LSHV and MoFo reach settlement with Mt. Vernon City School Dist.

A Morrison & Foerster pro bono team, alongside co-counsel Legal Services of the Hudson Valley, negotiated a successful settlement with the Mount Vernon City School District (N.Y.) in its fight to improve the educational standards for present and future students with disabilities in the District.

The settlement requires a major investment in the education of students with disabilities, with supervision and assistance from an outside expert monitor. Specifically, under the settlement:

• The District must undertake approximately 90 concrete remedial actions designed to improve the district’s provision of educational services to students with disabilities, including creating and implementing a comprehensive special education handbook, providing district-wide professional development trainings, and implementing a data system that allows for real-time monitoring of the district’s delivery of special education services.

• The District must establish baseline data on 15 different metrics relating to students with disabilities and improve its performance on those metrics over the next three years. For example, by June 2021, the district must conduct at least 95% of its annual CSE (committee on special education) meetings on time and improve its graduation rate for students with disabilities to at least the state-wide average.

“For too long, the Mount Vernon School District has failed to provide students with disabilities the support and services they need, and are legally entitled to, to be successful in the classroom,” MoFo associate Sarah Prutzman said. “Under this settlement, the education for these students will be greatly improved. We hope this is going to change lives.”

MoFo originally filed suit on May 29, 2013 against the District, the District superintendent, the Mount Vernon City school board, the New York State Department of Education, and the Commissioner of the New York State Department of Education. The case is ongoing with respect to the New York State Department of Education and its Commissioner.

Barbara Finkelstein, LSHV’s CEO, commented “We thank Morrison & Foerster for their commitment to pro bono legal services, which are critical to our programs. Our partnership on this case will make an immeasurable difference in the lives of students with disabilities who attend Mount Vernon School District.”

Robert Hermann, Counsel to LSHV, said, “This comprehensive agreement is an important, commendable step by the school district to fix specific goals and procedures for helping its disabled students and to commit itself to sticking to them. The incredible amount and quality of legal work done by so many lawyers at Morrison & Foerster, and the firm’s unflagging dedication over the past seven years, are what made this forward-looking settlement possible. It has been a rewarding pleasure for all of us at LSHV to work side by side with them to affirm the rights of so many disabled students who will benefit from what was here achieved.”