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Ennis Britton's On the Call
The Special Education Team of Ennis Britton hosts the podcast “On the Call." Each episode focuses on a real-life special education scenario you may have encountered or might bump into very soon. Ennis Britton attorneys Jeremy Neff and Erin Wessendorf - Wortman take the call and then discuss applicable cases and laws related to the scenario presented. Each episode wraps up with practical tips based on the Special Education Team's years of experience serving school districts throughout Ohio.
Ennis Britton's On the Call
On the Call: A Wake-Up Call - ADA & Section 504 Liability
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
When does “waking up” a student become a wake-up call for the district? In this episode, Jeremy and Erin unpack a recent federal case out of Pennsylvania involving a student whose medication caused drowsiness and staff responses that allegedly crossed the line into disability discrimination. The discussion includes how Section 504 and the ADA apply when student behavior may be disability-related, what “deliberate indifference” looks like in practice, and why prompt, respectful, individualized responses can help your team reduce the risk of OCR complaints or litigation.
Looking for more information on this topic? Be sure to check out these past episodes:
On the Call: OCR Complaints & Records Requests
On the Call: When the 504 Plan Falls Short
Join Jeremy for LRP's Ask the Attorney on 9/17. He’ll be hosting a live Q&A addressing common IDEA and Section 504 compliance challenges, including child find and evaluations, FAPE, discipline, and school safety. Bring your questions and get practical guidance from an experienced education attorney with firsthand school experience. Register here!
And it's written, this is Jeremy. How can I help you?
SPEAKER_01Hi, Jeremy. I'm dealing with a situation where a student keeps falling asleep in class. The teachers have been trying to keep him awake. Some have a good relationship with them and will gently tease him about it. But now the parent is saying it's related to medication for anxiety and depression.
SPEAKER_00Okay, that's good information.
SPEAKER_01Um is that the first we've heard about the medication and the side effects I'd have to check the last evaluation, but we may have discussed it in a general sense. The parent is now alleging that the teasing is actually discrimination and even mentioned filing something with OCR or going to court.
SPEAKER_00Got it. Well, let's talk about your obligations and next steps to address the issue and reduce the risk of any sort of formal process like that.
SPEAKER_03It's season five of On the Call, Ennis Britton's special education law podcast.
SPEAKER_00I'm Jeremy Neff.
SPEAKER_03And I'm Aaron Wessendorf Wortman.
SPEAKER_00We've got another great call to explore.
SPEAKER_03Let's jump in.
SPEAKER_00So, Aaron, I gotta say, I I never actually fell asleep and as you're modeling it for me. I don't even get through my intro. You didn't fall asleep in class because you would have got your uh your knuckles wrapped, right?
SPEAKER_03In private school, yeah. No, they didn't they really got rid of that. I was not taught by a nun until high school.
SPEAKER_00That's what went wrong.
SPEAKER_03We had two nuns left teaching, the librarian and my junior and senior math teachers.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. You know, the the wake up routine, you know, I'm I'm one of those public school kids. Uh in our high school, the biology teacher was notorious. He also was a farmer, and uh he would bring in an electric cattle prod and occasionally zing somebody's not not them directly. I'm sure like somebody told him it was yeah, hit the hit the leg of the desk. And then that's funny.
SPEAKER_03No, it's all the good old days.
SPEAKER_00The good old days. Like the worst I did, I let a student sleep through his final exam once.
SPEAKER_03That's their choice.
SPEAKER_00Three times I tried to wake him up, and I'm like, all right, dude, done.
SPEAKER_03No, I never slept in class mainly because I was petrified of going to the principal's office.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03That was scary for me. Even though I'm my principals, I'm sure were fine people, but I knew the phone call home and I was petrified of that discussion.
SPEAKER_00I lived with my high school principal, so I wasn't I needed to be careful.
SPEAKER_03What you gonna do, Dad?
SPEAKER_00Son. Oh here we go. So um this is an interesting case, and um before we even get into the black letter law, I want to be really clear. This is a procedural case. We do these occasionally, so the court had to basically assume the facts as pled were true. So if you're listening, um, you know, good folks of uh God, I don't even remember where this one was out of.
SPEAKER_03Pennsylvania, I think.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you're right, Pennsylvania. So if you're if you're listening, Northwestern Lehat. Wow, you're gonna call them out.
SPEAKER_03I'm sorry, it's the name of the case. Sorry.
SPEAKER_00So um so here we go. So so with that, um the P kids here.
SPEAKER_03We're talking claims about 504 disability discrimination.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and there was some uh racial discrimination allegations, all these things. So it could apply to a an IEP kid, right? Um, but this isn't this isn't about fape. This is about something different. It's about discrimination.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00All right.
SPEAKER_03Discrimination under section 504. You don't need to, even if it is a kid 0 on an IEP, these are not claims that you're otherwise required to exhaust via your state due process procedures. These are things that we can go as parents directly to court and say, I'm filing, here's my discrimination lawsuit. And then schools are forced to defend that.
SPEAKER_00That is correct.
SPEAKER_03So what do we need to? Like 504 broadly does what? We've talked previously.
SPEAKER_00Of course, but it's always worth starting there, right? So it's an anti-discrimination statute uh with disabilities, specifically in the school setting. We talk about it mostly with students, but it applies more broadly to folks who access the school facilities and services, et cetera.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, individuals who have disabilities.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_03Which a disability is defined to be a physical or mental impairment that substantially impacts one or more major life functions.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03I did it right.
SPEAKER_00Sometimes I say put some words out there, functions, activities. Well, functions are oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_03All right. Sometimes I also do subs substantially reverse significantly. It's not significant, it's substantial.
SPEAKER_02Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_03Which I mean, six and one half doesn't have another, maybe. But then again, if I'm a judge, I go to Webster's dictionary and find the definition. I am getting a sideways.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But so FAPE under 504, you're talking equal access, anti-discrimination lawsuit. That's what we're talking about. Don't treat me differently because I have a disability.
SPEAKER_00Correct. And and in the school setting, of course, the Americans with Disabilities Act also applies. Uh so, you know, in very similar um, you know, fashion, I I think. So, you know, we're looking at those kids, and as far as those theories um of how somebody might have some liability, a school might have liability, one would be that we're treating people with disabilities differently. Um so, oh, well, you must take these classes, you can't take these classes, you're not good enough to be on the soccer team, whatever it is, something something like that. So this disparate impact where but for the fact that you have this disability, uh, this wouldn't have happened. So you've got a disability, you're otherwise qualified to do the thing, you know, you're not an elementary kid trying to be on the high school football team. Some adverse action is taken, and uh specifically it is because of um the disability that you have.
SPEAKER_03So the but for analysis. Yeah, disparate treatment is but for disability, you wouldn't have been treated that way.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03More or less.
SPEAKER_00More or less.
SPEAKER_03But then you also have a failure to accommodate claim.
SPEAKER_00Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_03That school system has knowledge that you have a disability, and they didn't do anything for you to allow you to have that equal opportunity, that equal access. That's something that the school district could have provided as an accommodation or a modification to allow you to have that equal opportunity to engage in the school environment, the school curriculum, or what have you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And this failure to accommodate uh different than under IDEA, because idea is aspirational, but here with 504 or even the ADA, we're just talking about creating an opportunity, not an outcome, but an opportunity.
SPEAKER_03So But this isn't even, I mean, even it doesn't even have to be ill will. It can just be that the school district either didn't do it, you have a failure to respond, didn't respond effectively or appropriately. Maybe they responded and said, Yeah, we can accommodate you. Uh for instance, let's say a visual impairment. Here's a bigger screen. Well, that's all well and good, but where else are we needing to accommodate a visual impairment within a school environment? It might be above, you know, the eye line, the hip line, things like that. Right. So not always animus involved here.
SPEAKER_00That's a really important point. And we can maybe even come back to this in the practical points too, because I think discrimination, I mean, for good reason, that has uh it's it's emotionally loaded. And no one wants to think that they've engaged in discrimination, especially not loving, supportive, caring educators. And so it can be hard. I know you and I both, if we have cases where some something like this is alleged, uh some of your time is just kind of that counseling through, and not lawyer counseling through of look, there's a legal standard here, and and it's not about your you being a bad person or not caring. It's just the fact is what's the impact on this person for the phone.
SPEAKER_03The phone calls are clients coming forward and saying, Oh, I'm not a bad person. I didn't really do this, I didn't really mean to. What's gonna happen? Well, no, you're fine. Yeah. Take a breath. Like it is more, it it's not the attorney advice and attorney counsel. It's uh more of a therapy event, you're okay. Let's level set and come around the fact that just because an allegation is made doesn't make you a bad person.
SPEAKER_00Right. Well, and then that gets to this idea of harassment or hostile environment when it comes to disability discrimination. Because it's another one of those where uh at least in my experience, and you and I get we get the calls when things are going poorly, um, there's not a lot of educators who go into education because they dislike children or dislike groups of people. That's just not how it works.
SPEAKER_03Uh no, you don't choose to be like, you know what, I really can't do kids. Great idea for a career. Kids. Uh-huh. No, not a good idea.
SPEAKER_00But sometimes maybe there's one person, or maybe if it's even peer-on-peer type of harassment that is allowed to go forward and the school is aware of it.
SPEAKER_03Or even doing something. I would venture to say generational differences maybe in staff. Right? I mean, I struggle, and my dad doesn't listen to the podcast, so we can at least uh add him here in some regards. So there are sometimes things that maybe an upper generation, like my father or someone, would say, and you're not allowed to say that. Like, wait, stop it. I come on, stop being something like, no, you're actually legally not allowed to say that anymore. You're still in the business world, you're still doing things. I'm glad I'm a safe place. Don't repeat that out in like the normal world, right? That's that's fine.
SPEAKER_00We're keeping it real here today.
SPEAKER_03You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Generationally, it might not just be student on student and it might not be a staff member with ill intentions as much as it is maybe an older staff member who just doesn't quite understand the differences from 30 years ago to now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03But if we're looking at harassment and hostile work environment, not hostile work environment, just a hostile environment, it's based on that disability. It can't be just a hostile environment, typically based on a protected class. And in this one, we're talking about disability. We're not talking about this is just a mean place to warm.
SPEAKER_00Uh-huh. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03People be mean to me.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah. Term of art, we're using it here.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And I think it's important because oftentimes it is confused in well, it was a hostile work environment. Everybody's mean to me. Jeremy's mean to me on a daily, but it's not a hostile work environment.
SPEAKER_00Oh, good. I hope I'm glad we have that recorded too. I'll I'll send a copy over to HR. Um and to that point, then, Aaron, when we're looking at whether it really rises to that level, we're talking about severe, pervasive, uh, so severe, pervasive, or objectively offensive that it um limits and depending on the interpretation, it completely prevents a student from benefiting from their education.
SPEAKER_03It alters their access, right? To a substantial degree, is what I would we would look for in those aspects. And then you also have deliberate indifference.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So this is where liability comes into play, right? So a school could be liable if there's some deliberate indifference.
SPEAKER_03And which essentially means you knew about it and you didn't do anything.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And you knew reasonably about it. And people are making complaints, you shake them off, you brush them off, you brush it under the rug, you don't respond. You maybe respond, let's say a kid is making a uh is treating somebody differently because of their disability, and you dis you suspend them for three days. And then you do it again, they do it again, and you suspend them again for three days. Well, you're not nothing is substantively changing. You're not upping the discipline, and it's not changing behavior. It's the whole point of discipline, my understanding is at least, is to change behavior. And if we're not learning, then the discipline isn't working.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and you didn't need to get it perfect the first time. And and that's really important. If we were recording this a year ago, we'd be talking about a brand new Supreme Court decision that's that's putting us on a national there you go. Sorry, a national standard. Um we're not doing that today. So, you know, as always, this is just general information. So we won't get you all the nitty-gritty on that, but just take comfort in knowing uh you almost certainly don't need to get it exactly right the first time. Um but to Aaron's point, if we keep just doing the same thing and not getting a different result, that could become a problem. So, well, that takes us to the case, right, Aaron? So uh as you pointed out earlier, this one's coming out of Pennsylvania. This is a fresh one. This is uh May of 2026, and this is actually a case. Sometimes we have uh due process complaints, this is actually a case, but it's not decided on the merits. Uh, it was the school district putting forth a bunch of defenses and then also seeking to have this thing um dismissed, summary judgment in their favor uh based on some different legal defenses. Now, the case did involve uh allegations of racial discrimination and harassment as well as disability. We're gonna be focused on the uh disability piece, but that is a movie we've seen before. Yeah. Um you can assume that uh any kind of lawsuit's gonna bring forth any possible route for um liability. That's an attorney doing their job well, and and again, the court's going to assume, and they did here, uh, at this stage, not actually at the trial. Not at discovery or anything like that. Yeah, this is early on, and basically and the court even spoke to that and said, look, we're gonna give the plaintiffs a chance to engage in discovery to establish additional facts and support for the allegations that they've made.
SPEAKER_03So this is a plaintiff's counsel doing exactly what they should do, which is throw all of that spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell And the sch and the school's defense counsel doing what they should do, which is try and pare it down as much as possible, didn't have a lot of success in that.
SPEAKER_03No, not all the claims were allowed to keep going.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yikes. So we're focused on disability.
SPEAKER_00Or do you want me to? This is my case.
SPEAKER_03It's fine. I mean, essentially you're looking at a middle school student who has a disability, has anxiety, depression, related diagnoses. I don't recall if he was on an IEP. In the least, he's a he's a student, he's a student with a disability that substantially impacts or limits one of our major life functions or activities, right? Done. So he's covered under section 504. He's covered under the ADA.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03So fine. Problem is that the medication that he's taking makes him drowsy. So he gets sleepy. Oh, logically.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, they they that that's the allegation here, right?
SPEAKER_03I mean, that's that's what we're going on. That's based on parents' complaints. So the allegation is that he gets sleepy. And so, how do we then we're not cattle prodding him like they would have done where you came from? Is this where your dad was principal? Oh no. Yeah, I'm not gonna name names. No, you're not gonna please don't. That's fine.
SPEAKER_00I'm sure he's retired by now.
SPEAKER_03I would hope so. But with it, I mean, he's fallen asleep in class. So staff members probably are rightly frustrated. He's not waking up. How do we get him to wake up? We're all very confused. How do we get here?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, among the strategies, what? Uh blowing whistles in his ears, um, having him run what were variably described as gassers or suicides.
SPEAKER_03Um we call them lines now. I think the the best way to approach is we call them you run lines. Because that's what my kids tell me.
SPEAKER_00All right, well.
SPEAKER_03Nobody runs suicides anymore or gases.
SPEAKER_00This this is that that generational thing Aaron was talking about at the beginning again. So for those for those older listeners like me, um, yeah, that thing. That thing where you run the line.
SPEAKER_03You run up to a line, you run back, then you run to the farther line, and then you run back. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And in front of his peers, right? I mean, and this is all just the allegations. Um, but it they're pretty specific and pretty easily disprovable. You just wonder if there's not something there.
SPEAKER_03Well, and there was, I guess, even at some point, I flagged it in my notes. So if you hear me rustling, I do have papers, is not all for memory. Like the court even said that a concerned parent who was her kid, his or her kid, was a classmate of this student, reached out to the school guidance counselor and was like, Look, I heard these things are happening. I'm concerned. And the counselor said, Aha, isn't that so funny? More or less. The the court case says that the counselor uh seemed to find the approach amusing and said, Don't worry, the parents have said it's okay. Uh, spoiler alert, the parents did not say this was okay, and the parents allege they never approved it, and it's not even prescribed. I don't I don't know why any doctor would prescribe whistles or gassers or lines, but yikes.
SPEAKER_00I I mean it's it sounds very bad. And and for what it's worth, and I mean this with all respect, my my mother was a middle school special ed teacher. Middle schools are strange places. It takes just the right personality to be able to show up every day to do that tough work. 100%. Um, so you do like you just kind of wonder uh as far as as kind of what possibly went on here. And again, not assuming the like the very specific allegations, but kind of a a humorous or playful response to a behavior or a playful or humorous response to a concern being raised. You kind of do wonder like, does that kind of fit the character?
SPEAKER_03I don't know. And did the parents complain or did the students complain more than once? Did was he made to run once as like a ha ha ha and it didn't go well? I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_03Right but the court allowed based on what was in the complaint, they allowed the discrimination, the deliberate indifference claim to move forward.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And uh these these uh individual staff members, they're also potentially liable individually.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_00There, I mean, there's there's a lot here uh to move forward with, and and we've done this long enough to know that we're not likely to actually get a court decision on this. The decision happened. The decision was we're not gonna dismiss this, and then that means that there's probably some really serious mediation that has or will occur, and uh this will get resolved because it's gonna be really expensive and time consuming for everyone to find out what the the real truth is. And that's that's really tough because if it's not true or if it's exaggerated, that feels really tough for the individual staff members. Um uh, you know, obviously if it is true, uh, you know, you would hope and assume that things will be done to prevent it from happening moving forward. But uh yeah, that that's it. And and the reason that this case, even though it's it's fairly straightforward, stood out to us is um, you know, anything that can look like public humiliation like that, if it is tied to a protected class, and here the allegation we're focused on is disability, but also there was a racial element to it, that that could be that potential discrimination that we were talking about before. And um it didn't matter that I'm sure there was no policy that said here in the middle school, if you fall asleep, you're gonna run lines um uh in front of your peers, even though it wasn't a policy. But if there's staff conduct that is that is um you know kind of effectively created a policy, if you will, right? This informal practice of this is what we do, that can create liability for the district.
SPEAKER_03And it's on your administration with that. And that last point for that failure to respond. Your job as an administrator is not just to provide a safe and effective environment for kids to learn. It's making sure that the staff members who are with you are also on that train providing an appropriate relationship that you may very well have to manage what they are doing or not doing and correcting it, even if there is a generational gap, if you will. I'm not even certain that that's what was happening here, but just by way of example, even if there is a generational gap to say, we don't do that, you are not allowed to do that anymore. I mean, I've had in other experiences and other cases where staff members have said, Of course I comment on what a lady is wearing to school, what a young lady is. I want to help build her confidence. Well, sir, I'm sorry, but in in this day and age, you can't do that anymore. That looks like some sort of targeting harassment discrimination based on gender.
SPEAKER_00So a very similar sort of situation that we need to make sure school systems were stepping in to correct those behaviors because if we don't that liability can fall on the school district or board, it can fall on the individuals, and that just that that notion of deliberate indifference here uh really turned on the point you made early in the case discussion, just that the school was aware, and and I did flip through because like you, I forgot. Was this an IEP or 504? There was an IEP. Okay. And there had been, according to the facts alleged, discussion of the medication, and the school should have known from that that that could be what would be happening here, and then the behavior of the staff then is kind of imputed on the district as a whole, but then also on those individuals.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yikes.
SPEAKER_00Yikes. All right. Well, nobody wants to be here, so let's with the lessons from this case in mind. People want to be with us on the podcast. Nobody wants buns to be in that case.
SPEAKER_03That's a terrible one for all at that point. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00There's there's not a great outcome no matter what there. So with those lessons in mind, then what about some practical tips, Aaron?
SPEAKER_03So I think generally, I mean you'll always hear us say if it's not document the world, it's making sure that staff are trained. Yeah. Making sure that no matter who the employee is, right, generational differences or not aside, everybody's trained on the same items to make sure we all understand what it looks like for disability needs and behaviors. If there is a student who has a certain disability-based need, or if a student is changing medications, not just documenting that the student is on medication. Medication side effects look different for everybody. So are there any side effects, mom and dad, that this child is experiencing? Having to ask that question. We don't know from this case if that was asked. That's not in the facts alleged. It might have been that nobody ever said what the allegation was. We're assuming that a school should have known, but that's a big should have if the conversation didn't happen. So making sure any staff working with a student is trained on what those behaviors are, and also understanding what the appropriate reactions are.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03I mean, blowing a whistle in a kid's ear seems I I don't know, that just doesn't sit right with me for whatever reason.
SPEAKER_00For whatever reason, because it's a terrible idea. Um But but truly, that is something where like cultures can evolve within ev even if a district as a whole has a wonderful culture about uh responding to things like this. Cultures can evolve within buildings, cultures can evolve even within grade levels, depending on how things are organized, and it's essential. That the building administration, they're the they're the front line on this to be able to observe these things and respond to them. And if the culture is evolving because the staff feel unsupported and and they're just they're I'm sick of it, you know, all I'm doing, then that's a different problem. But ignoring it and allowing it to move forward, if that's what happened here, um uh i i it it's not gonna turn out well and it's really hard to undo at that point. And yeah.
SPEAKER_03Well, and I think taking care in that I I do chuckle about the generational differences, and maybe I'm just stuck on that now for this podcast episode, so I apologize. But some of those very well-meaning, right, lighthearted, no ill intent comments, if they're heard. We all know what those are, right? They kind of give us a little like, ooh, all right. Being able to address them, even peer-to-peer, you know, supervisor to those supervised, that makes sense to address, to say, hey, I know you didn't mean it this way. You want to be very careful about repeating that comment because we could have potential liability if somebody does not receive that in the way that you are intending it to be received.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And and the staff can also help out each other since we've we've been keeping it real here in this episode. Uh, one of my um lesser moments as a teacher, uh, I had a kid who I was overwhelmed. It was my first year, right? You're just like keeping your nose above water. And um, I was not, let's say, familiar enough with the significance I knew this child had uh an IEP. I was not familiar enough uh with how limited his reading ability was. And we would do uh current events every week. Yeah. And I had a really low bar. I just wanted them talking about the news and what was going on. And I called on this kid and he had his newspaper article and everything. I said, Well, what's it about? I don't know. Well, what's the headlines say? I don't know. Could you just read the first line in the article? No. Like, you know, and I I moved on, like I didn't make him run gassers. Uh later that day, the intervention specialist came to me and was like, Mr. Neff.
SPEAKER_02Yikes.
SPEAKER_00And she explained to me, she's like, no, he literally couldn't. Like, so don't do that. Um and that was really important. Yeah. And and we need our people to be able to kind of not call out, but just like address any issues like that so that they're not repeated.
SPEAKER_03And it's meant, it isn't meant from, in your instance, anyone meaning ill will, you or the intervention specialist. It's all to make the environment and the education better for the kid.
SPEAKER_00Yep. All right. So other practical pointers, uh, we've been harping on this for a while. Uh, it is really important any internal complaint processes, we want them transparent, we want them functional, we want to make sure parents are aware of them because we don't want to have a situation where somebody gets so fed up they file a lawsuit. You don't want that receiving that notice to be your first awareness that, oh, we got a problem here.
SPEAKER_03And that isn't necessarily where people have to people don't have to do anything more, right? This is not, I know it's a student who had an IEP, but we're we're talking about 504 violations, discrimination, harassment, deliberate indifference. They don't have to come to your internal procedures. Right. They can go to court. They don't have to go up through the Officer Civil Rights anymore. They don't have to do those things. But if you're listening to this episode and you're going, wait a minute, do I does my school have 504 grievance procedures? Take this as your moment of put a note in your phone, a reminder on your calendar, go look for them. If you can't find them in your school's policies on the website, if your supervisor doesn't know where they are, you should find them because you should have them. Otherwise, we're not providing parents with an opportunity to resolve a problem at a lower local level as quickly as possible. We're almost encouraging them to go to a higher level financial endeavor.
SPEAKER_00Yep. Yeah. Well, with that, let's go back to the caller. Uh when a student's behavior might be connected with their disability, like medication side effects, the key is how the district responds. Public or punitive approaches can quickly escalate the risk of Section 504 or ADA liability. So this is a great time to revisit our staff training, making for sure that our teams are aware of how to handle situations like this, confirming we have those ways that are clearly communicated to parents to raise concerns early. Because when families know they can get a prompt response locally, you're far more likely to resolve issues before they turn into something bigger. Thank you for tuning in to On the Call. If you have found value in our discussion and think your educator colleagues would as well, please share this podcast through text, word of mouth, staff meetings, chats and teachers launch. Your support is what drives this podcast.
SPEAKER_03We work to bring real life situations and practical tips to each episode. If you have a topic you would like to suggest or want to share your thoughts, please connect with us on social media or email us at podcast at nsbritain.com.
SPEAKER_00A quick note this podcast is intended to be used for general information only and is not legal advice. If you have a specific question, please consult an attorney.
SPEAKER_03We are looking forward to being on the call with you again soon.
