‘Unprecedented crisis’: CCSD faces lawsuit over special education

Multiple families filed a class action lawsuit Wednesday that accuses the Clark County School District of failing to provide a proper education for students with disabilities.

In the 58-page complaint, lawyers allege that the district has failed to comply with the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, creating an “unprecedented crisis” for students with disabilities. It was filed on behalf of 12 children from nine families.

“This emergency requires immediately and decisive action,” the lawsuit states. “Each day of delay compounds the irreversible harm inflicted on these vulnerable children, robbing them of opportunities that can never be reclaimed.”

When contacted by the Review-Journal on Wednesday, the school district said it does not comment on pending litigation.

The lawsuit alleges that the district has failed to properly identify students with learning disabilities and is maintaining policies that “systemically deny students” a free and appropriate education.

“CCSD is a symbol in the national consciousness of gross governmental malfeasance and a profound inability of government to promptly respond to the vulnerable population who are the victims of that malfeasance and inaction,” according to the lawsuit, authored by a team that includes Las Vegas attorney Lori Rogich.

The suit comes three years after Rogich and her husband, local Republican political consultant Sig Rogich, won a lawsuit in which a federal judge ruled that the school district violated the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act by failing to ensure that the couple’s daughter was taught with a method developed for students with dyslexia.

Lori Rogich said that even after the court order, the school district has failed to give students with disabilities a proper education.

“There has been a continued embarrassing dysfunction between the state and the school district, which has taken an already terrible situation and turned it into a major crisis that is causing irreparable harm to children with special needs,” Lori Rogich said in a recent interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Court order sought

The complaint was authored by several attorneys across the country who specialize in special education litigation: Hillary Freeman, Judith Gran, Catherine Reisman, Jeffrey Wasserman and Gregory Little.

Freeman, who also previously helped represent Lori and Sig Rogich, said the prior lawsuit was supposed to create change in the Clark County School District. But she hasn’t seen that come to fruition.

“When I’ve raised these issues and raised these concerns, I’m told that this is the way we do things here in Nevada, consistently, over and over and over again,” Freeman told the Review-Journal.

Little, who has previously helped sue the state of Michigan over special education needs for children affected by the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, called the situation in Nevada “appalling.” In his experience, Nevada is one of the worst states at complying with federal law for students with disabilities.

The lawsuit is seeking a court order to compel the Clark County School District to comply with the Individuals with Disabilities Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Attorneys are asking for a judge to appoint a federal monitor to “restructure the educational system” for the district, and to compel the district to properly identify children with disabilities, follow students’ individualized education programs, eliminate the use of physical restraints and seclusion techniques, and ensure that employees are adequately trained.

“This is not going to happen overnight, but overnight the attitude is going to need to change,” said Little, an attorney with the Wasserman Little law firm in New Jersey.

Melissa Rose, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, is a guidance counselor for the school district. But even she has found it difficult to navigate the district’s special education policies, Rose told the Review-Journal.

Her son, who is identified by the initials C.R. in the lawsuit, is in the 11th grade at Rancho High School. His disabilities include autism, Tourette syndrome and Usher syndrome, a genetic condition that causes deafness and visual impairment.

Rose, 55, said she has pushed for her son to receive a tablet at school to help him communicate with teachers and students, because he sometimes struggles to effectively communicate in sign language. But Rose said school officials failed to provide him with the device.

According to the lawsuit, C.R. has been repeatedly disciplined for behavior “that is a manifestation of his disability,” including being sent to juvenile detention. The document alleges that school police once tried to bring C.R. home from school, but left him alone at an address he no longer lived at, 10 miles away from his current home.

Rose said that at one point, her son was handcuffed because of his behavior, which Rose said was caused by him being unable to effectively communicate with another student.

If the school had followed her son’s educational plan, the incident might not have happened at all, Rose said. She has spent years worrying about her son’s safety, and questioning if he has been taught the appropriate life skills before he is set to graduate in a year.

“I just want them to focus in on each student, each kid, as an individual, not as a collective,” Rose told the Review-Journal. “Because they all have different levels of disabilities.”

‘Systemic deficiencies’

Caitlin Werlinger, 37, said school officials failed to identify her son as a child in need of special instruction after he started struggling with school in the first grade during the COVID-19 lockdowns. It took three years, with a private evaluation Werlinger paid for, in order for her son to be properly evaluated for dyslexia.

“I was literally told by a district employee that they wouldn’t identify him as dyslexic because they knew they didn’t have the resources to treat him,” Werlinger said.

Now, Werlinger’s son is in the sixth grade but still struggles to read above a third grade level. Instead of providing her son with a teaching method designed for students with dyslexia, he has been put in special education classes, where Werlinger said he’s not being challenged.

Werlinger said her son should have access to the least restrictive level of education, preferably in a co-taught general education class. Werlinger’s job allows her to take the time to be highly involved with her son’s education, and she wonders how he was still able to fall through the cracks.

“Why was my son left behind?” Werlinger said in a recent interview. “I shouldn’t have to rattle the cages of the higher-up administration to get simple tasks and education provided to my son.”

Iva Lewis, 35, said she’s tried addressing the Clark County School Board about her safety concerns regarding her son, who is nonverbal and autistic. She said her son, who is in the third grade, previously ran away from school up to three times a week.

Lewis questions if her son is effectively learning, after years in special education classes. She said he doesn’t know how to properly hold a pencil, and she has doubts that he is actually completing his schoolwork himself.

“He’s not safe. He’s not being challenged,” Lewis said. “I’m sending him to school to be babysat, and I’m scared because I don’t know what’s going on.”

Attorneys told the Review-Journal that the class action lawsuit is not meant to attack teachers at Clark County schools. Instead, it’s meant to highlight that the school district is not giving teachers the proper training to effectively care for students with disabilities.

The lawsuit notes that teachers in the school district are struggling to perform their jobs because of “systemic deficiencies,” staffing shortages and a lack of resources.

“There have been so many violations I think it’s probably an easier question to ask: What is the Clark County School District doing right?” Freeman said. “And I can’t think of one thing.”

This story has been updated to correct the description of where Gregory Little works.

Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240.