EBD Blog

Late in May, U.S. District Judge Robert E. Payne held the Henrico County (VA, US) local education agency (LEA) for “knowingly and repeatedly [failing] to provide a system of instruction suitable” for 8-year old Reid Tutwiler, who has autism. In his story about the case, Bill McKelway of the Richmond Times Dispatch reported that Judge Payne critized the LEA for not meeting standards of care.

Payne found that Henrico improperly offered Reid an educational program in which he would not make any more than minimal educational progress.

Payne ruled that evidence in the case showed Reid required a rigorous, intensive education program of between 20 and 30 hours of instruction per week. “The fifteen hours provided by the [county's plan] was insufficient,” she [sic] said.

The Tutwiler’s son began attending The Faison School in Richmond in December 2002 and immediately began showing huge strides in his ability to focus attention and speak. His vocabulary, almost nonexistent during his stay in Henrico schools, grew to 100 words.

Payne wrote that the system used by Henrico was not designed to, did not, and could not provide Reid with the intensive instruction he needed and eventually received at Faison.

The Faison School provides evidence-based instruction predicated on applied behavior analysis. Usually this is code for the discrete trials training procedures developed by Ivar Lovaas and colleagues.

Link to Mr. McKelway’s story. Link to the Faison School Web site. Although I’d heard about this victory 1 June from a person who’s involved in the Richmond autism scene, I hadn’t reviewed it until I found it on (tip of the virtual hat) Charles Fox’s Special Education Law Blog.