Written State Complaints

I have been receiving a lot of mask issues but I just got a new one that has my thought process jumping all over the place. Parents are claiming that the other kids in the class wearing a mask are violating their child’s FAPE. It has to do with a claim of the student needing to see people’s faces (e.g., lip reading) for receptive language/ communication. Has anyone seen anything like this yet?

Are Educational Interpreters considered mandatory reporters for students (discussing abuse, neglect, etc.) and if so, would interpreters acting as substitutes also be considered mandatory reporters?

From the time you send opening correspondence, how many days do you give the district to submit their response?

For the states that require the LEA to send a copy of the response to the complainant, is this in your state regulation or is it agency policy? Tagged on to a state's response to wuestion about deadlines for submitting additional information.

1.) In the initial notice letter to the complainant, do you give a deadline as to when additional information can be submitted? 2.) Do you provide the complainant with the LEA's response once it is received by your office? 3.) If yes, do you provide the response only? Or response and supporting evidence?

I was wondering what is our authority to address other issues that come to light during a corrective action plan review.  The issues are related to the CAP although they are not the exact issue that was investigated.

If a parent files a complaint, but within the complaint it is also indicated that once the violation was brought to the attention of the school, the school promptly corrected it, do you accept it as an issue to investigate? 

Under 34 CFR § 300.502(e), if an independent educational evaluation is at public expense, the criteria under which the evaluation is obtained, including the location of the evaluation and the qualifications of the examiner, must be the same as the criteria that the public agency uses when it initiates an evaluation, to the extent those criteria are consistent with the parent's right to an independent educational evaluation. Except for the criteria identified immediately above, a public agency may not impose conditions or timelines related to obtaining an independent educational evaluation.

How are you deciding the issue of whether an IEP has been implemented when regularly scheduled services on the IEP were not provided due to 1) school holiday and 2) school activities (e.g. a school assembly)? What do you consider “regularly scheduled” (one a week versus 4 X month)? How do you determine comp ed (per se versus materiality)? What are you citing as a basis for your decisions (Balkman, Clarke, etc.)?

Is it permissible for the LEA to require an evaluator (who will be conducting the IEE at public expense) to maintain insurance coverage or is it imposing a condition that the LEA is not allowed to do under IDEA?