Center of Attention
Newsletter of CHADD of Northern California
Also at: http://www.chaddnorcal.org/newsletter
13 May 2002

CHADD Works to Improve the Lives of People with
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder through Education, Advocacy,
and Support

===== In This Issue =====

About the Newsletter
Calendar of Events
Feature Article: CA High School Exit Exam Accommodations -
Class Action Lawsuit with Disability Rights Advocates
This Week: Seeking Families to Testify about Medication and Consent
Reply to this newsletter for how to write the Senate
Please Tell Us

===== About the Newsletter =====

The Center of Attention is CHADD of Northern California's bi-weekly
newsletter. The newsletter is designed to keep you up to date with
CHADD of Northern California's activities and updates in the field.
It's a step toward bringing the members closer together.

======== Calendar of Events ==========

Marin - 5/14/2002, Tues. 7-9pm
Ask the Doctor: Michael Freeman, MD -- Dr. Freeman is a psychiatrist
and researcher of national prominence with a special interest in
ADHD, mood and anxiety disorders. He has a private practice in
Kentfeild.
Town Center Corte Madera Community Room, Corte Madera - Contact:
Beverlee: 415-789-9464
============================
Contra Costa - 5/15/2002, Wed. 7-9 pm
Walnut Creek Topical Meeting: Managing Your Stress -- Ongoing,
confidential support groups for Adults with ADHD
Kaiser Mental Health, Walnut Creek - Contact: Donna Love: 925-687-4324
============================
Online - 5/15/2002, Wed. 6-8:00 PM PST
Ned Hallowell, MD - A Walk in the Rain with a Brain: Explaining ADHD
to Children -
CHADD Online Chat, Internet - Contact: Message Line: 510-291-2950
============================
Santa Clara - 5/15/2002, Wed. Reg: 7pm, Meet 7:30pm
Harry D. Verby, MD -- Help for Those with Complex ADD Problems
Also: Nominations for Board of Directors for 2002-2003
Friends Meeting House, Palo Alto - Contact: Silicon Valley Warmline:
650-949-5472
============================
Yolo - 5/16/2002, Thu. Lending Library 7:15 pm; 7:30 pm to 8:30 pm
County Meeting -- Support Group Discussion or Speakers
Davis Branch, Yolo County Library, Davis - Contact: Yolo County
CHADD: 530-750-3929
============================
Marin - 5/21/2002, Tues. 7-9pm
Drop in Support Group -- for Adults with ADHD and Significant Others
Marin Community Mental Health, Greenbrae - Contact: Beverlee: 415-789-9464
============================
Santa Clara - 5/22/2002, Wed. 7:15 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.
Kitty Petty ADD/LD Institute Meeting -- Traumatic Brain Injuries and
Eligibility for Benefits - Nancy K. McCombs, PhD, JD
Friends Meeting House, Palo Alto - Contact: Kitty Petty ADD/LD
Institute: 650-329-9443
============================
San Francisco - 5/23/2002, Thu. 7-9pm
Co-Existing Conditions - Descartes Li, MD -- Dr. Li is a specialist
in the city treating depression and bipolar disorder. These
conditions can accompany ADHD. He is affiliated with UCSF and has a
private practice on Clement Street.
CPMC Pacific Campus, San Francisco - Contact: San Francisco Warmline:
415-442-1944
============================
Alameda - 5/23/2002, Thu. 7:30 pm - 9 pm
The Origins and Validity of High Stakes Testing. The Rights of
Students with Disabilities Under Current Law. The Status of the Class
Action Suit Filed on Behalf of Students with Disabilities in
California over the High School Exit Exam. -- East Bay LDA is hosting
a talk on high stakes testing and the current class action law suit.
Sid Wolinsky, Esq., the lead attorney for Disability Rights Advocates
(DRA), will be our guest speaker. Suggested Donation is $10 for
non-LDA Members
Berkeley Friends Church - 1600 Sacramento Street at Cedar., Berkeley
- Contact: eblda@... or 510-433-7934
============================
Marin - 5/25/2002, Wed. 9:30-11:30am
Support Group for Parents of Children / Teens with ADHD -- Share your
concerns with a parent who really understands.
30 Catalpa Ave., Mill Valley - Contact: Victoria Vogel: 415-383-6048
============================
Contra Costa - 6/5/2002, Wed. 7-9 pm
Walnut Creek Topical Meeting: Setting Priorities -- Ongoing,
confidential support groups for Adults with ADHD
Kaiser Mental Health, Walnut Creek - Contact: Donna Love: 925-687-4324
============================
Sonoma - 6/5/2002, Wed. 7 - 9 pm
Re-Programming the AD/HD Mind - Mondell Brazell, Psy.D. -- Dr.
Brazell brings years of experience as a school psychologist,
therapist, teacher and lecturer to the subject of coping with life
with AD/HD, learning disabilities, mental illness and trauma. Using
conventional and alternative medicine, neurolinguistic programming,
and even the power of music, this lively and interactive presentation
will send you home with new tools to help yourself and your loved
ones in a loving and compassionate way.
Kaiser Hospital Building, Santa Rosa - Contact: Thora Lares: 707-765-4863
============================
San Francisco - 6/5/2002, Wed. 7:30pm
Women's ADD Support Group -- Please Call Lynn to confirm times and
locations before attending.
CPMC Davies Campus, San Francisco - Contact: Lynn: 415-621-1078
============================
Marin - 6/11/2002, Tues. 7-9pm
Ask the Coach -- Three coaches to describe how coaching helps those with ADHD.
Town Center Corte Madera Community Room, Corte Madera - Contact:
Beverlee: 415-789-9464
============================
Online - 6/12/2002, Wed. 6-8:00 PM PST
Russell Barkley, PhD - Recent Advances in Understanding and Managing ADHD --
CHADD Online Chat, Internet - Contact: Message Line: 510-291-2950
============================
Alameda - 6/12/2002, Wed. 7 - 9 pm
Tri-Valley Parent Support Meeting --
Thomas J. Hart Middle School, Pleasanton - Contact: JoAnn Matone: 925-484-2173
============================

===== Feature Article ======

The following article has been published with kind permission from
LDA California (http://www.ldaca.org/) and the follow up is from
Disability Rights Advocates (http://www.dralegal.org/)

Learning Disabilities Association of California CAHSEE Class Action
Lawsuit Leads U.S. Federal Court To Issue Preliminary Injunction
Protecting Children with Learning Disabilities from Harm.

Jo Behm, M.S., RN; President LDA-CA

February 21, 2002. In response to the class action lawsuit filed last
spring by Disability Rights Advocates (Oakland) on behalf of three
student plaintiffs and the Learning Disabilities Association of
California (LDA-CA), U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer of San
Francisco issued a preliminary injunction February 21, 2002,
requiring state education officials to respect the rights and legal
safeguards of students with disabilities by permitting testing
accommodations on the upcoming March, 2002 California high school
exit exam (CAHSEE) consistent with federal law. The issue of how the
exam results will ultimately affect graduation eligibility will be
decided during future deliberations between parties. For immediate
relief and protection from the possibility of 'irreparable injury'
the court ordered school districts to provide a copy of the Appendix
below to all parents and guardians of children with an IEP or Section
504 Plan. Disseminating this information is urgent since the test
date was less than two weeks away at the time of the ruling.

Additionally, parents need to convene IEP and 504 Plan meetings as
soon as possible to address test accommodations and/or alternative
assessments should their children fail the March test. There will be
eight more opportunities for students in the class of 2004 who fail
the test in March to take the 3-day exam before their hopeful
graduation date. The court recognizes that parents and school
personnel have not had sufficient time to consider the needs of
individual students, appropriate accommodations, alternatives, and
consequences of not receiving a real diploma, such as scholarships,
college options, career choices, jobs, advancement, or even
motivation and likelihood of remaining in a public school after
repeated exam failures in spite of other accomplishments.

This ruling and future decisions of this class action suit will
impact hundreds of thousands of students in California and
potentially affect over two million students nationally with learning
disabilities and other documented handicaps that substantially
interfere with their ability to demonstrate curriculum mastery via a
standardized test format. In March 2001, 82% (25,480) of California's
high school freshmen with IEP plans failed the English-Language Arts
portion of the exam and 91% (27,754) failed the mathematics portion.
LDA-CA contends that most LD children having average or above
intelligence should be eligible for a genuine high school diploma
after 13 years (K-12) and approximately 12,000 hours in classrooms if
they are taught by competent teachers and meet all other graduation
requirements such as credit hours, specified courses, and passing
grades. LDA-CA is opposed to a single measure (exam) superseding and
negating all other academic accomplishments and personal milestones.

NOTICE TO ALL PARENTS AND GUARDIANS OF CHILDREN WITH AN
INDIVIDUALIZED EDUCATION PROGRAM (IEP) OR A SECTION 504 PLAN

The case Juleus Chapman, et al. v. California Department of
Education, et al., No. C 01-1780 CRB is currently pending in the
United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
Plaintiffs in the case, a group of learning disabled students, claim
that the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE), to be given to
tenth graders on March 5, 6, and 7, 2002, violates rights guaranteed
to learning disabled students under federal law. The Court has issued
an Order that requires the March CAHSEE to be administered in
accordance with the following procedures:

Students shall be permitted to take the CAHSEE with any
accommodations or modifications their IEP or Section 504 plan
specifically provides for the CAHSEE. If a student's IEP or Section
504 plan does not address the CAHSEE specifically, the student shall
be permitted to take the CAHSEE with any accommodations or
modifications their IEP or Section 504 plan provides for standardized
testing. If a student's IEP or Section 504 plan does not address
either the CAHSEE specifically or standardized testing generally, the
student shall be permitted to take the CAHSEE with any accommodations
or modifications their IEP or Section 504 plan provides for general
classroom testing.

Some of the accommodations and modifications to which students are
entitled under this Order, pursuant to (1) above, have already been
approved by the State. With regard to others, the State has
determined that they will "invalidate" the test score and a waiver
will be required before a diploma is granted. While this Order
requires that students be permitted to take the CAHSEE with any
accommodations or modifications defined in (1) above, the Court has
not yet decided how taking the CAHSEE with a modification not
approved by the State will affect the receipt of a diploma. A student
may choose to forego any accommodation or modification to which he or
she is entitled under this Order.

If a student's IEP or Section 504 plan specifically provides for an
alternate assessment in lieu of the CAHSEE, an alternate assessment
shall be provided. If a student's IEP or Section 504 plan does not
specifically address the CAHSEE but provides for an alternate
assessment in lieu of general standardized testing, an alternate
assessment to the CAHSEE shall be provided. If a student's IEP or
Section 504 plan does not specifically address the CAHSEE or
standardized testing but provides for an alternate assessment in lieu
of general classroom testing, an alternate assessment to the CAHSEE
shall be provided. Students entitled to an alternate assessment shall
not be required to take the CAHSEE, but may do so if they chose.

While this Order requires that an alternate assessment be provided to
certain students, the Court has not yet decided how an alternate
assessment will affect the receipt of a diploma.

In order for a student covered by this Order to avail himself or
herself of any rights under this Order, no additional IEP or Section
504 team meeting shall be necessary.

FOOTNOTE 1

California has defined an "accommodation" as a change in the CAHSEE
(in format, student response, timing, or other attribute) that does
not invalidate the score achieved. California has defined a
"modification" as a change in the CAHSEE that invalidates the test
score because it fundamentally alters what the test measures.

=============

Follow Up, By Liz Mazur

Disability Rights Advocates (DRA)

Note: This article is the second follow-up of an earlier article,
LDA-CA Joins Class-Action Lawsuit

The case challenging the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE)
was filed as a class action in federal court in San Francisco on May
8, 2001. The plaintiffs are three students with learning disabilities
and the Learning Disabilities Association of California (LDA-CA). The
lawyers for the plaintiffs are Disability Rights Advocates (DRA) and
Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann, and Bernstein, LLP. The "Complaint," which
initiated the lawsuit, is available on DRA's website at
www.dralegal.org/cases.

The case challenges the CAHSEE because the State of California has
failed to: j implement effective standards and procedures for
ensuring that students with disabilities obtain the reasonable
accommodations they need on the exam; k align the subject matter
tested on the exam with what students with disabilities are actually
taught at school; and l devise an alternate assessment, as required
by law, for students with disabilities who cannot demonstrate their
skills on the standard assessment, even with accommodations.

The plaintiffs have recently filed two important motions in the
lawsuit. First, they filed a "motion for class certification," in
which they request Federal District Judge Charles R. Breyer to allow
the lawsuit to proceed as a class action on behalf of all students
with disabilities who have been or will be required to take the Exit
Exam.

The plaintiffs simultaneously filed a "motion for summary
adjudication" with respect to the State's failure to implement an
alternate assessment to the CAHSEE. In a "motion for summary
adjudication," the judge is asked to decide only one or some of the
legal issues in a case, usually when the evidence is overwhelming and
uncontradicted. In the motion, Plaintiffs argue that the State's
failure to implement, or develop any plans to implement, an alternate
assessment to the CAHSEE is a violation of federal disability rights
law, including the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

In the meantime, the plaintiffs continue to encourage the State to
meet with them out of court to negotiate a comprehensive solution
that is fair for California's students with disabilities.
Unfortunately, however, recent actions of the California State Board
of Education still show extreme hostility toward students with
disabilities and profound disrespect for their rights.

On November 8, 2001, the Board adopted regulations regarding
accommodations for the CAHSEE. These regulations specifically
prohibit audio or oral presentation of the English Language Arts
portion of the test and the use of calculators on the math portion of
the test, even though these accommodations are in the IEP and 504
plans of numerous students with disabilities. Furthermore, if a
student's IEP or 504 plan calls for another type of testing
accommodation that is not explicitly permitted in the new Board
regulations, the student must depend upon the school district
submitting a request for the accommodation to State bureaucracy, with
little certainty that the needed accommodation will ever be allowed.
By depriving disabled students of accommodations that they have used
and relied upon in the classroom for years, these regulations are
particularly damaging and unfair. Moreover, the Board has shown its
disregard for the welfare of students with disabilities by hastily
adopting these regulations without studies or supporting data from
experts in the field of special education or learning disabilities.

In an apparent recognition that the new regulations limiting
accommodations are unlawful in many respects, the Board has concocted
a proposed "waiver" policy for the CAHSEE. It appears that the
proposed policy might hold out the possibility for some students to
take the exam with the otherwise prohibited accommodations and obtain
a high school diploma, so long as the school district upon the
student's passing of the exam with the accommodation makes a request
to the Board of Education for the exam not to count. The proposed
waiver option is bizarre, confusing and convoluted. It is unlikely to
make the situation acceptable for the great majority of California's
disabled students. Rather, the proposal appears to be an attempt by
the Board to convert the civil right to accommodations, alternate
assessments and fair testing, into a mere possibility that a
student's school district might at some point, if it decides to
submit a petition, obtain an exemption from the unfair test. The
waiver policy proposal is hopelessly bureaucratic and certain to
further stigmatize students with disabilities.

There continue to be serious concerns about the untimely nature of
the Board's policies and the impact they will have on the March,
2002, Exam. There is already considerable confusion among parents,
teachers, and school administrators over both the state and content
of the reasonable accommodations policy. The accommodations
regulations adopted by the Board make the March, 2002, administration
of the Exam even more troublesome. There is not enough time for
students with disabilities to adequately make use of any new policy
addressing reasonable accommodations on the Exit Exam, even if the
policy did not have all the deficiencies of the current one. It would
take several months or even years to disseminate the new regulations
to parents and districts, train school personnel on implementing the
regulations, create and distribute new forms, educate parents and
students about their rights, convene IEP teams, and process
applications and appeals for accommodations. Simply put, neither the
tests, nor the students will be ready for the Exit Exam in March,
2002.

The first administration of the CAHSEE was last Spring. The failure
rate for students with disabilities on that exam was 90% (87.6% of
all students with disabilities failed the math exam; 90.6% of females
with disabilities failed the math exam). We can probably expect these
rates to increase in 2002 under the new accommodations policy. These
high failure rates are doing irreparable harm to students with
disabilities. Forcing them to go through another round of testing
without accommodations or alternate assessments is like asking a
student in a wheelchair to climb steps over and over without
providing a ramp. To proceed on the current timetable and with the
current proposed regulations is to invite educational disaster and to
take a giant step backward in the education of California's children.

The California State Board of Education needs to hear from parents
about the discriminatory and harmful policies it is considering and
adopting. Parents should contact members of the Board or attend the
Board's December 6th meeting in Sacramento and voice their concerns.
Students with disabilities should have a fair chance to earn a high
school diploma by using accommodations and modifications in their IEP
and 504 plans, including alternate assessments.

Also, there is a need for parents or guardians of students with
disabilities to submit affidavits to the federal court about their
students' experience with respect to the CAHSEE. The Federal Judge
needs to know from those most directly affected that the CAHSEE and
the accommodations polices adopted by Board are having a severe
negative impact on students with disabilities. If you are interested
in submitting such a statement to the court, please contact Elizabeth
Mazur at: (510) 451-8644 or emazur@...

Unfortunately, DRA does not have the resources to offer advice on
individual situations. However, the more they know about what you are
experiencing, the better able they are to achieve meaningful reform
on a systematic level.

See our schedule for upcoming meeting 5/23/02 at LDA on this issue.

======== This Week ==========

Seeking Families to Testify about Stimulant Medication and Informed Consent

California's Senate Committee on Health and Human Services will be
having hearings this Wednesday 5/15/02 to discuss implementing a
cumbersome new "informed consent" process. It will single out
stimulants and ADHD to require a special form be signed by a parent
before a prescription is filled.

Already, doctors are often reluctant to prescribe stimulants because
of the higher level of fear about their use. Unfortunately this
sometimes leads to the recommendation of less effective treatment.

If you have a story about informed consent, we would like to talk to
you about what you think might be a way to inform parents without
scaring them off.

We also can have a large impact by writing letters. To be counted in
the report of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, your
letter would need to arrive by Monday, 5/13/02 before noon. It is
still helpful after that also. For info on how to write a letter to
the committee, you can contact our public policy group just by
replying to this newsletter.

===== Please Tell Us! =====

We thank members for their responses to the Newsletter. Any comments,
suggestions, or criticisms will be greatly appreciated. Please
continue to help us make this newsletter more beneficial to you all.

We also invite readers to share their experiences with us and other
members. Please feel free to write to us about anything that you
would like to see published.

You can e-mail your comments to us at CHADD_Dimples@....
Simply replying to this e-mail will also send your message to the
right place.