Honig Joins Parents of Disabled Girl in Peninsula District Lawsuit

State schools Supt. Bill Honig has intervened in the case of a paralyzed 6-year-old Palos Verdes Estates girl whose parents contend that she is not receiving adequate care and schooling in her regular kindergarten classroom.

Honig said he approved legal action against the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District after looking into complaints by the parents of Stephanie Stratford that school officials were not complying fully with a state hearing officer’s instructions on how to handle the girl’s special classroom needs.

Shortly before the start of the school year in September, the hearing officer overruled the district’s position that Stephanie, who is partially paralyzed from the neck down as a result of a spinal tumor, should be placed in a special day class for orthopedically handicapped children. He ordered the district to enroll her in regular classes and provide her with transportation and a health care aide.

The district appealed the ruling to the federal courts, but meanwhile allowed Stephanie to begin classes at the Rancho Vista Elementary School.

Parents Charge Obstruction

But in a lawsuit filed in federal District Court jointly with Honig’s state Department of Education, parents Allan and Nancy Stratford claim that the district has intentionally obstructed the plan for Stephanie’s care laid out by the hearing officer.

Among other things alleged in the lawsuit, the parents say the school has refused to enroll Stephanie officially at Rancho Vista and classroom aides have not been cooperative in helping her take part in classes.

The school district confirmed that it has not registered Stephanie for procedural reasons, which it declined to explain.

“It seems the district has dug in its heels on this matter,” Honig said in a telephone interview this week. “Under the law, schools are required to educate handicapped children in a regular classroom, if they can function adequately in that setting.”

He said a review of the evidence by his department’s attorneys indicates that Stephanie is able to keep up with her peers academically and participate in classroom activities. When that is the case, a school district is required to accommodate a disabled student’s special needs.

District spokeswoman Nancy Mahr, citing the pending lawsuit, declined to discuss specifics of the case. But she said teachers and other workers at Rancho Vista have been doing all they reasonably can to accommodate Stephanie while attending to the needs of the other children.

Mahr expressed surprise over what she termed Honig’s premature resort to a lawsuit. She said Supt. Jack Price had discussed Stephanie’s case with the state official on two occasions and that Honig had pledged to “look into it carefully” before taking any other action.

“A lawsuit is unwarranted because they have not exhausted all the administrative remedies” in dealing with the problem, Mahr said.

Honig said that, in response to a request from Price, he “had the guys (state attorneys) take one more look,” and they concluded the Stratfords were right. Since district officials have expressed “strong feelings” about the case, he said, a lawsuit was the only effective means of enforcing compliance.

Needs of Other Pupils

The district’s position has been that Stephanie could be better served in a special school staffed by specially trained personnel, that she is too handicapped to be in a regular classroom and that not enough consideration is being given to the needs of other pupils in the classroom. The district contends that the time and effort devoted to Stephanie detracts from the education of the other students.

In the lawsuit, which seeks an unspecified amount for damages and payment of legal fees, Allan Stratford accuses the district of responding with “hostility and passive resistance” to the parents’ efforts to “work cooperatively” with school officials.

His wife Nancy, in an interview Wednesday, said the district is “trying to coerce us into giving up, but we won’t. I’ve been harassed and yelled at.”

She said Stephanie is “very bright and doesn’t need special attention. She learns just like the other kids and is doing very well.”

Stephanie needs “only a few simple things, which should be easy to provide if they were willing to do it,” Nancy Stratford said.

Among examples, she said, are adjusting the chin control that Stephanie uses to move her motorized wheelchair, picking up the pens and brushes that she holds in her mouth when she writes and paints, and moving tables and play blocks that hinder her movements in the wheelchair.

The district hired a registered nurse to attend Stephanie, who often must rely on a respirator for breathing and requires special feeding. Nancy Stratford, who also has two sons at Rancho Vista, said the district has refused to let her help Stephanie during class and has not given the nurse the specialized training needed to provide that assistance.

Despite the dispute, Nancy Stratford said, she is convinced that Stephanie is much better off in a regular classroom. “Stephanie is thriving on the academics and making so many friends,” she said. “She loves to take part in everything, like watching movies and the flag salute.

“Just having her there feels good for all of us. I just really wish this could be a team effort.”

Early this month, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the appeal of a severely handicapped 9-year-old girl whose physical disabilities meant she needed the services of regular nurse to attend school. The school in Auburn, N.Y., had refused to provide one, and the Supreme Court said that her demand exceeded the requirements of the federal Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975.

That law requires that public education be made available to all disabled and retarded children, and says that to the “maximum extent appropriate” these children are to be taught in regular public school classes. Neither the act nor federal regulations makes clear how far schools must go in providing medical care that would allow a handicapped student to participate in a regular class.

In a 1984 case involving the Irvine (Calif.) Independent School District, the U.S. Supreme Court said the district must provide nursing help for a child whose bladder problem required catheterization every four hours. This service was neither burdensome nor complicated, and therefore could be provided by regular school personnel, the court concluded.