9-Year-Old's Family Asks School District to Drop Due Process Hearing

The mother of a 9-year-old girl says the Wentzville School District is wasting taxpayer dollars in efforts to retaliate against her and her family for filing complaints against the district through the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights. 

Christine Aumann filed the complaints through the OCR and the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) in fall 2011 after Wentzville school officials refused to perform a special-needs evaluation of her daughter.

Aumann’s daughter has Asperger’s, a form of autism.

DESE, Aumann said, found the district to be out of compliance and required 90 Wentzville School District teachers and administrators to complete training about procedures for parental requests for evaluation. The district completed that training in March 2012.

In May 2012, the district completed an evaluation that determined that Aumann's daughter was not eligible for special services.

Aumann said that district staff continued to harass her daughter in retaliation for the complaints by not allowing her to sit with certain students at lunch or on the playground and by making comments about her medication in front of other students.

Aumann has since removed her daughter from the district and is scheduled today to appear for a deposition with Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. That’s where Aumann says the district is wasting money.

“Why run us through the wringer and cost the taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars? This has become nothing more than harassment,” she said, noting that she and her husband did not challenge the decision that determined the girl was ineligible for services.

The school district says the hearing is necessary because of the complaints made against it.

“Because of the complaints filed by the family with state and federal government agencies, the Wentzville School District has exercised its rights under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act and requested a hearing with the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education,” the district said in a statement. “The purpose of the hearing would be to determine the appropriateness of the district’s evaluation of the student for determining eligibility for special education and related services.”

How much the deposition will cost the school district is unknown.

On Oct. 18, friends and family members attended the district’s board of education meeting in efforts to get the district to drop the hearing.

“I am outraged that the district will spend my tax dollars to deny my grandchild needed services,” said Herman Smith, the child’s grandfather. “Persecuting this child and her family is shameful. (The district should) fix this now.”