MoProBono Fall 2018 Newsletter

15 MoProBono Fall 2018 MOFO SCHOOL DISTRICT SETTLEMENT REQUIRES MAJOR IMPROVEMENTS FOR STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES A MoFo pro bono team and its co-counsel, Legal Services of the Hudson Valley, recently settled a suit requiring the Mount Vernon (N.Y.) City School District to significantly improve its compliance with laws and regulations governing the education of students with disabilities. The suit, M.H. v. Mount Vernon City School District , claimed that the District systematically failed to provide legally required educational services to support children with disabilities. The settlement secures system-wide changes that will benefit all students in the District who have special needs. “We realized through our work on this case that the failures we encountered didn’t simply apply to a handful of students,” said Morrison & Foerster associate Sarah Prutzman, the firm’s pro bono team leader on the case. “There were many students whose educational needs were being neglected.” The agreement secured by Sarah, her fellow team members, and their co-counsel requires the District to, among other things, undertake approximately 90 concrete remedial actions designed to improve educational services for students with disabilities, including implementing a data system that allows for real-time monitoring of the district’s delivery of special education services. The agreement also requires the District to meet certain performance metrics, such as improving its graduation rate for students with disabilities to at least the statewide average by June 2021. “The failures we encountered didn’t simply apply to a handful of students. There were many students whose educational needs were being neglected.”