Lake Wylie family files case against Fort Mill schools over need for special services

Jan. 30--A week after making its case against the Fort Mill School District, a Lake Wylie family is still waiting to find out if they will receive compensation.

"We don't know yet," said Beckye Barnes, who filed a complaint against the district and argued her case in a Jan. 23 public hearing.

The case involves a student whose family claims he should have been recognized earlier as needing special services, and the district should pay to make up for the mistake. The district contends proper efforts were made to evaluate the student and significant resources were provided once those evaluations warranted.

The family isn't discussing details of the amount they're seeking with the case pending, though testimony in the case puts out-of-pocket spending in the time they say the district should have been serving their child in the five-figure range. Public information requests for more details were not fulfilled by press time. The family and school district had expected to know the result by early Monday.

"That's kind of what we thought," Barnes said. "We don't know. I haven't heard anything from anyone at all."

Timing and testing

The Barnes family moved to Fort Mill from Charlotte during the 2005-06 school year. The older of their two sons, now 13, began developing issues in kindergarten when he was referred to a vision therapist. According to case testimony, the family asked for evaluations in second and third grades, while teachers suggested he get behavioral help by fourth and fifth.

The student also began attending gifted and talented classes as soon as he was old enough to take them. He consistently made the A or AB honor roll, all factors that went into assessing his educational needs.

Barnes said she asked for an assessment of her son in 2013, and after outside diagnoses of ADHD and anxiety in the spring of 2014, requested a formal assessment from the school that summer.

"They told me he wasn't qualified," she said.

The student started middle school in fall of 2014. That school year he was removed from class more than a dozen times and became physically ill on numerous occasions due to anxiety. He spent six weeks homebound, and Barnes said he would have required admittance to a residential treatment facility without some form of special services therapy.

In January 2016, a state review found the school district violated the Child Find program for aiding students with special needs, a decision the district disagrees with, but isn't legally challenging. In March the family and district agreed to an individual program for the student. An emergency update with increased services came in May.

In August a state diagnosis determined autism. In September, the family moved out of the school district to homeschool the student.

Was enough done?

The Fort Mill School District has about 1,300 students accessing some kind of specialized education program. Amy Maziarz, executive director of special services, testified the district agreed to 70 therapy or social skills training sessions as part of the individual plan developed last year. The district even committed to continued payments for service through the end of this school year despite the family moving outside the district.

The state gave conditional closure to its case where the district was found in violation, based on compliance. The issue of mental health versus mental ability, particularly how the student processed anxiety, is part of why special service needs weren't identified earlier.

"No one could say for certain that he did have autism," Maziarz said.

David Duff, school district attorney, pointed to almost $1,300 the district paid one private therapist for 11 social skills training sessions last summer as part of the student's educational plan, compared to $85 paid by the family for five sessions with the same therapist. Duff also pointed out the individualized plan includes signatures both from school leaders and the family.

"There was no objection to that plan," he said.

High grades are another indicator, Duff argued during the hearing, that the district wasn't hindering the student's ability to receive a proper education.

"He's always accessed the general education curriculum, and very successfully," Duff said.

The family countered that their costs since early 2010 reach into five figures, and that high achievement isn't cause to exclude a child from special services.

"There's much more to a child than numbers on a report card," said Nick Charles, one of two Nelson Mullins law firm attorneys representing the family.

Erik Norton, the other, said the time it took to start providing services and the limited types of services offered were an "absolute failure" to the student and family. They point to the state ruling last year, and say compensation should include payment for services it would take to accommodate the student re-entering public school, even if it isn't in Fort Mill.

"They're supposed to put the student back in the place they would have been had the school district not failed," Norton said.

Barnes said the district should have identified her son for special services in third grade. Instead, she testified, the district "acted like there were no issues" to the point where she signed the individualized plan, despite knowing at the time more socialization services were needed.

"Rather than risk everything, we took what we were offered," she said.

John Marks: 803-326-4315, @JohnFMTimes

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