The Villager (now defunct newspaper) reported:<\/p>\n
After a series of due process proceedings with the Department of Education, the Hillsboro-Deering school district and the parents of Joel Durham Jr., dating back to last school year, the district has decided to allow him to remain at Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center, rather than place him in the Life Skills section of the high school.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel great. Joel is safe for a year,\u201d said Cynthia Durham, Joel mother. \u201cHe\u2019s where he needs to be. We can now concentrate on the medical issues he\u2019s having right now, which are severely increased seizures over the past year, some regression he\u2019s been having due to the seizures, and numerous hospital trips.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joel Jr. has epilepsy and other medical conditions and has seizures on a daily basis. He was placed at Crotched Mountain by the administration of the Henniker Community School years ago, but when Cynthia and Joel Durham Sr. moved to Deering, the Hillsboro-Deering administration and the Life Skills Team decided he should be placed in the high school, rather than continue at Crotched Mountain.<\/p>\n
Although the Durhams fought back, pointing out that their son was in much better hands at Crotched Mountain. Among other points they made was that the staff at the high school changes during the summer time, and that any changes in those who take care of Joel take him a great deal of time to adjust to, and that this is likely to bring on more seizures.<\/p>\n
The Durhams found support from the New Hampshire Coalition of Taxpayers, who tried to make the case that Joel Jr. be better cared for at Crotched Mountain and cost the taxpayers the same or less. The Coalition also argued that placing him at the high school would not only put Joel Jr. at risk, but the district as well, if an incident at the high school led to medical complications, which could end up bringing a law suit down on the district.<\/p>\n
The district did not agree, arguing that Joel\u2019s needs could be met at the high school.<\/p>\n
But the tipping point in the proceedings between the Durhams and the district came when Joel\u2019s medical problems worsened, leading to more seizures and increased medications.<\/p>\n
In a meeting between the Hillsboro-Deering Life Skills Team and Joel Durham Junior\u2019s parents last week, high school special education coordinator Karen Ralph read aloud the decision they made in Joel\u2019s case:<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough it is the district\u2019s position that Joel\u2019s needs can be met in district and the district is prepared to implement his current IEP (Individualized Education Plan) that is due on 11\/30\/2008, the district has determined that this would not be in his best interest given his unstable medical condition that has occurred over the summer.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s nothing I haven\u2019t been telling them for months now,\u201d his mother said. \u201cI have a great feeling of relief. Of course now next spring we\u2019ll have to redo his IEP, and our position will not change, whether the district then wants to place him at the high school. If that happens, we\u2019ll fight it all over again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, his mother is packing up all her paperwork on this issue. \u201cI\u2019m trying to get my kitchen back,\u201d she said, describing the piles of paperwork to do with the issue that have been spread throughout her kitchen. \u201cIt piles up so easily.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a result, the Durhams and the Coalition of New Hampshire taxpayers intend to drop proceedings in Superior Court which focused on getting the Hillsboro-Deering school board to release the non-public minutes of discussions they have had about Joel Jr.<\/p>\n
Ed Naile of the Coalition pointed out that the school district has shelled out $20,000 in legal fees as a result of due process proceedings on the issue. He said the Coalition would be making a motion to drop the current proceedings with the Superior Court to release the non-public minutes, considering that would only incur more cost to the taxpayers.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur position was how can the school save money by hiring people to set up a program to deal with this fellow and save money? It didn\u2019t make any sense to us,\u201d said Naile. \u201cThe school\u2019s Life Skills Team, the people in charge of creating a program for Joel, has come to the obvious conclusion that they do not have the ability to provide an educational experience for Joel within the district and protect him. He is a medical liability and exceeds their ability to cope with. That was our argument from the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Naile and the Durhams said they would start Superior Court proceedings again to force the school board to release the nonpublic minutes about Joel if the district reversed its decision next spring.<\/p>\n
\u201cShould this crop again, those minutes still exist and we\u2019ll file the same paperwork again to get them,\u201d Naile said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Villager (now defunct newspaper) reported: After a series of due process proceedings with the Department of Education, the Hillsboro-Deering school district and the parents of Joel Durham Jr., dating back to last school year, the district has decided to allow him to remain at Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center, rather than place him in the […]<\/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-294","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\/294","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=294"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5616,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions\/5616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}