Did Flowers Neglect Special Education in Fargo?

By Sheri McMahon
Contributing Writer

The timing seems perfect. David Flowers wants to come back to the F-M area. He got through the early North-vs.-South wars regarding Fargo district school buildings and long-term planning. West Fargo has had bond issue problems and they don’t want some freakin’ easterner throwing ideas at them. The Forum is gaga about Flowers’ desire to get his Red River groove back. Flowers left Fargo with an armload of glowing compliments from the Fargo School Board.

However, as a parent who was very much involved with special education in Fargo during Flowers’ tenure, I think anyone to whom special education matters should look very closely at how any candidate for West Fargo Superintendent considers his or her role and ability to lead in this area.

During Flowers’ time in Fargo, violations of special education laws were routine. Some of these violations were formally investigated by the Department of Public Instruction (which federal law requires to investigate alleged violations of special education laws). DPI found numerous serious violations over a period of several years, including violations that were repeated after the district had been required to correct them.

Special education law is arcane, and few if any attorneys in North Dakota have expertise in the area. Complaints may be filed by anyone—including teachers themselves—but they are almost exclusively filed by parents, who usually have to rely on their own knowledge of the law. Although advocacy organizations and agencies (such as Protection and Advocacy) presumably have the skills and knowledge to assist parents or file their own complaints, they are generally loath to do so. The conventional wisdom is that in the early 1990’s P & A was assertive, the establishment didn’t like that, and P & A got slapped down. Since then, P & A has generally opted to maintain a much more passive “let’s be positive” stance even when action is called for. Parents also fear retaliation against their child if they take any formal action, and for some parents this fear was well-founded.
Flowers was made aware of special education concerns and also received copies of every DPI investigation report issued. He was also informed about serious lapses of ethics and basic knowledge by an administrator who was in charge of special education for several years. Rather than respond to the concerns, he simply passed them on to the same problem administrator to deal with.

One of the most egregious actions taken by that administrator was her attempt to file a federal complaint against a parent seeking special education services for her child. The district had previously been found to have denied services to the child, and would later be found to have denied the child a “free, appropriate public education” as the law required. By the time the administrator filed her own “complaint” against the parent, DPI had found at least 10 federal violations regarding the same child over a three-year period of time.

The “complaint” by the administrator included false statements (e.g. that the district had evaluated the child for eligibility even though ND DPI had already determined the district had refused to do so). Even worse, her complaint demonstrated an utter lack of basic knowledge about special education law, since the law has never included a provision for school districts to file the type of complaint she attempted. Keep in mind that in order to be eligible for federal funds, the district must sign assurances that it understands and will comply with special education legal requirements.

The director of special education is particularly responsible to assist the district in carrying out that legal obligation.

The administrator’s action demonstrated three things: her own ignorance, the district’s appalling conduct in simply refusing to provide supports and services to a child with a disability, and the district’s willingness to attempt retaliatory action when the child’s parent addressed the situation by following IDEA (special education) rules. Incidentally, the administrator kept her action secret from the parent, and her attempt came to light only in the course of a later formal action taken by the parent.

The administrator’s “complaint” was filed over Flowers’ typed signature and may have been initiated without his knowledge. But later, the parent contacted him about the administrator’s unethical and incompetent conduct. He did not respond; he merely referred the matter back to the administrator herself. Yes, a superintendent is expected to delegate rather than micromanage, but when evidence—or simply allegations—of serious misconduct by staff who report directly to him is presented, he is expected not to simply ignore it.

This was just one of many serious issues that surfaced in special education while Flowers ran the school district. Granted, special education affects a mere 10% to 12% of students, whose parents lack the clout that, say, parents of athletes have. Lowell Wolff, the community spokesperson for Fargo Public Schools, once (in a meeting with three advocates from a state-funded organization) described the parents of children with disabilities as a “special interest group” the district was not interested in hearing from.

Schools with the best special education programs are also schools that are the best for regular ed students, and they are invariably schools whose regular education administrators make a point of being knowledgeable about this particular area of education and its best practices—administrators who care and demonstrate leadership.

We did not see this in Dr. Flowers. I hope that if he does return to the F-M area, he has learned a few things in Kansas.

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