Lara Hruska Overview In 2018, the Washington state legislature created the Dyslexia Advisory Council to develop best practices and sample educational information for parents and educators. The Dyslexia Advisory Council was also tasked with developing dyslexia screening tools for Washington schools. In June 2021, the Office of Superintendent of Public instruction reviewed the Dyslexia Advisory Council’s recommendations … Read more
Cedar Law, PLLC, recently won a case on – among other issues – a novel question of whether vision therapy can be required for FAPE in Washington state. Although new to our jurisdiction, other states have historically recognized vision therapy as a related service if a student’s visual impairment has an adverse effect on the … Read more
Eleven national organizations worked together to create this resource excerpted below: Parents and educators may have different opinions about specific terms like dyslexia or more general terms like learning disabilities. Understanding these terms and agreeing on which to use can help prevent confusion and conflict. It can also lead to a shared understanding of a … Read more
Here’s a bulletin issued by OSPI on the new student discipline rules. You can find read more about it on the State Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction’s website: OSPI’s student discipline rules. On July 30, 2018, OSPI adopted new student discipline rules that comprehensively revised Chapter 392-400 of the Washington Administrative Code (WAC). Some provisions … Read more
Thank you to all of our supporters for a fantastic 2018. This year, we added three new attorneys to our team, expanded our practice into employment law and civil rights issues for school employees, and obtained some fantastic results for our clients. We are pleased to announce that Michelle Mentzer has joined our firm as … Read more
Update: On April 30, 2019, Governor Jay Inslee signed “Ducky’s Bill,” which will allow students in Washington to access medical marijuana therapies in the school setting. For more information, see High Times on Ducky’s Bill becoming law. November 2018 I attended the 2018 Pacific Northwest Institute on Special Education and the Law. I always leave that conference … Read more
When I first arrived in Seattle in 2010, I kept hearing the same refrain about how a 1:1 aide in the general education setting impacted least restrictive environment (LRE) by creating a more restrictive environment for a student. Again & again, IEP team members and school lawyers pushed the idea that a 1:1 aide created … Read more
This morning, I came across a post from an attorney friend at the Attorney General’s Office on my Facebook feed that read: That collective groan you just heard from every state employee was from a Public Records Act request for every email from all state agencies. Someone just commandeered thousands (tens/hundreds of thousands?) of hours of … Read more
The Washington State Charter Schools Association has compiled a directory to help connect member schools to local, statewide, and national vendors across a variety of categories. The vendor directory also indicates which vendors have been referred by other schools and organizations. Cedar Law is proud to be a “referred vendor” providing legal services for Washington charter schools.