Written State Complaints

Are there any states who publish redacted decisions that would be willing to share their written policies/procedures on the subject?

Do other states make state complaint findings public and produce findings letters when a formal request is received? 

I would be interested in knowing if anyone has some clear policies or guidelines on how they address the issue when a parent asks for a copy of the district’s written response, provided to the SEA, to a state administrative complaint.  For example, typically, the district might produce 2 separate documents. One would be an index of certain student records, to which parent would clearly be entitled to a copy. The second would be written narrative/ legal arguments authored by district’s legal counsel. The district might also produce written responses, through counsel, to specific questions from the SEA. My instinct tells me to generally direct the parent to ask the district, and rely on the fact that the district knows what it must produce, and gives the district the option of waiving or not waiving its own atty/client privilege as to the rest. I am not totally sure on this,  but I do not think the legal argument materials constitute student records under FERPA and also not sure whether the SEA is the “maintainer” of the records anyway such that SEA would be required to produce.

What does your state complaint process look like? What quality control activities does your state complaints team use to ensure accuracy in the findings of fact, legal defensibility in the conclusions, and grammatical accuracy within the investigative report? If your state has publications and/or statute/rule associated with the special education complaints process, could you please provide links to those resources?

What does your state complaint process look like? What quality control activities does your state complaints team use to ensure accuracy in the findings of fact, legal defensibility in the conclusions, and grammatical accuracy within the investigative report?If your state has publications and/or statute/rule associated with the special education complaints process, could you please provide links to those resources?

We are currently revising our internal procedures, as well as building a new database for our dispute resolution. When receiving complaints and determining whether they are sufficient, do your procedures include that you always call the parent to confirm receipt and review the complaint? Or, if a complaint is insufficient in its face, do you believe it is okay to only send a letter explaining that the complaint is insufficient and the reasons why?

Is it required for states to provide information about their hearing officers, including short biographies or other qualifications? I see that many states do have this information on their websites. 

Would you mind sharing your complaint procedures/policies or providing a link to them?

I have a conundrum with a new complaint we just received regarding 34 CFR 300.321(a)(6) At the discretion of the parent or the agency, other individuals who have knowledge or special expertise regarding the child, including related services personnel as appropriate; In our state we have a rule that identifies a paraprofessional as one of those other individuals who have knowledge. So, my problem is I received a complaint arguing that the parent has the discretion to invite the para, the district is saying that as one of their employees they have the discretion to say no. Has anyone had this come up before?

When a complaint comes in, we assign it a case number and open a file on our database. The complaint is reviewed and the complainant is called to clarify issues/claims, as needed. Upon review, if the complaint does not meet the requirements of a complaint (e.g. alleges something that, even if true, is not an IDEA violation), the open complaint is dismissed and closed.  Is this how your state would proceed (open and then dismiss)?  Or, using my example, would the complaint not even be opened in the first place?