(Seattle, WA) – The law offices of Susman Godfrey L.L.P. and Cedar Law PLLC have filed a civil rights class action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington on behalf of all Washington students eligible for special education services who “aged out” of special education under Washington law. The … Read more
I am the senior paralegal at Cedar Law PLLC, a Rule 9 Intern, and a law clerk studying to be an attorney through Washington state’s APR6 clerkship. Chris Williams, one of the founding partners of Cedar Law, has been my mentor through the last three years of the clerkship, which I’ll complete in November 2023, … Read more
NWNews | By Austin JenkinsPublished May 23, 2022 at 2:12 PM PDT Some parents with kids in crisis in Washington are making a heart wrenching decision. They’re sending their children to out-of-state therapeutic boarding schools. And taxpayers are picking up the tab. While these are outlier cases, they highlight ongoing gaps in in-state services — gaps that … Read more
In January, Cedar Law PLLC’s founding partners, Lara Hruska and Chris Williams, spoke at the launch event for KEEP (Kienan Ellis Education Project). KEEP was founded by a former Cedar Law client with the vision of creating a public-defender-like system for school discipline in Seattle. The non-profit connects students facing exclusionary discipline with an attorney-volunteer … Read more
Stop the School-to-Prison Pipeline in its “infancy.” A Goal of the Kienan Ellis Education Project (KEEP) is Stopping The School-to-Prison Pipeline, with a service area focusing on Seattle Public Schools. To Meet That Goal: Attorneys are needed to represent students in school discipline hearings to ensure equitable and appropriate educational outcomes. Attorneys are needed to represent students … Read more
Dyslexia is a language-based learning disability that refers to a cluster of symptoms, which result in difficulty with specific language skills, including reading, spelling, writing, and pronouncing words. Some students with dyslexia may also have difficulty with math, specifically memorizing number facts and correctly doing word problems. [1] The primary sign of dyslexia is if … Read more
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
A proposal to reduce district liability and improve student outcomes As stated by our state’s Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), “[o]n March 11, the World Health Organization characterized COVID-19 as a pandemic. To slow the spread of the virus, on March 13, Governor Inslee ordered all public and private K–12 schools in … Read more