Source: https://www.ada.gov/olmstead/documents/gnets_complaint.html
Timestamp: 2018-09-21 12:55:35
Document Index: 559666352

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 35', '§ 160', '§ 24', '§ 1396', '§ 12102', '§ 12132', '§ 12132']

Complaint filed by the United States against the State of Georgia
Mental health and therapeutic educational services and supports, such as Functional Behavioral Assessments, Behavioral Intervention Plans, and individualized positive behavioral supports, can be provided in integrated settings, including general education classrooms in students' zoned schools.
Many other children with disabilities are at serious risk of future placement in the GNETS Program due to the State's administration of its highly segregated mental health and therapeutic educational service system for children.
The State discriminates against students with behavior-related disabilities in or at risk of placement in the GNETS Program by denying them equal opportunity to access and benefit from the educational services available to students throughout the State who are not in the GNETS Program. Educational services and supports needed to help students succeed can be provided to students with behavior-related disabilities in integrated settings, including general education classrooms in students' zoned schools. See, e.g., https://www.ada.gov/olmstead/documents/gnets_lof.pdf at 11, 18-19.
The State, through the GNETS Program, denies students with disabilities the full opportunity to interact with their peers without disabilities, which can have a lasting impact on the students' future opportunities for academic achievement.
The Supreme Court has held that Title II prohibits the unjustified segregation of individuals with disabilities in the provision of public services. See Olmstead,527 U.S. at 597. Unjustified isolation of persons with disabilities who, with reasonable modifications, could participate in an integrated setting is unlawful discrimination because (1) segregation “perpetuates unwarranted assumptions that persons so isolated are incapable or unworthy of participating in community life,” and (2) segregation “severely diminishes the everyday life activities of individuals, including family relations, social contacts, work options, economic independence, educational advancement, and cultural enrichment.” Id. at 600-01.
Public entities are required to provide community-based services when (a) such services are appropriate, (b) the affected persons do not oppose community-based treatment, and (c) community-based services can be reasonably accommodated, taking into account the resources available to the entity and the needs of other persons with disabilities. See id. at 607. Finally, Title II’s regulations also address discrimination in the form of inequality in services, programs, or activities provided by public entities. Public entities may not (1) “[d]eny a qualified individual with a disability the opportunity to participate in or benefit from the aid, benefit or service;” (2) “[a]fford a qualified individual with a disability an opportunity to participate in or benefit from an aid, benefit or service that is not equal to that afforded others;” (3) “[p]rovide a qualified individual with a disability with an aid, benefit or service that is not as effective in affording equal opportunity to obtain the same result, to gain the same benefit, or to reach the same level of achievement as that provided to others;” or (4) “[o]therwise limit a qualified individual with a disability in the enjoyment of any right, privilege, advantage, or opportunity enjoyed by others receiving the aid, benefit or service.” Id. § 35.130(b)(1)(i)-(iii), (vii).
A. The State's System for Providing Educational Services and Supports to Students with Behavior-Related Disabilities
The Georgia Department of Education (“GaDOE”) oversees public education throughout the State, ensuring that laws and regulations pertaining to education are followed and that State and federal money is properly allocated and appropriated.
The State, through the GaDOE, plans, funds, administers, licenses, manages, and oversees the GNETS Program. It determines which mental health and therapeutic educational services and supports to provide, who will provide such services, in what settings services will be provided, and how to allocate and manage the State and federal funds earmarked for such services.
The State, through the GaDOE, sets the criteria for students’ eligibility for GNETS and establishes the requirements for students’ entry into and transition out of GNETS. See Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. § 160-4-7-.15(2); Ga. Dept. of Ed., GNETS Operations Manual at 9, 11-12 (Jan. 2014) (the “GNETS Operations Manual”), available at http://www.gadoe.org/Curriculum-Instruction-and-Assessment/Special-Education-Services/Documents/GNETS/FY14 Operations Manual.pdf. The State also has designated an employee to oversee the GNETS Program as well as several employees to oversee implementation of Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (“PBIS”) across the State.
Even though mental health and therapeutic educational services and supports can be provided in integrated general education classrooms, the State, including GaDOE, has selected to plan, fund, administer, license, manage, and oversee those services almost exclusively in segregated GNETS centers and classrooms. As a result, local school districts often must send students with behavior-related disabilities to GNETS for such services and supports because the state will not make available the same services in integrated settings.
The Georgia Department of Community Health (“DCH”) is the State agency responsible for Medicaid and PeachCare for Kids®, which is the State’s program to implement the federal Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic, and Treatment (“EPSDT”) program that funds Medicaid services for eligible children across the State and the United States. Many mental health and therapeutic educational services and supports, including services and supports provided through the GNETS Program, are reimbursable through the EPSDT program that is administered by DCH.
The Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities (“DBHDD”) is the State agency providing policies, programs, and services for people with mental illness, substance use disorders, and developmental disabilities. DBHDD is responsible for many of the supports and services that are needed by students with disabilities placed in GNETS and delivered through the State-managed care system that DBHDD administers in part. See https://dbhdd.georgia.gov.
During the 2014-2015 school year, the State reported that it served approximately 4,600 students, pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, with behavior-related disabilities in the GNETS Program (the “GNETS Population”). There were approximately 125 pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students in the GNETS Program.
To be eligible for GNETS services, a student must be a child with an emotional and behavioral disorder “based upon documentation of the severity of the duration, frequency, and intensity of one or more of the characteristics of the disability category of emotional and behavioral disorders (“EBD”),” or “[o]ther eligible students with disabilities … [where] the frequency, intensity, and duration of their behaviors is such that [GNETS] placement is deemed by those students’ IEP teams to be appropriate to meet the students’ needs.” See GNETS Operations Manual at 1. According to State data, most of the students served in the GNETS Program have a diagnosis of EBD.
GNETS is divided into 24 regional programs serving all of the State’s public school districts. The Program currently serves all of the State’s 181 school districts, with some regional programs individually serving over a dozen school districts. See GNETS Program Directory FY 16, available at https://www.gadoe.org/Curriculum-Instruction-and-Assessment/Special-Education-Services/Documents/GNETS/FY%2016%20GNETS%20Programs.pdf.
According to State data, in the 2014-2015 school year, students from more than half of all Georgia public schools (1,355 schools) entered the GNETS Program.
For fiscal year 2016-2017, the State allocated over $72 million in State and federal dollars to the GNETS Program through a line item in the State budget separate from the State’s funding of public schools. See HB 751 FY 2016-17 Appropriations Bill, § 24.9, available at https://opb.georgia.gov/sites/opb.georgia.gov/files/related_files/site_page/FY_2017_Final%20Bill_Governor%20Signed.pdf.
More than two-thirds of all students in the GNETS Program attend school in regional GNETS Centers, which are generally located in self-contained buildings that serve only students with disabilities from multiple school districts. The GNETS Centers severely restrict interactions between students with disabilities and their peers in general education, depriving students in GNETS of the opportunity to benefit from the stimulation and range of interactions that occur in general education schools, including opportunities to learn with, observe, and be influenced by their non-disabled peers.
Other students in the GNETS Program attend school in regional GNETS Classrooms, which serve only students with disabilities and, although the Classrooms are located within general education school buildings, they are often not the students' zoned general education schools. The GNETS Classrooms may also be located at schools that serve different grade configurations than the grades in which the students in GNETS are enrolled (e.g., a 4th grade student in GNETS may be in a GNETS Classroom in a general education high school).
Even in GNETS Classrooms that are physically located in general education school buildings, many students placed in the GNETS Classrooms are unnecessarily segregated from their non-disabled peers because the GNETS Classrooms are often located in separate wings or isolated parts of school buildings, some of which are locked and/or fenced off from spaces used for general education programs.
The State's administration of the GNETS Program results in inequality of educational opportunities for students in GNETS. Students in GNETS generally do not receive grade-level instruction that meets Georgia's State Standards like other students in general education classrooms. Rather, particularly at the high school level, students in the GNETS Centers and Classrooms often receive only computer-based instruction. By contrast, other students in general education classrooms generally receive instruction from teachers certified in the subject matters they are teaching, and in the case of students with disabilities in general education classrooms, also from teachers certified in special education.
Students in GNETS also often lack access to electives, facilities, and extracurricular activities, such as after-school athletics or clubs, that are available to other students in general education settings. The unequal educational opportunities offered to students in the GNETS Program are specific to and a consequence of students' disability status and concomitant unnecessary segregation.
Yet, even despite the State's limited plans to move and place some GNETS students into other locations, a lack of equal educational opportunities persists for such students, and will continue to persist, if and when students are moved from one segregated GNETS facility to another. Endemic to all segregated GNETS programs is a lack of access to equal educational opportunities, as—unlike other students in general education settings— students in segregated GNETS settings lack opportunities for grade-level instruction, certified teachers, access to elective and extracurricular activities, and classroom learning complemented by interaction with non-disabled peers. As such, unequal educational opportunities remain a concrete and serious consequence of segregation regardless of the physical integrity of the building that students are placed in.
While currently provided in segregated GNETS settings, these services, regardless of how they are funded by the State, can be provided in integrated settings, such as general education classrooms, community-based settings near schools, and students' homes. Providing mental health and therapeutic educational services and supports in integrated settings would allow students with disabilities in need of those services access to meaningful interactions with non-disabled peers.
Reasonable modifications to the State's system for providing mental health and therapeutic educational services and supports can be accomplished by operating a statewide service system that properly evaluates students' individual service needs and whether those needs can be met in integrated general education classes or schools; applying entrance and exit standards for the GNETS Program that are appropriate, clearly identified, equitably applied, and shared with all students and families; and redirecting the State's resources to offer mental health and therapeutic educational services and supports for students with behavior-related disabilities in the most integrated setting appropriate for them where they may access equal educational opportunities.
Students in the GNETS Centers and Classrooms could be served by the State in more integrated settings with supports without fundamentally altering the State's service system. Integrated and appropriate educational services and supports for the GNETS Population already exist within the State's educational service system. The State is independently obligated to provide many of these services to Medicaid-eligible children pursuant to the EPSDT requirements of the Medicaid Act. 42 U.S.C. §§ 1396a(a)(43), 1396d(a)(4), 1396d(r)(1)-(5). If administered appropriately in integrated settings, these educational services and supports would be both cost-effective and capable of meeting the needs of these students with disabilities.
The actions needed to remedy the State's mental health and therapeutic educational service system could be achieved through the redirection, reallocation, expansion, and coordination of existing resources.
THE UNITED STATES' INVESTIGATION
On July 15, 2015, the United States issued a findings letter to Governor Nathan Deal and Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens, notifying the State that it failed to comply with Title II of the ADA by unnecessarily segregating students with disabilities from their peers without disabilities through the GNETS Program, placing other students at risk of such segregation, and providing opportunities to its students in the GNETS Program that are unequal to those provided to other students not in the GNETS Program. The letter reported in detail the findings of the United States' investigation, provided the State notice of its failure to comply with the ADA, and outlined the steps necessary for the State to meet its obligations pursuant to federal law. The letter further advised the State that, in the event that a resolution could not be reached voluntarily, the Attorney General may initiate a lawsuit pursuant to the ADA.
Members of the GNETS Population are persons with disabilities covered by Title II of the ADA, and they are qualified to participate in the Defendant's services, programs, or activities. 42 U.S.C. §§ 12102, 12131(2).
Defendant has violated and continues to violate the ADA by administering its mental health and therapeutic educational service system in a manner that fails to serve students in the GNETS Program in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs and puts other students with disabilities at risk of unnecessary segregation in GNETS. The State further violates the ADA by failing to reasonably modify the State's policies, practices, and procedures to avoid such discrimination and unnecessary segregation. 42 U.S.C. § 12132.
Providing services to students with disabilities in or at risk of entering the GNETS Program in more integrated settings can be accomplished through reasonable modifications to the State's programs and services.
The State's actions constitute discrimination in violation of Title II of the ADA, 42 U.S.C. § 12132, and its implementing regulations at 28 C.F.R. pt. 35.
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