Politics & Government
Federal Jury Decides BASD Must Pay $10,000
Lawsuit came out of years of disagreement between school district and mother of autistic, yet mathematically gifted, boy on how to best educate him.
A federal jury has decided that the was guilty of retaliating against a mother who filed multiple complaints about the education plans for her two sons and ordered it to pay her $10,000, according to published reports.
After nearly two weeks of testimony, the jury took two-and-a-half hours to rule in favor of Diana Zhou, who filed a counter suit against the district in 2009 after the district sued her, alleging that she was deliberately driving up the district’s legal cost to get it to send her sons to , according to The Morning Call.
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Presiding U.S. District Judge J. William Ditter must still decide on the district’s original claim against Zhou.
The district filed the claim under a provision of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Act that allows school districts to recoup costs from parents who , according to The Express-Times.
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The act also does not permit jury trials, according to The Morning Call, which is also reporting that the lawsuit has cost taxpayers more than $329,000 – and counting.
The lawsuits came following years of acrimony that developed between Zhou and district officials who disagreed over education plans for her two sons.
The older boy, who is now 16, has Asperger’s syndrome, which is on the autism spectrum. But both he and the younger boy, now 13, are classified as being gifted in mathematics.
The family, which used to live in Bethlehem Township, now lives in North Carolina.
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