There were comments on the floors of both the House and Senate about the outcry from parents and concerned citizens about this issue. The power of parents voices were heard in an unprecedented way. This was a HUGE accomplishment.

When Ld-1900 came out of the education committee and got to the level of the House and Senate floors. The Education Committee Majority had voted for the bill with an "amended adverse effect definition (which is a good start but not ready to be put into law) and a 2 year statute of limitations to file a Due Process," according to the Executive Director of the Autism Society of Maine Nancy Intrieri-Cronin.

Parents and concerned citizens made phone calls, sent a flurry of Emails, and made their voices heard to leadership and their individual legislators. They promoted change through this work, and change did occur! Nancy Intrieri-Cronin says, "Amendment C gave us what we really wanted out of the Minority Report. It removes adverse affect from Chapter 101 and mandates a taskforce made up of 11 parent/advocates and 10 educators. This taskforce must come to consensus around language for a definition of adverse affect. Then they will report by Sept 28 to the commissioner who must "expressly consider and address the recommendations contained in the report of the stakeholder group". The commissioner can then submit provisionally adopted, major substantive rules about adverse affect. Those rules must go through the rule making process which takes 90 days, then the rules go back to the legislature for review next January."

The amendment also included making the Statute of Limitations be 4 years instead of 2. Originally it had been suggested, in committee, that the statute of limitation for appeals of decisions be shortened to two years. This Statute of Limitation issue was critical to parents‘ and students’ rights because:

2 years is not enough for an education statute of limitations. Parents often don't know that their child's education has been compromised and the law has been broken until sometime after. Parents also may not want to make waves. They may work for months and months to try to work out the issues with a school system before they even begin a formal complaint - let alone Due Process.

Most of the time, the Autism Society of Maine (and LDA of Maine) recommends families to go through the complaint process and mediation before due process. The 2 years may not give enough time for the parties to work it out in mediation.

Intrieri-Cronin also writes: "I want to give credit to all parties - it took a lot of collaboration and work to accomplish this compromise. I thank the Department of Education for continually coming to the table throughout the last week."

What is adverse effect? Is there something you can do to assist in this rule-making process?
For further information contact:
Nancy Intrieri-Cronin
Executive Director
Autism Society of Maine
1-800-273-5200
nancy@asmonline.org

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