Lee's Summit R-7 School District

Reorganized School District No.7 301 NE Tudor Road Lee's Summit, Missouri 64086-5702 Phone: (816) 986-1024 Fax: (816) 986-1160 Jerry L. Keimig Executive Director of Special Services December 22, 2008 Ms. Heidi Atkins Lieberman Assistant Commissioner Division of Special Education Missouri Dept. of Elementary and Secondary Education PO Box 480 Jefferson City, Missouri 65102-0480 Dear Ms. Lieberman: This letter is in response to concerns expressed by OSEP regarding Ms. Tucker. Ms. Tucker has responded to staff in our District with a continual barrage of emails and web postings on a variety of topics expressing concerns, sending general information regarding special education issues, and conducting personal attacks on staff. Ms. Tucker continually voices her concerns regarding educational programming for her son. We would agree that he has specific areas that need to be addressed, but despite multiple District attempts to provide direct interventions for her son, she has refused many o...

Spending Our tax levy is one of the highest in the metro area, yet we spend among the least on our students. Our children can learn in any building. During the last election one of the present school board members said that he would hold up our facilities to any of those in Johnson County. I didn’t move to Lee’s Summit to compete with Johnson County. I moved here because the schools were supposed to be among the best that the metro had to offer. Here is an article from the Lee’s Summit R-VII newsletter: The Kansas City Business Journal recently featured a listing of the top 25 school districts based on enrollments. The information including budget and employee statistics appeared in an October 2008 issue of the publication. Lee’s Summit R-7 ranked seventh in the metropolitan area in terms of total enrollment among the 25 districts selected for the newspaper edition. The R-7 School District’s total enrollment for this school year is 17,137. The six districts in the metro area with ...

Sherri Tucker for School Board Spending Our tax levy is one of the highest in the metro area, yet we spend among the least on our students. Our children can learn in any building. During the last election one of the present school board members said that he would hold up our facilities to any of those in Johnson County. I didn ’t move to Lee’s Summit to compete with Johnson County. I moved here because the schools were supposed to be among the best that the metro had to offer. Here is an article from the Lee’s Summit R-VII newsletter: The Kansas City Business Journal recently featured a listing of the top 25 school districts based on enrollments. The information including budget and employee statistics appeared in an October 2008 issue of the publication. Lee’s Summit R-7 ranked seventh in the metropolitan area in terms of total enrollment among the 25 districts selected for the newspaper edition. The R-7 School District’s total enrollment for this school year is 17,137. The six distr...

Our tax levy is the highest in the metropolitan area and we spend among the least on our students. But, don't worry. We have a $12 million aquatic center and a state of the art Board Room. This was in the R-7 newsletter that was sent out to those in the district. They are proud of how little they spend on our kids. The Kansas City Business Journal recently featured a listing of the top 25 metropolitan-area school districts based on enrollments. The information including budget and and employee statistiecs, appeared in an October 2008 issue of the publication. Lee's Summit R-7 ranked seventh in the metropolitan area in terms of total enrollment among the 25 districts selected for the newspaper edition. The R-7 School District's total enrollment for this school year to 17,137. The six districts in the metro area with higher enrollments are Shawnee Mission, Kan.; Olathe, Kan.; Kansas City, MO; Blue Valley, Kan.; Kansas City, Kan.; and North Kansas City. The Business Jour...

SB 175 Requires the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to produce "The Parents' Bill of Rights" for parents of children with an individualized education program Sponsor: Schmitt LR Number: 0939S.02I Fiscal Note: 0939-02 Committee: Education Last Action: 2/11/2009 - Hearing Conducted S Education Committee Journal Page: Title: Calendar Position: Effective Date: August 28, 2009 Current Bill Summary SB 175 – This act requires the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to produce "The Parents' Bill of Rights," to inform parents of children with an individualized education program of their educational rights under federal and state law by January 1, 2010. The publication must contain ten points of information, which are described in the act. Each school district must provide a copy of "The Parents' Bill of Rights" at least ten days prior to the IEP meeting to the parent or parents of a child with an IEP. At the meeting, the pa...

FILE: AC Critical Portions © 2007 Missouri School Boards’ Association PROHIBITION AGAINST ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION AND HARASSMENT General Rule The Lee's Summit R-7 School District Board of Education is committed to maintaining a workplace and educational environment that is free from illegal discrimination or harassment in admission or access to, or treatment or employment in, its programs, activities and facilities. Discrimination or harassment against employees, students or others on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, disability, age or any other characteristic protected by law is strictly prohibited in accordance with law. The Lee's Summit R-7 School District is an equal opportunity employer. Students, employees and others will not be disciplined for speech in circumstances where it is protected by law. The Board also prohibits: 1 . Retaliatory actions based on making complaints of prohibited discrimination or harassment ...

http://plms.leesummit.k12.mo.us/handbook/handbook07.pdf POLICIES CONCERNING ORDER AND DISCIPLINE The law provides teachers with considerable authority over the control and education of the child, once the parent sends his child to the public schools. The authority of the teacher is given by law and is not delegated by the parent. Authority is granted to the teacher by the state as an essential part of teacher responsibility. The teacher stands in place of the parent when the child is under the teacherʼs supervision and care.

Once again, the district never acknowledged that this press release was inaccurate. They did, however, remove it from the website. Missouri education officials select Lee's Summit R-7 School District to present program on autism education at state-wide conference Selection based on district's exemplary services for special-needs students This is not only wrong, it is immoral to let people believe that Lee's Summit is doing anything but a poor job with our children. I can give you the names of numerous families that will testify to this. Many have already sent letters to Heidi Atkins-Lieberman about this. The Lee's Summit R-7 School District was recently selected to present information on the district's services for students with autism at the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education's Annual Cooperative Conference for School Administrators, scheduled for early August. Just two districts in the state were chosen for this presentation, and ...

I am the President and Co-Founder of the Lee's Summit Autism Support Group I am a member of the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Special Education Advisory Panel ( DESE ) ( SEAP ) I was elected to the SEAP Executive Committee I am the Chairperson for the Monitoring Committee for the SEAP I am a resident of Lee's Summit I have three children attending Lee's Summit High School I am the only candidate that is familiar with NCLB , OSEP , IDEA, and special education. I have extensive knowledge in these areas and I am familiar with the how the district is not following the spirit of the law. I have a 15 year old son that has been diagnosed with Kanner's Syndrome/Early Infantile Autism, Dysgraphia , Inattentive ADHD , and Anxiety Disorder. I just paid a $700 medical bill because school causes my son so much anxiety that he was taking medication to be able to attend school. His liver became damaged, because of the medication, and I have had to take ...

Dear Ms. Tucker: The Lee’s Summit district made this conclusion by itself, by comparing their test results with statewide data. We reported the 2008 state MAP results recently. Here is the report: http://dese.mo.gov/news/2008/MAPandAYP.htm If you click on the “Summary” link in this statement, you will see a page of numbers which includes a column for the percent scoring Proficient or Advanced. It appears to me that Lee’s Summit did its own analysis based on these numbers and drew this conclusion. DESE did not single-out Lee’s Summit for exemplary performance. We issued the results for every district in the state at the same time. Jim Morris DESE Public Information Office

Parents of Autistic Children Address R-7 Board By Brett Dalton The Journal Staff Two Missouri school districts have been chosen to speak at the Commissioner of Education conference in August to share "exemplary practices in the area of autism." The Lee's Summit R-7 School District is one of those districts, according to information released at Thursday's R-7 Board of Education meeting. At the conference, staff members from the school district will conduct sessions for superintendents and other administrators from throughout the state in order to assist them in serving their autistic population of students. However, before that news was announced at the board meeting, a group of parents of autistic children addressed the board and expressed their dissatisfaction with how the district provides for autistic children and students with various other special needs. One of those parents was Sherri Tucker, who lost in her bid to obtain a spot on the board during the April 8 c...

This district has not allowed my son's evaluation scores to be put into his IEP. How is anyone ever going to know his deficits if they don't include those in his IEP? I put them in the parent concerns. They denied my right to have my concerns in the IEP. They decided to edit them. See below the comments that they wrote on his IEP. Attaching 4 pages of parent concerns in PLAAFP without specific test scores and diagnostic interpretations. IEP Goals & Objectives:A Tactics and Strategy Sessionwith Pete & Pam Wright Print this page Question: As an LDA President from a midwestern state, I coach parents about how to write Present Levels of Educational Performance (PLEP) for their children's IEPs. We tell parents that standard scores from evaluations and reevaluations should be included as present levels in the IEP. Some schools resist . They insist on using "teacher observations" instead of using objective information from standardized tests for the present level...