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Children With Diabetes Sue School Districts, State For Assistance; Denial Of Glucose Monitoring And Insulin Administration During The School Day Challenged

Unprecedented Class Action Civil Rights Complaint Filed In Federal Court

(OCTOBER 11, 2005, Oakland, CA) – Four elementary school-age students, along with the American Diabetes Association, filed an unprecedented civil rights complaint today in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California seeking class action relief against the California Superintendent of Public Schools, the California Department of Education, members of the California Board of Education, the San Ramon Valley Unified School District, the Fremont Unified School District, and their Superintendents and Boards of Trustees. The suit asks the Court to compel public school officials to comply with federal law by providing the assistance that California students with diabetes require to manage their diabetes during the school day.

The complaint alleges that the state and the local districts violate Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (Section 504), the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and applicable federal regulations in their failure to ensure the health and safety of public school students with diabetes in Kindergarten through 12th Grade by providing insulin administration, blood glucose monitoring, proper care in emergency situations, and other appropriate diabetes care.

Note: The first paragraph of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act states: The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (formerly called P.L. 94-142 or the Education for all Handicapped Children Act of 1975) requires public schools to make available to all eligible children with disabilities a free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment appropriate to their individual needs.”

Okay — I can appreciate, as most of you can too, that schools are trying their best to keep drugs from the school rooms. This is the main reason why most girls that need pain medication, from Midol to a simple Aspirin, can’t even take them during that time of the month. BUT — Midol and Aspirin aren’t a daily necessity for “life” like monitoring your blood glucose levels and taking insulin. Type 1 diabetics are dependant on insulin to live. There are some Type 2 diabetics also on an insulin regiment, but either way — sugar levels have to be monitored and medicine administered. When you have a low, you need to be able to check for sure how low you’re going and be able to take steps to counteract it. Does that mean you have to sit in class with your hand raised – if you can – until the teacher finds the time to call on you? Then you have to “go to the office or nurse’s station” and sit there and wait until someone can deal with you? Okay, so you just flat pass out in the hallway on the way to the nurse’s station and maybe someone will find you before it’s too late.

Being over dramatic? Maybe — but if my child had diabetes and felt a low coming on, I would want them to be able to move to a quiet corner of the class room and test on their own, if they are of the age to do so. I don’t have a problem if they needed to take insulin for it to be administered by the nurse — let’s go with safety here. However, if my child is able to administer insulin on their own, they should be able to have it available to them so they can get to it without having to wait.

Schools must NOT treat diabetics differently than any other student, yet they should be able to provide assistance when said diabetic needs it. I applaud these people for what they are doing.

Don’t treat me differently because I’m a diabetic, celebrate with me that I am in control and living a full life.

The complaint asks the Court to require the California Department of Education and the school districts to establish policy ensuring that districts will provide a sufficient number of adequately trained school personnel to check students’ blood glucose levels, monitor students for symptoms of high and low blood glucose, and assist with administering insulin or glucagon or other treatment the children require.

“Diabetes must be managed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. A student with diabetes cannot take a break from diabetes when he or she boards the school bus in the morning.” said L. Hunter Limbaugh, the Chair of the National Advocacy Committee at the American Diabetes Association and a parent of a daughter who has diabetes. “It’s vital that all students with diabetes in California and throughout the nation know they will be in a medically safe environment that affords them the same educational opportunities as other students. As is very clear from the stories of the named plaintiffs in this lawsuit, many students with diabetes in California are not safe at school. They do not have access to the basic tools to manage their diabetes. It is because this situation is intolerable for students and their families that the American Diabetes Association has joined this lawsuit.”

Source: American Diabetes Association