I'm not sure what to make about the Attwood case against the Chino Valley Unified School District, which involves the district causing a student to be placed in an involuntary 72-hour mental health hospitalization. The district did not contact the student's therapist before the hospitalization.
The more I read the father's blog, the more I suspect that the school district missed the boat--not about the student's risk of suicide, but preceding factors.
Peter Attwood writes the blog Attwood Among the Christoids. He has several sons. One is an adult, living in the South; the younger sons are in joint custody with Attwood and his former wife, and are still in school, in the Chino Valley Unified School Distict. (CVUSD)
In the fall of 2006, one of Attwood's sons, while living with his mother, went on "home and hospital" schooling because he found school too stressful and had emotional problems. CVUSD first contacted the San Bernadino county's Child Protection Services to investigate the boy's wellbeing. CPS found no reason to intervene in the family.
At one point, a "home and hospital" teacher observed the student get on the roof and threaten to jump, but did not at that time invoke the county's Children's Crisis Response Team (CCRT)
Later, the student moved into his father's home while still on "home and hospital" status. The younger Attwood was refusing to do his schoolwork. The school wanted him to "be medicated", according to Attwood, and neither the senior nor junior Attwood found that acceptable. The younger Attwood began weekly therapeutic visits with a licenced psychologist in December 2006.
The younger Attwood continued to refuse to engage in schooling. On March 27, 2007, CVUSD's psychologist and the health nurse from the high school made a home visit to Attwood, for a "psychological evaluation" for the school refusal. They then filed a mental health report and contacted San Bernadino's CCRT, who sent an officer to Attwood's home, removed the son, and transported him to a involuntary 72-hour hold (a "5150") at a psychiatric hospital.
Did the school district do the right thing to prevent harm to a child? Did the school district over-react and act in a manner not in the child's best interest? I don't know.
The current state of affairs is that CVUSD and the Attwood family will hold an IEP meeting to determine the younger Attwood's educational needs in a few weeks. The Attwood family have retained Donald Eisner as attorney (who specializes in mental health malpractice) and have involved Protection and Advocacy, Inc. in the case.
This is what Peter Attwood wants to be on the IEP agenda:
We not only suspect but will prove - from the evaluations and other evidence that Section 1414 gives us the right to submit - that the child was significantly disabled by the traumatic experience of 27-30 March and its aftermath, not only of being dragged away, but, crucially, for no good reason. [snip] [T]he circumstances of the 5150 are crucial in determining the nature and extent of Stephen’s disability arising from this event. Those circumstances must and shall be presented and discussed by the IEP Team as the law prescribes. Moreover, these circumstances, and the true reasons for CVUSD’s actions, are crucial in determining the fitness of CVUSD personnel to participate in Stephen’s education. The IEP Team must certainly consider these things in order to write the program correctly, so that it benefits Stephen instead of doing him further harm.
To that end, 20 USC Section 1414 further states: “As part of an initial evaluation (if appropriate) and as part of any reevaluation under this section, the IEP Team and other qualified professionals, as appropriate, shall review existing evaluation data on the child, including evaluation and information provided by the parents of the child.”
[snip]
Finally, we do need to set the earliest possible date for the meeting, so let’s consider again what we’re waiting for.
- All documentation that I demanded on 7 December relating to Stephen’s traumatic experience – quite apart from fault. We’re not assessing tort liability, but we are assessing the effect on Stephen of the event and to what degree CVUSD personnel pose a danger to Stephen, which obviously has to go into how we write up the plan. It is not appropriate to accept CVUSD’s self-assessment that they can be trusted, no more than mine or Stephen’s that they can't be. That’s a question for the IEP Team to determine based on the evidence – and of course evidence withheld in violation of the law, that’s a kind of evidence too, isn’t it?
- The assessment of Kyle Pontius, which we should have no later than Monday the 17th, and which I will immediately make available to everyone concerned, if it’s a PDF, and very quickly otherwise. The IEP Team will need a few days to consider it, no less than 5 business days, unless CVUSD and SELPA stipulate a shorter time acceptable to them, because that’s their rule as Jean Martin explained it to me, and I don’t want that rule sprung on us when we go in there. We ourselves will need 3 or 4 days, including the weekend, no more.
- Important statements from a clinician and a professor who observed Stephen in Alabama, especially how he functioned in a graduate level class in psychology. These should be available early next week, and these too will immediately go to everyone.
- We’re still awaiting the O/T assessment. It’s a relatively small deal, we think, and it’s good enough for us if we get it the day before, but there might be something there that we’re not expecting. We want it before the meeting.
They're going for an IEP meeting later this month.
Chronological list of Attwood's Posts on his son and the Attwood family's struggles with the CVUSD:
Eventually, they pretended on March 27th to be doing a psychological evaluation but really had decided ahead of time to certify him as imminently suicidal - whatever the case may be, which he wasn't - so that they could slam him into a mental hospital for three days as a 5150, even though he had not been suicidal since back in February due to being unable to handle school pressure. From this experience we were to learn our place and be subdued to their will, ours and that of his psychologist be damned, whom they never consulted.
May 17 2007 --The younger Attwood to visit his brother; seems to be recovering from both the depression and the trauma of the hospitalization.
June 3, 2007--Attwood's intention to litigate
July 18 2007--Discussing the future meeting with the CVUSD superintendent
Both had lots of trouble understanding why Stephen might have a valid problem receiving a psychological evaluation from the school district when the last time this exact evaluation was promised it was a ruse designed to carry out an act of base treachery and deceit, one of the most traumatic experiences of Stephen's life.
July 24, 2007--On the meeting with the CVUSD superintendent meeting:
They already had it all arranged [In March] that this 5150 would be certified and lead to Stephen being drugged according to their wishes. Being imminently suicidal when the teacher arrived to teach him in February so that she had to leave without doing so didn't call for a 5150, but wanting him drugged a month later because they figured this would get him to do his schoolwork suddenly caused this old incident to justify a 5150!
August 15, 2007 --discussion with CVUSD, who says that the school nurse does not agree with the recital of facts from Attwood and his son.
I know what I've got. The sworn statement of my son, who knows what happened and isn't backing off. The history of pressure to have him drugged, and the lack of any real interest in his condition, as shown by their complete indifference to his being suicidal when he really was at the coming of their home-school teacher, and by their complete avoidance of Stephen's psychologist. And then, their suddenly getting interested a month later in his having been suicidal back when because he wasn't doing his school work. All of this corroborates Stephen's deposition, as well as what I heard myself.
[School nurse] has a reputation at her high school as an officious supervisor of other people's business who pressures kids to get counseling, whether they need it or not - she likes to play psychiatrist. If she acted this way with Stephen, it's habitual. Those who sent her felt sure they could count on her.August 30 2007 --meeting with the Superintendent delayed, as the Attwoods had brought witnesses
September 25 2007 -- outline of the facts of the case, and why the Attwoods are refusing to authorize CVUSD to perform a psychological evaluation.
October 8 2007 -- the student will have two different types of assessments.
Over a long time, Stephen has demonstrated that he is inclined to be despondent and desperate in connection with school, and not otherwise. He needed to be assessed for his school phobia and any related learning problems, not hopped up so that they don't have to bother finding out about that. The assessment we have now gotten through West End SELPA has in fact turned up plenty worth looking at, and nothing that ought to be masked with dope.
Masking your problems with a bottle of booze, a joint, a line of cocaine, or a Wellbutrin prescription is all the same thing. Its character is not changed because someone with a degree prescribes it, who in Stephen's case couldn't be bothered to learn the history of head injuries that completely rules out Wellbutrin.We signed a tolling agreement with CVUSD, so we have more time to negotiate, since we no longer have to sue them by December 1st. We've agreed to try mediation after the IEP meeting, which SELPA wanted to schedule for the 29th, but which won't work because the evaluations won't be in on time. We will probably end up doing the IEP in early December.
I filed a compliance complaint yesterday with the California Department of Education about the stonewalliong and the attempt to convene the IEP without the needed people and documentation. They called me this afternoon saying they have accepted the stonewalling count, and the investigator is supposed to call me by next week. Kimberley Baker, an attorney at Protection and Advocacy, thinks it's a good complaint.
Exchange of letters between CVUSD's attorneys and Mr. Attwood.
Mr Attwood wrote:
The circumstances of the 5150 are crucial in determining the nature and extent of Stephen’s disability arising from this event. Those circumstances must and shall be presented and discussed by the IEP Team as the law prescribes. Moreover, these circumstances, and the true reasons for CVUSD’s actions, are crucial in determining the fitness of CVUSD personnel to participate in Stephen’s education. The IEP Team must certainly consider these things in order to write the program correctly, so that it benefits Stephen instead of doing him further harm.
A couple of local papers are pursuing the story now, and we should be reading about it soon, and that should help protect other kids in future. Between the papers and the CDE, I hope we may get the missing records soon.
I talked with the SELPA director today, and we're agreed on early in the afternoon on the 21st or 24th, depending on what can be worked out with the other participants. We will probably do it in Chino, since that will shorten the rides of most of us.
Stephen is impatient to get on with the meeting, which he looks forward to. It disappointed him that the 15th won't work.
Very interesting. I don't necessarily agree with the no meds decision, but for other reasons-- the meds might help calm him to a point where therapy around the topic of school could progress. But it sounds to me like the district has some benchmarks they are supposed to be meeting with the kid and can't, and rather than work with the existing care providers, they are trying to subvert it. Nonfunctional is not suicidal, and if the kid's disabled from school-based learning, then he's disabled. Thanks for the interesting link.
Posted by: Bipolarlawyercook | Sunday, January 13, 2008 at 05:44 PM
On first blush, I thought the senior Mr. Attwood was pretty bombastic in general and coming at things from as oppositional a standpoint as possible.
But I kept reading, and when I got to the 5150 assessment and accompanying memo, my radar went off. No boxes were checked; just follow-up notes completed, where suicidal ideation is mentioned, but not in any specific way. And the accompanying memo -- does it square with the younger Attwood's account? I'd like to know the answer to that question.
On the one hand, there is a school district who is obligated to provide an education and on the other, a student who does not wish to be educated by them. That lends itself to a confrontational situation, at best.
In looking over the website for the CVUSD it appears that they are extremely focused on hitting the 'perfect' API (one of their elementary schools did so) and keeping that NCLB gravy train fed. That doesn't create a terrific environment for kids who are unconventional learners or phobic about school.
Still, it's my understanding that school officials cannot diagnose and/or recommend medications for any student and I can't help but wonder what possessed them to have that conversation at all, particularly when a therapist was involved.
I do agree with the father than any IEP would have to consider the circumstances of the 5150, since it was an obviously traumatic event that shattered what little trust there was between parent and student and school district. Frankly, I'm not sure what could be done to mend that.
Finally, it's pretty outrageous to me that after his son was involuntarily put on a 72-hour hold with no consultation with his son's therapist, there would be the audacious move of sending the Dad the bill. Amazing.
I wish there was another account of what happened that was more objective -- I found myself reacting to the dad's anger and preachiness in a negative way sometimes, despite the instinct that he's most likely right.
Posted by: Karoli | Sunday, January 13, 2008 at 05:44 PM