faculty focus
ACROSS THE TABLE:
the need for neutrals in special education
Unique course teaches law students to resolve disputes with school programs By Sarah Hazan
In special education, the battleground between parents and their child’s school district can be the table between their advocates. Demand for due process hearings is escalating rapidly, and the meetings themselves can be time-consuming and emotionally draining as both sides volley their demands and defenses. But according to USC Gould
School of Law lecturer Richard Erhard, there is a better way to handle these disputes — and he’s teaching his students how. In his course, Special Education Dispute Resolution, Erhard reflects on the need for neutrality. As parents and school districts alike seek alternative ways to resolve increasing complaints, trained professionals are essential in moving the conversation and programming forward. “One of the things I speak to in my class is the continuum of dispute resolution — from ignoring the issue to … negotiation to mediation to arbitration to litigation,” Erhard says. “This is the only program that I’m aware of at a law school that is focusing on dispute resolution in special education issues. We are training neutrals here at USC Gould, not just advocates, which is a huge difference.” In special education, legal conversations between parents and school districts are a constant. Parents must engage with their districts in order to establish necessary programming for their children with special needs. Often faced with insufficient resources and oversight, special education programs may be assigned to the most junior school staff members, and the meetings can be tense.
36
USCLaw magazine
Nearly 16 years ago, Erhard was representing the Santa Ana school district when he found himself across the table from parents of 3-yearold autistic triplets and their legal counsel. Erhard was surprised when this lawyer took a measured approach to the discussion. He still looks back on that meeting’s success as a game-changer in his conflict resolution experience. Erhard spent his career leading special education efforts and establishing essential programs for students of all ages. “My focus as an educator is always on the individual child,” Erhard says. From teaching primary school special education in New Mexico to working as assistant superintendent of Student Services for San Diego’s Coronado Unified School District, Erhard saw his own dispute resolution — and legal — education grow in tandem with the services he implemented in schools. “As I moved through administration and developed special education programs, I realized that if you didn’t have programs that were legally defensible, they weren’t worth the paper they were written on,” Erhard says. Realizing this need, he started taking dispute resolution courses wherever he could find them, trying to enact progressive programming at the administrative level for his schools and their districts with the law in mind.
