Hi all..

I have a question for the education/legal experts out there.

Friend of mine has a meticulously documented special needs child (adopted) due to in-utero substance abuse. For whatever reason, he and his wife have been engaged essentially in an ongoing war with their local elementary school to get him the proper support he needs and, from what I understand, is legally entitled to receive and the school is, at least theoretically, supposed to provide. At a minimum, the school doesn't want either a) the expense of the special needs student, or b) the "hassle" of a special needs student (from their view). The warfare this family has been going through over the last several months has been amazing.

Now, the particular principal involved is trying to assert a right to force the child into what's called a "Day Therapy" group (one I won't name specifically), without parental approval or consent, or give them the option of removing him from school permanently. Can the district do this? Can they force this option on a family? Supposedly the family has been told by their physicians and specialists their son needs coping and management skills, not therapy, thus this "day therapy" option isn't practical or useful - except to get their son off their district's rolls.

I feel horrible for these guys. They know their son has problems, yet the district is seemingly fighting them at every step to get him the help they are (at least in my naive view) supposed to provide. And from what they've heard from other parents, this is not the first time this particular principal (or this particular district) has waged war to get a special needs child out of their "hair," as it were. Is there any parent advocacy or support group, or even legal assistance organization specializing in this area that can help them? It seems to me they're as much at war with this principal as anything else.

I won't mention any names or even the district given the volatility of the situation (yeah, its really that bad), but I cannot fathom in the 21st century that there is this kind of fight/warfare about special needs kids. I really want to help them, but I don't know how. They're kinda at the end of their rope, short of pulling him out and homeschooling him.