Parents of Special Education Pupils Often At Odds With Schools

Monday’s shooting of Michael Generakos, a father distraught over the education of his deaf son, highlights bitter conflicts that increasingly arise in the world of special education.

Extreme as his case may be, the pressures of raising a disabled child and an increasingly litigious climate in schools fuel combative relations between families and schools, said parents and education experts.

“I’ve known parents who said they were so frustrated they were thinking of doing something wild,” said Joan Tellefsen, executive director of Team of Advocates for Special Kids, a Santa Ana nonprofit organization that provides information and training to parents on special-education laws.

“I’ve thought over the years that when someone is not stable and he or she is not getting any satisfaction, something could happen,” she said.

While many parents see bloated bureaucracies denying special help to their children, school administrators see families overtaxing limited public resources. That friction will only increase with the passing of a state law this year that effectively reduces funding for special-education programs, officials say.

“It has become a very adversarial situation,” said Bob Patterson, a Tustin educational and clinical psychologist who has testified for both parents and school officials. “There are tremendous pressures on school administrators to manage their money. On the other hand, you have families with serious needs and problems.”

For Generakos, mounting frustrations apparently stemmed from family problems as well as his grievances with school officials. His anger led him to brandish a gun, storm into the county Department of Education building and stage a three-hour standoff that ended with his death.

This is an example, administrators added, of how schools are increasingly forced to deal with family problems that have nothing to do with a child’s education.

Even before they begin battling school officials, families with disabled children face tough issues, said parents and experts.

“What’s becoming very difficult is that the district . . . is expected to address unsolved issues at home,” said Steffi Berkowitz, executive director for special education at Capistrano Unified, which has been embroiled in several high-profile special-education disputes. “We are expected to do a lot of hand-holding and then, when the parents get upset, we end up getting our hands slapped.”

But some parents voiced sharp criticism of special education in the public schools, saying it is fraught with red tape and complex requirements that bar some disabled children from special help.

“It’s like any parent’s worst nightmare,” said Deborah Evans-Warkentien, who runs a deaf program for children whose parents fought their local school districts for special services. “Every bit of your life is dragged through the mud. And what gets lost is the needs of the child.”

Parent Carlos Olamendi said he cried when he read about Generakos’ death. Although the two never met, Olamendi said he empathizes with Generakos’ experience.

Olamendi said he spent three years fighting with his school district for services for his deaf 4-year-old daughter. He ended up enrolling his daughter in Evans-Warkentien’s private school.

“I suffered the same situation,” he said. “I can understand the frustrations of that man.”

Special-education disputes often become so contentious that many end up in a “due process” hearing, which involves a state hearing officer listening to arguments from parents, school officials and even lawyers.

The proceedings are often as complicated and involved as a court trial. Some cases do go to court because a settlement cannot be reached or one party seeks an appeal.

Over the past decade, the number of special-education hearings in California has jumped 210% to about 1,700 last school year, according to a state study. Much of this also is driven by the rise in student diagnoses of attention deficit disorder and other learning disabilities, administrators said.

Parents are seeking help from professionals, including doctors and therapists, to counter an educator’s claim about student needs, said Dennis Kreil, director of pupil services at Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District. “Parents are becoming more aware and more educated,” he said.

Making a plea for change in the system, Capistrano Unified Supt. Jim Fleming added: “Something has seriously gone awry. . . . I think what happened yesterday underscores the problem.”