Federal Protections for NY Parents
Back in July, I wrote about a case prior to its going to the Office of State Review. Through the twists and turns of the process, the State Review Officer (“SRO”) reduced our complex appeal to a single question: We were, in essence, asked to prove that remote, video educational programming was equal in quality to live classroom instruction.
To be fair, the SRO ended up awarding us 100% of tuition for the 2019-2020 school year — but then said that my client “chose” to keep her child in a remote program when the school reopened after Labor Day of 2020. Amazingly, the SRO reasoned that my client had no valid reason to keep her daughter at home at this time, which was still months before the Covid vaccine was announced. Having done so, then, the SRO decided we were obligated to prove that the student’s remote video lessons were just as beneficial as in-person lessons would have been.
This ruling was novel and legally unprecedented. Even if we had anticipated it, meeting such a standard was a chronological impossibility. As the SRO himself acknowledged, the student had made progress in 2019-2020, but that was when remote instruction was de rigueur. How, then, to prove that the parent’s selection of a remote program was yielding in-person results at a hearing in November, a mere two months after Labor Day?
Of course, is it fair to say that the parent chose a remote program?
Both parents contracted long Covid in the spring of 2020; each was bedridden for weeks and evinced symptoms for months.
Children with Autism are more likely to get Covid — and more likely to die of Covid if they get it.
Over the Summer of 2020, there were credible reports Covid also put kids with autism at increased risk of developing Kawasaki Syndrome.
It should be noted that in addition to the two hours of live instruction time, the student was doing homework and watching recorded videos.
My impression was that the SRO looked at this case with rose-colored glasses, thinking, "The vaccine is here now — why didn't they just have a little bit of faith?" Easily said, but it’s a lot harder to be optimistic when your hands, legs, and feet have been purple and blue for over a month.
Thankfully, the SRO is not the final authority.
This past month, Gottlieb and Wang LLP filed a magnificent, top-shelf federal complaint with the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. That’s thanks largely to the hard work of our dedicated and experienced Law Clerk, Arielle Isaac, and to the big firm acumen and federal appellate experience of Managing Partner, Qian Julie Wang.
When we incorporated as Gottlieb and Wang, LLP, first and foremost was our intention to bring big law within the reach of the little guy. This federal case is exactly the kind of thing that we had in mind. In my 10+ years of practice, I have written and I have read many, many federal complaints under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) seeking redress. I have never seen one half as good as this, my own work included. It makes me proud just to work here.
Marc Gottlieb
Partner
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Brooklyn Heights, NY, 11201
Marc@GottliebFirm.com
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