From the Villager Newspaper<\/p>\n
Deering resident Ed Naile, representing Joel and Cynthia Durham confronted the Hillsboro-Deering school board on Thursday July 24 with their last request for non-public meeting minutes regarding their son, Joel Jr., who is severely handicapped with Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome, a form of epilepsy.<\/strong><\/p>\n The board again refused to give up the non-public minutes, and the Durhams have filed a motion in Superior Court to argue their case for retrieving the non-public minutes. They are waiting for the District to be served and for a court date.<\/p>\n During public comment at the Aug. 4 school board meeting, Cynthia Durham read a letter that in part addressed the problems of having Joel Jr. attend the high school:<\/p>\n \u201cWill it take Joel jumping or falling over the railing on the ramp in the high school, a seizure where he gets injured in a classroom that is too small, or an injury to another student or staff to see that moving him into the high school is not only a bad idea but a liability to the school?\u201d she asked. \u201cWill it take other parents calling to say that classrooms were cleared or the hall was blocked because Joel had a seizure again? On May 2, when the ambulance was called for Joel, they blocked off a section of the school for the medics. How many times will the students, parents and staff have to put up with that?\u201d<\/p>\n The Durhams also said they would be preparing charges of slander<\/strong> against school district counsel Margaret-Ann Moran for stating to a Department of Education Hearings Officer that the Durhams did not administer Joel Jr.\u2019s medication on May 2, the morning he came to meet with district staff and had a grande mal seizure and had to be taken by ambulance to Concord Hospital.<\/p>\n According to the Durhams and Joel\u2019s doctors, \u201che cannot speak, has potential choking problems associated with swallowing food which is not properly prepared\u201d and needs \u201cconstant supervision so that he does not wander into danger, have an unmonitored or medicated seizure, or choke on food or an object. He is unsteady on his feet and has the potential of falling, whether on his own or from a drop seizure, and harming himself through a fall onto an object.\u201d<\/p>\n Two doctors have said Joel Jr. would be better off at Crotched Rehabilitation Center, where he has been since he was ten years old. He is now 17. While living in Henniker, that school district felt he should be at Crotched Mountain. But when the Durhams moved to Deering in the fall of 2007, the Hillsboro-Deering school district decided they wanted to keep Joel Jr. in the district\u2019s new special needs program.<\/p>\n Joel Jr.\u2019s seizures have increased dramatically over the past year. He is likely to have multiple seizures daily.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m back in front of the board to give you a little refresher on Joel Durham Jr., special needs student,\u201d Naile began at the July 24 school board meeting.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not the policy of the school board to discuss students in public,\u201d chairman Kathy Pepper responded, cutting him off. \u201cThe school board is also not part of the Special Education due process.\u201d<\/p>\n The Durhams have taken the issue to the Department of Education to argue their points of the issue more than once, which is the due process Pepper is referring to. The Durhams are presently in a third round of due process with the Department of Education. If they lose this appeal, there will be no other appeal they can make, and Joel Jr. will then either be placed in the high school, or the Durham\u2019s will have to support him at home. If they win, Joel Jr. will remain at Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center.<\/p>\n \u201cIs the school board in charge of the health and safety of the students in the school?\u201d Naile asked.<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d Pepper responded.<\/p>\n \u201cOh great, we\u2019re on the same page then,\u201d Naile continued. \u201cI have a letter from Joel\u2019s neurologist.\u201d<\/p>\n Again Pepper responded that the board would neither listen nor talk about Joel Jr. in public, despite that his parents have signed and notarized a waiver for the school board and administration to discuss his case publicly. Both Joel Sr. and Cynthia Durham voiced their opinion on that point forcefully from the back of the crowd at the meeting.<\/p>\n Board member John Segedy then motioned to overrule the chairman and allow Naile to speak on the issue. Board member Paul Plater seconded the motion for the sake of discussion, but before he did so he asked if Naile would be willing to present the letter in a non-public session.<\/p>\n Naile responded that he would be happy to do so, but that he would also pursue the minutes of that non-public session and make them public if he were to do that.<\/p>\n \u201cThe law is unclear as to what will happen with the minutes of a non-public session in the case where they are waiving [their rights to privacy],\u201d Segedy pointed out. \u201cThey have the right to go to court and get the minutes . . . We do not have to hear it. That is a choice we get to make. We can hear it and not make a decision.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf you choose to do this in non-public, I\u2019m going to seek those documents in the Superior Court and put them in the paper. That\u2019s my goal. Because I believe the health and safety of the students at the school is more important than your policy, and supersedes 91-A,\u201d Naile insisted.<\/p>\n RSA 91-A is the Right to Know Law, which in part protects the privacy of non-public minutes.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not taking any position on this whatsoever,\u201d said board member Pam Butler. \u201cI\u2019m not going to pretend that I understand the law. I\u2019m not going to make any decision about this whatsoever without my own legal counsel.\u201d<\/p>\n Naile explained that he had wanted to give them one last chance to give up the non-public minutes before going to court so a judge would not tell him that he \u201cforgot something.\u201d<\/p>\n Plater voted with Pepper not to give up the non-public minutes, stating that he thought she was right. Segedy voted to give up the non-public minutes, and Butler abstained from voting on the issue.<\/p>\n As the Durhams left the meeting on Thursday, Joel Sr. said he would be petitioning the court in regards to Margaret-Ann Moran telling the Department of Education\u2019s hearings officer that Joel Jr. was not given his medication on the day he met with the Life Skills Team in May.<\/p>\n Cynthia Durham explained that Moran had only told part of the story, making it appear as if they were at fault. Although she says it is true that Joel Jr. was not given his regular medicine that morning, it was because he was having a seizure. Joel cannot be administered oral medication during a seizure, so Cynthia administered Diastat.<\/p>\n When Joel Jr. had the grande mal seizure at the meeting, his doctor in a phone call suggested she administer Diastat again. This is unusual, because normally he is never administered Disatat twice in one day, and Cynthia did not have any with her. The Hillsboro-Rescue Squad did not have Diastat but did have Valium which was administered intravenously.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the Villager Newspaper Deering resident Ed Naile, representing Joel and Cynthia Durham confronted the Hillsboro-Deering school board on Thursday July 24 with their last request for non-public meeting minutes regarding their son, Joel Jr., who is severely handicapped with Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome, a form of epilepsy. The board again refused to give up the non-public […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,100,22,103],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles-nh","category-education","category-rtk","category-school-governance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5624,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions\/5624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}