbara Moulder.
