From CTV.CA, London [Ontario] Free Press:

TORONTO — The father of an autistic teenager who has camped out at the Ontario legislature for more than a week is vowing not to eat until the province agrees to eliminate the backlog of children waiting for a crucial but costly therapy.

Stefan Marinoiu, 49, who has been drinking nothing but water for eight days, is trying to put pressure on the province to deliver the treatment more quickly to autistic kids, including his 15-year-old son Simon.

Marinoiu’s goal is to eliminate by November the wait list of 1,148 eligible children who are still waiting to receive intensive behavioral intervention therapy, or IBI.

From the Detroit Free Press:

Officials in Wayne County, Michigan, have decided not to proceed with a controversial plan that would have nearly tripled the number of children with severe impairments that would be assigned to each teacher.

The change came after parents objected strongly to reports of impending increases in student-teacher ratios. One proposal, now scrapped, would have changed the pupil-teacher ratio for students with multiple impairments from 10 students per teacher, with two classroom aides, to 30-to-1 with three aides.

Parents said the proposed changes would imperil student safety and jeopardize any gains the students had made.

Special Education Director Mark Francis said he hopes to use the controversy to lobby legislators for more money for the programs. Costs for these programs are increasing at a rate of 5% per year, while funding is only going up at a rate of 1% to 1.5% each year, Francis said.

Earlier stories:

Detroit News: Disabled class shift opposed; Parents say plan by Wayne County to save money would put safety, learning at risk

Detroit Free Press: Major special ed changes weighed; Increase in ratios a danger to students, parents say

From Time magazine:

South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius, a double amputee who races on carbon blades, is named to the list of the World’s Most Influential People in Time Magazine’s annual issue. Paralympian Pistorius is challenging the rules in an attempt to compete in the Beijing Olympics. (Earlier post here.) The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) ruled in January that Pistorius could not compete because his blades were said to give him an unfair advantage.

Time’s profile of Pistorius was written by Erik Weihenmayer, the only blind person to have climbed Mount Everest (earlier post here). Weihenmayer says Pistorius is “on the cusp of a paradigm shift in which disability becomes ability, disadvantage becomes advantage.”

Also featured in Time’s annual 100 issue:

• Jill Bolte Taylor, a brain researcher who studied her own stroke and became a powerful voice for brain recovery (video here);
• Cyclist and cancer survivor advocate Lance Armstrong;
• Suzanne and Robert Wright, founders of Autism Speaks

From the New York Times:

When Chris Pendergast was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease) in 1993, he wasn’t expected to live long. Now, almost fifteen years later, he’s using his long-term survivorship to draw attention to the need for more ALS research and immediate access to Medicare and Social Security benefits. His foundation, Ride for Life, has raised $3 million for research and patient services.

… Mr. Pendergast has no illusions about the Darwinian worlds he’s competing in — one for personal survival, the other for attention in the bazaar of marches and runs and walks for one cure or another. Most of the efforts, he said, are organized and supported by the people who have survived a disease. But 90 percent of people with A.L.S. are gone in five years. Almost no one lives as long as he has. So, he figures, if there’s a divine logic to his ability to survive, maybe this is it.

He’d like to see the disability community coordinate its efforts. “I don’t think different disease communities should be scrapping for pieces of the pie, ” he says. “I would like to have a bigger pie.”

Santa Monica [California] Lookout:

Tim Walker, the top special education official in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, has resigned his post amid parent allegations that he was fostering a climate of intimidation, coercion and fear. The school board agreed to pay Walker one year’s salary and benefits in exchange for his resignation.

The agreement comes shortly after the Santa Monica City Council declined to release some half a million dollars to the school district until the district had investigated parents’ allegations that they had been coerced into signing away their children’s rights in exchange for needed services.

“I really am very, very happy that we can now move forward and bring an end to the culture of marginalizing children who need special education services and their parents,” said Tricia Crane, a special education parent who led the reform effort.

See earlier posts here and here.

Further reporting on Washington protests

From Roll Call (registration required):

Hundreds of protesters from the disability advocacy group ADAPT, many in wheelchairs, cut off access to the office of GOP presidential candidate John McCain and the Republican National Committee headquarters for most of the afternoon on Tuesday. At least 21 arrests were made.

ADAPT national coordinator Mike Oxford, who took part in the protest outside the RNC, said the group came to Capitol Hill to urge McCain to support the Community Choice Act, sponsored by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.).

… The protest is one in a series ADAPT has sponsored over the years in support of legislation that would shift federal money to community-based disability assistance and away from nursing homes and other institutions. The group held a similar protest at the Department of Health and Human Services on Monday.

Medicaid currently pays for long-term care in nursing homes and other institutions but does not pay for the same services provided at an individual’s home. (more…)

Parents allege district fostered a culture of coercion and fear

From the Santa Monica Lookout:

The Santa Monica City Council declined to release some $500,000 in funding to the local school district this week after hearing that some parents may have been coerced into signing “confidentiality clauses” in order to assure services for their children with disabilities.

The emotional meeting left two council members in tears over allegations that school district wrongdoing created a culture of fear that left special ed parents ashamed, frustrated and powerless to help their children. City Council member Bobby Shriver said he was glad his mother, Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver, was not in attendance. “She would have lost it,” he said.

School district superintendent Dianne Talarico declined to say she would take extreme disciplinary measures if she found staff had lied when they assured her that parents had requested the confidentiality clauses. She told the council she might not be able to stay for all the parent testimony because “I have oodles of work to do.”

See earlier post here.