New Stop Added to Jim Gerl 2011 Special Education Law Tour

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Well another stop has been added to my 2011 Special Education Law Tour.  I will be co-presenting a session on resolution sessions at the Arizona Director's Conference. The conference will be held from August 29 to 31, 2011 at the Wigwam Resort.  You can learn more about this conference at the Arizona Department of education website 

The tour is now well under way.  As always I am having a great time traveling around the country. I am meeting many of our wonderful readers on the tour.

By the way next week, I will be in Columbia South Carolina.  Because this stop is for meetings tat are not open to the public, it is not an official tour stop.  But I am definitely looking forward to spending a few days in Columbia.

If you will be near any of my stops, please find me and say hello.  In the meantime, thanks for your ongoing support!

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Nice Visit in Phoenix

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I just got back from a conference in Phoenix.  It is nice to get to see a bunch of people who I like and work with all at the same time.  Thank you all for your company.  It was a great time.

I especially enjoy meeting the many readers of this blog who came up to me and introduced themselves.  It is always a thrill to meet our readers.  One reader actually recognized me from my photo on the blog. See there, this refutes definitely the argument that I have heard that my high school picture decorates the blog and that Ii am actually now much older.  Ha!

So thanks to everybody for helping me enjoy the experience.

One complaint:  Long time readers know that my only sports addiction is the Cubs.   Why do the Diamondbacks feel they are justified in doubling their ticket prices when the Chicago Cubs are in town?  By the way the Nationals do the same thing when the Cubs play in DC.  I'm pretty sure that these "prime games" violate my constitutional rights.  It is interesting how there are so many blue Cubs jerseys in these other baseball parks, but supply and demand only should go so far!  Free the long-suffering Cub fans!

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New Stop Added to Jim Gerl 2011 Special Education Law Tour

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As the season changes, I have begun to acquire a few additional speaking engagements for the 2011 Jim Gerl Special Education Law Tour. I enjoy seeing this great country and meeting those who enjoy reading this blog.  It is very satisfying to speak with those who utilize this tool for special education stakeholders of all types.

The newest stop added to the 2011 tour is the annual conference of the National Association of Hearing Officials.  I have been lucky enough to be a regular faculty member for NAHO for the last seven years.  NAHO is a group of hearing officers.  They are not just special ed hearing officers but all kinds of hos.  You can learn more about this fantastic organization here.

The annual conference will be held in Santa Fe, New Mexico form November November 13 - 16. This conference is a must for the hearing officers of the world.  I hope that I will see you there.

Conference details for all stops on the tour are included in the semi-permanent (I love that word) box on the lefthand side of the blog.

There are a few more possible additions to the tour agenda; I'll keep you posted.  By the way, these do not include in-house engagements where the public is excluded.  

If you will be at these conferences or if you are in the neighborhood, please find me and say hello.  I'm pretty hard to miss!

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Announcing the Jim Gerl 2011 Special Education Law Tour

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Last year I had some fun with my special education law tour.  As I speak at conferences around the country, I like to let readers know so that they can drop by and say hello.  I have met a lot of the readers of this blog this way.  I always enjoy meeting our readers, and I get a lot of ideas for future posts through this method.  

We will need a new name for this year's tour.  Last year, after soliciting suggestions from readers, we called it the Gerls Rock Tour.  Once again, I'm requesting your tour naming ideas.  Be creative enough, and we might just select your suggestion as the tour name.

The following list of speaking engagements does not include in-house functions (such as hearing officer trainings or mediator trainings that I conduct) because you cannot hear me speak there. I'm looking forward to the tour:

April 25 - 28        Council For Exceptional Children Annual Conference      National Harbor, Md

July 12 - 15         10th Seattle U. IDEA Hearing Officer Academy             Seattle, WA

July 26 -  27        5th Annual Wyoming Special Ed Law Symposium            Lander, WY


Please note that there are likely to be another stop or two on the tour. But these have already been agreed to and I'm sure to be there.  Please find me and say hello if you will be at any of these fantastic conferences.  I will add new conferences to the list on the lefthand side of the blog as they are determined.  You can register for these conferences through the links on those lists.

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Jim Gerl's 2010 Rockin' the Joint Tour

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Last summer I had some fun on these pages describing what I called my IDEA Remedies Tour. I was doing presentations on the two major special education law remedies: Reimbursement for Unilateral Placements (at the annual ed Law Conference in Portland, Maine) and on Compensatory Education (at the U of Seattle HO Academy.)

Not being able to resist, I am again announcing my 2010 summer tour. If you read this blog and you will be in any of these places while I am there, please let me know or come by and say hello. I always enjoy meeting readers of the blog. These are only the conferences that are open to the public although in some instances, my presentation may not be open to the public. Please check the registration sites for more specifics.

The theme of this summer's presentations is a little less obvious. If anybody has a better idea, please post a comment. For now I am hoping that Aerosmith will not be upset that I am calling it my "2010 Rockin' the Joint Tour." (INSERT appropriate music here.)

I have made a semi-permanent gadget on the left-hand side of the blog which states where I will be and includes registration links where available. PLEASE NOTE: none of the state departments of education or other agencies or sponsors of these conferences in any way endorse this blog. My comments, here and elsewhere, are my own and should not be taken to represent the views of the sponsoring organizations or any other entity. (That was what we call a disclaimer; there is a purpose for lawyers.)

From July 27 - 29, 2010, I will be at the Wyoming Special Education Leadership Symposium in Lander, Wyoming. I will be part of a panel discussing least restrictive environment issues; I will give a paired presentation with the highly regarded Julie Weatherly ( a big honor for me) on educational benefit and I will be doing a solo session discussing dispute resolution options.

I will attend the Utah Institute on Special Education Law on August 2 - 3, 2010 at the Eccles Center in Ogden, Utah, and I will do a (non-public) hearing officer/mediator training the next day.

From August 30 - September 1, 2010, I will be at the Arizona Special Education Directors Institute in Litchfield Park, Arizona. I will do repeat presentations on the role of the non-attorney advocate in IEP team meetings and due process hearings.

I will for the sixth straight year be a part of the faculty at the National Association of Hearing Officials Annual Conference from September 26 - 29, 2010 in Music City, Nashville Tennessee. I will be presenting on the prehearing process and on ruling on objections.

So there it is, please stop and say hello if you will be nearby. Again the name challenge- if you have a better name for my tour than Rockin' the Joint, please leave a comment.

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Reflections on My IDEA Remedies Tour - Part I

As some of you have noticed, I've had some fun describing my two speaking engagements last month as the IDEA Remedies Tour. I spoke in early July at the Seattle University Academy for IDEA Hearing Officers on the topic of compensatory education. Lotsa changes going on in the law as to the remedy of compensatory education. By the way, I'm not talking about the Title I definition of compensatory education for poor and culturally deprived children. (Why do we so often use the same phrases to mean different things? Are we trying to confuse people?) Instead, my session was on the changes in the law of compensatory education, meaning the remedy when a parent/student prevails in a special education case.

In late July, I presented two sessions at the 16th annual Education Law Conference in Portland, Maine. One of my topics was the remedy of reimbursement for a unilateral placement. I was lucky enough to have a recent United States Supreme Court decision on that very t

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opic in time for my presentation.

In the coming installments in this series, I'll be sharing some of the substantive "meat "of my presentations, and some new hot button issues that I discovered by attending these conferences. Today, I want to make a few general comments and observations.

First, I love these conferences. In addition to presenting, I learn a lot. Presentations by other experienced hearing officers and special ed law experts, like my friend Professor Mark Weber, are invaluable. The exchange of information and the high level discussion of the issues really helps me to stay on top of the difficult and ever-changing body of special education law.

Second, the networking opportunities are excellent. I get to visit with many old friends, and I invariably make a bunch of new friends. Thanks to all of you. I know that many readers of this blog could not attend these conferences this year, although a number of you were there. For those who couldn't make it, the next posts in this series will concern some of the substance of my presentations. As always, I would appreciate the responses and reactions of our many readers.

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