Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2003 | 9:28 a.m.
For kids across Clark County, the return to school has brought excitement and anxiety. But few could be more anxious than 10-year-old Missy Doe, who remains at home as her grandparents wage a battle with the Clark County School District over her educational past and future.
The district recently appealed a state hearing officer's order that it provide Missy with in-home tutoring and compensate grandparents Mikki and Ray Cassidy for the money they spent on a private tutor after pulling the girl out of school almost a year ago.
Missy, who has been described by all concerned as a "very bright girl," has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, post-traumatic stress syndrome and oppositional defiant disorder.
The Cassidys, her legal guardians, have said that Missy's education has been compromised and her behavioral disorders exacerbated by untrained teachers and uncooperative administrators -- a problem they believe afflicts special-needs children district-wide.
Representatives of the school district contend that they have long been "ready, willing and able" to serve Missy in a classroom setting, and that her behavior had been improving steadily since she was first placed in a special education program two years ago.
"We are very concerned that this young lady is not in school," School District Compliance Officer Michael Harley said. "At least from our perspective, there is no particular reason why she should not be in school."
In the due-process decision against the school district, Hearing Officer Walter Tarantino found that Missy had been without an appropriate Individualized Educational Program, or IEP, since 2001, in violation of federal law.
District officials said Tarantino's ruling -- which ordered the district to pay for, among other things, one hour of tutoring for every day Missy attended school without an appropriate IEP -- was unfair.
"We feel strongly that the hearing officer didn't necessarily follow the law correctly," Harley said. "A lot of the ruling from our perspective was emotional."
That emotion may have resulted from the Cassidys' claim that Missy was abused physically and psychologically by her teachers, an allegation that the due-process hearing was not intended to address.
"It's a free country, and anyone can make any allegations they want," Assistant Superintendent Brad Reitz said. After "multiple investigations," Reitz said, "We cannot substantiate those allegations."
Reitz, who worked with the Cassidys to develop an IEP for Missy last summer as she prepared to transfer from John S. Park Elementary School to Hal Smith Elementary School, said he thinks that the Cassidys have not always acted with Missy's best interests in mind.
Reitz said he wouldn't be surprised if the Cassidys' motivation was financial.
"They think they're going to get some big settlement from this, and so they're trying to drag this out at her expense," Reitz added. "They're seeing dollar signs."
The Cassidys said they could hardly believe their ears the first time they were accused of trying to parlay Missy's disabilities into money.
"My jaw hit the floor," Ray Cassidy said.
By now, the Cassidys said, they're used to the criticism and can even joke about it.
"Right -- actually, we took on this child so we would have someone to argue with Clark County School District over," Ray Cassidy said.
Dealing with such allegations "has not been fun," Mikki Cassidy said, thought she added, "We're adults, and we can handle it."
But, she said, there's no gain in it for them.
"It's going to cost us more money, more time, more energy, more everything, to get them to comply,"she said.
The Cassidys said that when they started fighting for Missy, all they wanted was for someone to change the situation at John S. Park, where they said an untrained long-term substitute teacher and aide were mistreating the girl.
They said they started with the principal at John S. Park, and when they didn't receive a satisfactory response, they worked their way up the administrative ladder, finally meeting with Superintendent Carlos Garcia.
"All the people that we saw, they all said, 'What do you need?' " Mikki Cassidy said. "And we said, 'You need to listen to us. No one knows Missy better than we do.' "
Cassidy said each of the administrators either assured them that there was no problem, or promised to help but failed to follow up.
"At the last IEP meeting, when they told me to shut up, that kind of did it," she said.
Phoebe Redmond, who represented the school district in the due-process case, said the district wanted to cooperate with the Cassidys to find a mutually beneficial solution, but the Cassidys were unwilling to work toward a middle ground.
"We've tried to sit down and get information and be responsive to the (Cassidys') request for home schooling, but we were thwarted and blocked at every turn," she said. "Much of the testimony or evidence that came in at the hearing, the district heard it for the first time at the hearing."
Reitz said there are occasionally cases in which the school district finds that it is in a child's best interest to remain home from school, but this is not one of them.
"Missy is a delightful child that is very, very bright," he said. "Kids like that should not be kept isolated at home."
Reitz said that in order to develop an effective IEP for any special-needs child, "There's a great amount of trust that has to be developed between home and school. But I will say it doesn't mean, 'parent demands, school district has to provide.' "
The Cassidys said they have run out of trust for the school district. They questioned the in-house investigation into the allegations of abuse, saying they were never informed of the results.
"Whose police department did they use?" Ray Cassidy said. "How can they have the investigation turn up nothing when an aide admits it?"
The Cassidys say an aide admitted putting Missy in a closet and holding the door shut.
Harley said the school district has a "no tolerance policy" when it comes to abuse, but that any action taken against teachers must be kept confidential by law.
As for Missy, she was scheduled to resume home schooling, but a successful appeal by the school district could result in a court order for Missy to return to school later this fall.
Reitz said he hopes that happens.
"I have strong conviction about that," he said. "We've worked with her, we know her, we deal very effectively with her, and we've seen her grow ... Missy absolutely needs to be at school."
The Cassidys, too, said they hope that Missy can return to school soon, but not if it means more mistreatment.
"Missy needs to go to school, she needs to be with other children," Mikki Cassidy said. "But right now she doesn't feel safe."
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