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The Children of New Mexico Win a Big One

     In the fall of 1997 our family filed a 504 Civil Rights complaint against the State of New Mexico, alleging that the State discriminates against students on the basis of disability.  Specifically ,we alleged that "based upon State policies and graduation requirements, policies, procedures, or practices of local education agencies in the State may be regarded as discriminatory against students with disabilities in the receipt of high school diplomas."

We were told that this was a state law which had to be followed.  Students who graduated through the IEP process with any differentiation from the regularly required classes had to jump through several extra hoops.  Children had to wait until the spring of their senior year, when their names were brought before the local school board for "approval" to graduate.  Then the names went before the superintendent for "approval", etc.  We believed it was not in the best interest of the child to leave the final decision to persons unknowledgeable about the child, or special education issues, during the last three months of a child's public schooling.  Since a number of these people were politically elected I concerned about possible educationally irrelevant influences as well.

We believed this was a discriminatory law that placed a particular class of children at risk for failure, and singled them out for different treatment.

     We  filed a formal 504 complaint but as a class action suit.  Did you know that one person can file a class action suit and do it anonymously?  The risky part of doing so is that you can jeopardize an individual child's case as it is not necessarily resolved from the class action suit.  We were not worried, as we knew that this illegal law had to come off the books anyway.  But it is important for parents to understand the difference between an individual complaint and a class action Civil Rights complaint. 

     The children WON!! Congratulations to the very dedicated New Mexicans who worked for almost 18 months to come up with a model set of regulations for graduation.   As working document, occasional changes have been made.  You can see the latest version of Pathways to the Diploma, at New Mexico's Public Education Department's website. Go to this page, scroll down to Pathways to the Diploma, and download that pdf file.

Ó  2000, 2007 Judy Bonnell