YELP Helps Nine-Year-Old Student Get Back Into School

The Youth and Education Law Project (YELP) is currently celebrating a win-win situation for young client J.R.: he is back in school after years of neglect by school officials and he has access to extra compensatory services to help him get back on track with his peers.

YELP Helps Nine-Year-Old Student Get Back Into School

J.R. is nine years old and has autism, selective mutism, an obsession with Minecraft, and an absolute terror of leaving his house. When Robert Curran (JD ’16) and Chris McLamb (JD ’16) first met with his family, J.R. had been “going to school” online for a few years because his mother could no longer get J.R. to leave his house to go to his local school. Although he needed and was entitled to robust special education instruction, speech and language services, counseling, behavioral therapy, and other educational therapies in order to tap into his potential – J.R. is quite bright – his online charter school was not meeting his needs and had even threatened to bring a suit against him and his mother to force him to dis-enroll, which would have left him with no schooling options.

Robert and Chris helped J.R. with a two-pronged attack over the course of several months. First, they negotiated with J.R.’s local responsible school district to get J.R. the robust special education program he needed to get back to school and start learning again. Second, they negotiated with J.R.’s previous online charter school to settle past claims in exchange for substantial educational and behavioral therapies that J.R. can use over the upcoming summer and winter breaks to help him make up for his missed instruction.

When she came to YELP, J.R.’s mother was desperate and convinced that J.R. would never go back to school again. J.R. is now taking the bus to school every day and spending two to three hours in a small special education classroom with a live teacher and his peers. He is not yet completing academic work or talking on a regular basis, but this is monumental progress given that just two months ago J.R. used to hit, kick, and bite anyone who tried to gently coax him out of his house. J.R. laughs again, shares little-known facts about Minecraft and World War II, and is on his way towards putting the past few years behind him.

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Interested in learning more about the Youth and Education Law Project?  Check out the YELP website for details.