Opinion ID: 2598222
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Bickford's Second Complaint

Text: On May 24, 1999, Bickford filed a second complaint entitled, Complaint and Request for Due Process Hearing for Violations of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The complaint included as plaintiffs (and was signed by) all eight of the plaintiffs from Bickford's original complaint; but the only defendant it named was the department's Office of Special Education Programs. In the complaint, Bickford alleged that the way the department had handled her original complaint had violated the IDEA. Though her allegations were largely limited to IDEA violations, she also requested that the department issue a finding that the Alaska Department of Education has not fulfilled its duty to provide procedural protections under Section 504. Bickford also mentioned the ADA in her second complaint but did not allege any ADA violations, and did not request that the department find that Assistant Attorney General Dahl's actions had violated the ADA. The department construed the new filing to be a complaint seeking both a due process hearing and administrative investigation; it thus responded by asking for several clarifications. It noted that administrative complaints are to be distinguished from complaints for due process hearings and that the nature of Bickford's complaint therefore needed to be clarified. It also asked Bickford to make clear whether she was bringing her new complaint on behalf of the named complainants, or whether the listed parents were asserting separate complaints on behalf of their own children. In addition, the department noted that Bickford's new complaint seemed to include allegations of ADA and section 504 violations, which the department had no authority to address. Finally, it sought to confirm its understanding of the issue(s) to be the subject of the complaint investigation stating that it believed the issue to be [d]id the Department follow the complaint procedures as required by the IDEA? Bickford replied with a two-page letter in which she clarified that she was, indeed, requesting both a complaint investigation and a due process hearing and had styled the new complaint as she had so as to give the Department maximum flexibility in addressing [her] concerns. Bickford also welcome[d] the state's remarks regarding the ADA and section 504, since they had confirmed for her that those issues could only be resolved in a federal court. Finally, Bickford confirmed that she understood the department's position to be that her complaint only sought an investigation of one issueDid the Department follow the complaint procedures as required by the IDEA?but did not confirm that this comported with her own understanding of the complaint. Bickford and the department then held a teleconference to further settle matters. During the teleconference, Bickford abandoned her request for a due process hearing, and agreed that the only issue to be investigated was whether the department had violated IDEA complaint procedures. The department thus treated Bickford's second complaint as being solely an administrative special education complaint filed under its regulations implementing the IDEA. [19] Accordingly, it appointed an investigator, Betty Barats, to perform the required investigation of Bickford's administrative complaint. In performing her investigation, Barats discerned six specific allegations of wrongdoing in Bickford's administrative complaint: [1.] A due process hearing was not completed within 45 days of the written request. [2.] A written decision was not received by the complainant within 60 days. [3.] In spite of numerous calls to the State Department of Education, not one parent received correspondence about the complaint. [4.] The letter from the Assistant Attorney General did not address the merits of the complaint. [5.] The Assistant Attorney General did not respond to a letter signed by eight parents on December 7, 1998. [6.] The State Department of Education did not have appropriate written policies, practices and procedures for the filing and handling of complaints. Barats issued twenty-two findings of fact addressing these points but found no evidence of a violation of law, though she concluded that Dahl had made one misleading statement in his letter to Bickford. Barats also determined that it was reasonable to interpret the intent [of Bickford's complaint] as either a request for a Due Process Hearing or notification of a legal action and she closed her report with a recommendation that Bickford re-submit her complaint in a less confusing form: The complainant chose to use a format that is common in the legal arena resulting in confusion around the intent of the complaint. There are procedures in place for the handling of such complaints, and the facts uncovered in this investigation do not present evidence of violation of law. This investigator would encourage the complainant to re-submit the complaint to the appropriate department, being sure to follow the instructions provided in the Notice of Procedural Safeguards: Parental Rights for Special Education booklet. Commissioner of Education Richard S. Cross adopted Barats's decision and dismissed Bickford's complaint.