Legal Services NYC-Bronx Obtains Decisive Victory in Education Law Case

Attorney Oroma H. Mpi represented a 5-year-old child with
cerebral palsy who lives in non-accessible private housing and had been denied
porter service by the New York City Department of Education. 

For several years, the NYC Dept. of Education (DOE) has
maintained a policy of denying porter service to students who live in private
housing. Porter service is needed in situations where a wheelchair-bound
child lives in an apartment building without an elevator. Generally,
a porter hired by the DOE will carry the student in the wheelchair down
the stairs of the apartment building to the sidewalk where the school bus is
waiting. Similarly, after school, the porter brings the student back up to the
apartment door from the school bus.

The DOE had defended its policy of reserving porter service
only for students living in public housing by claiming that the Individuals
with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) does not require the provision of porter
service to any student. The DOE further claimed that it should not be
responsible for providing this service when parents choose to live in a
non-accessible building. Previous attempts by special education advocates to
strike down the DOE's policy were unsuccessful at the impartial hearing level.
The DOE settled these individual cases without out a clear statement by an
Impartial Hearing Officer or a State Review Officer about whether the IDEA
mandates the provision of porter service to all students who need it,
regardless of whether the student lives in private or public housing.

In this case, the parents of Legal Services NYC-Bronx's 5-year-old client had obtained their current
apartment with the assistance of the homeless shelter where they had been
living. The family has been on a waiting list for public housing for a number
of years. In the impartial hearing decision on this case, the Hearing
Officer agreed with Ms. Mpi’s challenge to the DOE’s policy, concluding that
the IDEA requires school districts to provide porter service to those students
who need it. In ruling in favor of Ms. Mpi's client, the Hearing Officer found
that the parents had not chosen to live in a building without an elevator,
given their circumstances. This decision represents a huge
victory for low-income families in New
York City with children with disabilities, for whom
it is not financially feasible to obtain an apartment in an elevator building.