Chesapeake, parents wrangle over who pays for school

CHESAPEAKE

The teenage girl with glasses and wavy hair settles into her seat at the head of a rectangular table. It's an important day, so she's wearing her dress with the black velvet bodice and shiny red skirt.

Anna Fuller's voice doesn't waver as she tells her story. The way she remembers it, she was teased and bullied at Greenbrier Intermediate School. The other students asked about her medical problems, called her names and gave her a hard time for missing so many days of school.

Anna would come home and cry - so much that her head would throb.

But things are different now, she explained.

Anna told her story last month during a contentious three-day hearing between her parents and Chesapeake public schools. Anna testified that she's learning more and her headaches have subsided since she moved to a private residential school near Charlottesville.

"I actually feel safe there," the 14-year-old said.

Anna's parents say they've seen the changes too, and they want their daughter to stay put. Her medical issues include hydrocephalus, a build-up of fluid inside the skull.

Stephen and Mariquita Fuller don't believe Chesapeake schools can provide the services Anna needs. So Mariquita Fuller is paying for Anna to attend Oakland School, and she wants reimbursement for the $42,000 bill.

Chesapeake school officials have instead offered what they say is the best placement for Anna - an autism spectrum disorders classroom at Oscar Smith Middle School. They acknowledge that she does not have autism.

To date, the school division has spent about $31,900 in legal costs.

It's now up to a Virginia Supreme Court-appointed hearing officer to make the call.

Virginia's school divisions served about 167,000 students who qualified for special education services as of December 2008, the latest figures available.

Federal law requires schools to provide a free appropriate public education in the least-restrictive setting. Occasionally, that requires tuition reimbursement.

In Chesapeake, 27 students are placed in private day and residential facilities, special education compliance officer Lisa Perkins said. The city's Family Assessment and Planning Team covers the cost of these placements.

When parents and a school division have different ideas about what's necessary, they turn to something called due process, a legal proceeding much like a court hearing. Most requests for such a hearing are dismissed or withdrawn, perhaps after mediation or a settlement agreement.

Of the 81 due process hearings requested last school year, nine resulted in a full hearing with a decision and 11 were pending as of June 2009, according to the state Education Department. T he school division prevailed in all but one of the nine cases.

In Anna's case, Stephen and Mariquita Fuller initiated the hearing because they disagreed with the school system's recommendation. The Fullers are divorced - the former living in Chesapeake, the latter in California.

Stephen Fuller visited Oscar Smith Middle's autism spectrum disorders classroom in February. The students didn't talk to one another, he said. One soft-spoken boy seemed easily agitated. Another student repeatedly clapped when she grew excited. They were nothing like Anna, Fuller said.

Autism is a developmental disability characterized by impaired communication and social skills. Students in Chesapeake's ASD program don't typically have that disorder, Perkins testified during the due process hearing.

The majority of participants have learning disabilities, traumatic brain injuries, emotional disabilities and "other health impairments" - the same special education category as Anna. Occasionally, the classes include students with intellectual disabilities.

"The name of the class does not describe the program," Perkins said.

At Oscar Smith, the ASD class size is small - four to seven students paired with a teacher and two assistants - and the other students would be on the same academic level as Anna, Perkins testified. She'd spend her day mostly with other students with special needs.

Anna considers herself, for the most part, a normal kid. She loves cooking, board games and art, especially drawing and painting. She spends weekends hanging out with her best friend.

But Anna had brain surgery when she was 6 months old. There have been 15 more procedures since then.

Still, she suffers from debilitating headaches as the pressure levels in her head change. The pain was so bad at times that she was prescribed methadone, a synthetic narcotic used to treat heroin addicts.

Anna's health problems have kept her out of school for months at a time. She missed 42 days at Greenbrier Intermediate during the 2007-08 year, Mariquita Fuller said.

In the spring and summer of 2008, Anna bounced between the University of Virginia Medical Center and a neurological institute in Arizona. That fall, she was homebound in North Carolina, where her mother had moved.

The family turned to Maryland's Kennedy Krieger Institute in early 2009. Anna spent four months in an intensive program for children with chronic pain.

"She is the most strong-willed, courageous and stubborn person as far as what she's gone through," Mariquita Fuller said.

On paper, Anna is a seventh-grader. In reality, her math skills are that of a sixth-grade student. She reads at the high fourth-grade level.

Anna said she's learned multiplication tables since arriving at Oakland, a school that serves children with learning disabilities, ADHD and organizational difficulties. She read her first book with real chapters - "Charlotte's Web" - and wrote a book report.

"I still haven't gotten great, but I'm doing better," she said. "In Chesapeake I didn't know what I was reading."

For the first time in her life, she's taken up horseback riding and has joined the cheerleading squad.

During last month's hearing, Perkins - the special education compliance specialist - disputed Anna's recollection of her time at Greenbrier Intermediate. She was a successful student who made the honor roll the first nine weeks, Perkins said. A former teacher recalled that Anna was comfortable and that her peers were accepting of her medical condition.

When Anna was in the hospital, her fellow students sent her a video of a field trip and a signed yearbook, Perkins said. That teacher and others interviewed didn't recall Anna being bullied.

Anna testified that she's happier now than she ever was at Greenbrier Intermediate. Her attorney, Lois Manes, argued that Anna suffers from school avoidance and school refusal because of her experience in Chesapeake.

There are other reasons Anna's parents prefer Oakland over Oscar Smith. They want her to be near her primary neurosurgeon at the University of Virginia. Plus, Anna stays so busy there that she doesn't have time to think about her headaches.

Mariquita Fuller, a nurse who now works with her husband helping the disabled obtain Social Security benefits, isn't sure what will happen if they lose. Fuller said she'll try to pay through the end of the school year.

A decision is expected by March 26.

Hattie Brown Garrow, (757) 222-5562, hattie.brown@pilotonline.com