Lansing schools ignored students' needs for classroom support, lawsuit claims

LANSING — The Lansing School District failed to consistently implement accommodations for students with learning disabilities, a former teacher said in a lawsuit filed this week.

Danelle Hovenkamp, a former high school special education teacher at the district, names the Lansing School District, the district's Board of Education and Everett High School's principal, Amy Boyles, as defendants in the complaint filed Tuesday in Ingham County Circuit Court.

"It was frustrating that we had to get to this point," Hovenkamp told the State Journal Friday morning. "I hope, now that it's filed, we can see some positive change in the district."

In her lawsuit, Hovenkamp alleges the district violated the Whistleblowers' Protection Act when they retaliated against her for filing complaints with the U.S. Dept. of Education's Office of Civil Rights.

Hovenkamp said she was concerned with how the district handles "Individualized Education Programs" for students requiring disability accommodations. The IEPs include the student's current academic standing, measurable annual goals and how they will be measured, and the services a student requires. These are legally required documents for students with disabilities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

Nearly 21% of Lansing School District students have a disability requiring accommodation, according to MISchoolData. This is higher than statewide averages of 14.6%.

Lansing Superintendent Ben Shuldiner said the district does not comment on ongoing litigation. The district does not yet have attorneys representing the defendants.

The district currently has 11 complaints related to disability discrimination under investigation by the OCR, according to data from the OCR.

Fulfilling students with disabilities' accommodations during and after the pandemic has been a problem across the state. A federal investigation concluded in May found that the Michigan Department of Education failed to ensure students with disabilities received the education guaranteed to them by federal law and worsened issues for those vulnerable students.

Hovenkamp spent 6 years as a Lansing teacher, and immediately after beginning her position with the district she said she noticed other teachers failing to provide students with the disability accommodations they were legally required to.

"Lansing has always struggled with special ed," she said. "When I got here they struggled with providing services, documenting services, providing accommodation and documenting those."

In September 2021, Hovenkamp told Boyles, then Everett's new principal, about the other teachers' failure to properly fill out the logs and make sure students with learning disabilities were getting the help they needed. The lawsuit states that Boyles did not attempt to talk to the teachers about Hovenkamp's concerns.

Also, in November 2022, Hovenkamp noticed that a student who had transferred to the district that fall had an Individualized Education Program at a previous district. The student did not have one in Lansing and was struggling.

The information had not been entered into Lansing's student database and no one followed up with the student when they started at the district. Hovenkamp soon realized that this wasn't uncommon in the district, and in the lawsuit she said that the district did not have a functioning system to track the accommodations students needed.

"We had small group testing being ignored," she said. "Read aloud was being ignored. This is stuff that affects (students') ability to access the curriculum."

In July 2023, after years of feeling the district was ignoring her concerns, Hovenkamp filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, alleging disability discrimination by the district against their students.

Hovenkamp said that after being notified an OCR complaint was filed, Boyles told other teachers and staff at the school. Hovenkamp also saw changes in her working environment, including four classes with no preparatory hour and an Earth Sciences class, which she was not certified to teach.

Hovenkamp was removed as mentor for several students, which she said was traumatic for them.

Hovenkamp filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commision in September 2023, alerting them to the retaliatory treatment she felt she experienced after filing the OCR complaint.

One of the last events Hovenkamp said caused her to leave the district was how Boyles handled an April 2024 classroom observation. Hovenkamp had been put on a "growth plan," because her students were not passing classes.

Previously, during a 2023 meeting with Boyles, Hovenkamp explained that her students were failing classes because other teachers failed to "properly accommodate them according to their IEPs, not because of (Hovenkamp's) poor performance as a teacher," the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit continued: "Other teachers' failure to provide IEP accommodations to students caused problems for students in all their classes."

Boyles refused to provide Hovenkamp with feedback after the 2024 observation, which is not standard practice according to the Lansing Schools Education Association representatives Hovenkamp reached out to. The lawsuit said that because Hovenkamp never received her feedback, she was unable to prepare for a meeting with Boyles.

The district and Boyles were aware that because of Hovenkamp's own disabilities she required written feedback before a meeting, the lawsuit said.

Liz Abdnour, Hovenkamp's Lansing-based attorney, said the district did not respond to her requests for mediation, so she was forced to file the lawsuit to meet time restraints for complaints alleging violations of the Whistleblowers' Protection Act. Abdnour said she heard back from the district about mediation Friday morning, three days after the suit was filed.

"Danelle is an expert in special education," Abdnour said. "It's super concerning that the district would not listen to her and would instead choose to retaliate."

Abdnour said that how young the students being discriminated against are adds to the urgency for the district to make changes.

"Students in K-12 have one opportunity to get their K-12 education," Abdnour said, "If it's not successful, their entire lives could be messed up."

Hovenkamp is asking for relief in the form of damages in an amount to be determined at trial, a civil fine of $500, costs of bringing the suit, attorneys' fees, and any additional relief the Court finds to be just and equitable.

Contact Sarah Atwood at satwood@lsj.com. Follow her on X @sarahmatwood.

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Lansing schools ignored students' needs for classroom support, lawsuit claims