Nola Wellman's "Super Secret"
Strategies
2008 - Last summer, I
found an online advertisement for the
TASA/TASB 2008 Convention in San Antonio, Texas and
learned that Eanes ISD superintendent, Nola Wellman would
present a session at the conference:
Excerpt from online Convention at a Glance:
Strategies to Lessen the Financial Impact of Special
Education Litigation
Nola
Wellman, Superintendent, Eanes ISD; and
Denise Hays,
Attorney, Walsh, Anderson, Brown, Schulze & Aldridge, P.C.
While school districts face a variety of lawsuits under
state and federal law, claims arising under the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) most
likely proceed to trial or administrative hearings with
enormous costs. A superintendent and a special education
attorney, who together have experienced firsthand the
challenges of special education litigation, analyze aspects
of special education due process hearings and provide
strategies to minimize costs, focusing on defensible
STRATEGIES and necessary preventive staff training. (SBEC
#4)
Following the conference, I requested public information
(such as Nola's speech, notes, and other documents) related
to the conference and well, you know, her strategies.
As long as she was sharing the strategies in a public forum,
I thought it might be worthwhile to obtain and post that
public information here on KeepEanesInformed.
Turns out, when
I asked, that Nola wasn't feeling so generous. In fact, she
said no and took a familiar path. She spent school tax
dollars to retain a private attorney to seek a ruling from
the Office of the Attorney General in an effort to withhold
the responsive documents. That's right. Nola Wellman
presented her strategies regarding the IDEA and special
education in a public forum; then when the public asked to
have a peek, she hid them away in a dark drawer and asked
the Eanes ISD
private attorney, Ellen Spalding, to help her keep them
hidden. Seems to me that if Nola didn't want the public to
know her strategies, maybe she should not have presented
them at a conference open to the public.
And about that
"staff training" mentioned in Nola's conference session
description, who knows? In addition to the time she
spends with WABSA attorneys (funded by school tax dollars)
perhaps Nola learned some of her strategies here ... at the
NELI conference
that specifically bars parents and advocates of children
with special needs.
Stay tuned ... if the the Office of the Attorney General
rules in the public's favor, I'll post Nola's "super secret"
strategies here on KEI.
|
