LEARNING RIGHTS LAW CENTER

Founded in 2005, Learning Rights Law Center seeks to ensure that all students are provided with equitable access to the public education system and focuses on low-income students who have disabilities, face discrimination or are involved in the dependency or juvenile justice systems. Learning Rights targets its legal services and programs to assist PreK-12th grade students, aged 3-22. Many of these young people are not receiving an appropriate public education due to disabilities; other students do not have special needs but face discrimination for other reasons, such as language barriers, sexual orientation or their court status. Students come from economically-marginalized communities throughout Los Angeles County.

Learning Rights Current Services and Programs
• Legal Service Clinics – Through in-person, one-to-one meetings, Learning Rights counsels and advises low-income parents, and develops an individualized action plan that each parent can use to address their child’s education issues.
• TIGER (Training Individuals for Grassroots Education Reform) Program – Learning Rights delivers year-long training and organizing to help low-income parents advocate for special education services for their children with disabilities, while also bringing social change to the education system.
• Direct Representation and Litigation – In more complex situations, Learning Rights staff attorneys provide students with free direct representation in order to access services or enforce compliance with state and federal laws.
• Advocacy for Children with Autism Program – Learning Rights offers counsel, advice and direct representation to students with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
• Los Angeles Medical-Legal Collaborative for Education (LAMCE) – Learning Rights partners with Children’s Hospital Los Angeles to assist patients with education-access issues and to train health care providers to identify these young people.
• Outreach Activities – Activities include educational seminars and training sessions for parents and stakeholders; community outreach events; and collaborations with the Loyola Marymount University Graduate School of Education and the Claremont Graduate University School of Education.

Every child has the legal right to a free appropriate public education – the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) guarantees this right for students with disabilities. In Los Angeles County, there are more than 1.5 million students enrolled in the K-12 public school system. Of these young people, more than 67% live in poverty. While many students are denied equitable access to education, those students with special needs are at the highest risk. They face the greatest chance of discrimination, segregation and court involvement without appropriate services and support.

The lack of a free appropriate public education puts children with disabilities on a difficult life trajectory that limits their ability to become contributing members of their communities. Low-income families do not have the financial resources to hire education advocates, special education attorneys and/or specialists to represent their interests in the way that middle- and upper-middle-class families can afford.

Beyond the lost potential are the monetary costs to society. Studies estimate that within the U.S.’s juvenile corrections system, some 30%-70% of young people have disabilities. Many of these young people have never been assessed or diagnosed with disabilities and have not received proper educational supports – interventions that might have (and still could) make a difference.

Learning Rights Law Center addresses some of the most pressing education-access needs for thousands of low-income students with disabilities and those who face discrimination for other reasons. Learning Rights distinguishes itself from any other legal services nonprofit in Southern California through its unique approach to helping its clients:
• Learning Rights provides low-income students with the same quality of legal representation as those with means. When parents with financial resources hire an education rights lawyer, they overwhelmingly do so in order to receive help filing for Due Process with the Office of Administrative Hearings’ Special Education Division (the body that hears disputes around special education services, supports and placement). As a result Learning Rights focuses most of its direct legal representation on these administrative Due Process hearings. The number of these education-related Due Process filings is unequaled by any other legal services nonprofit in Southern California.
The added benefit to this volume is that it enables Learning Rights to discover recurring problems and, by extension, systemic issues. Only after systemic issues have been identified, and attempts to resolve them at the district level have failed, does Learning Rights pursue federal or state litigation. This "ground up" approach ensures that litigation is reflective of the realities of real people.
• Learning Rights’ philosophy is a highly-sustainable and efficient one. Learning Rights believes in grassroots advocacy and "teaching a man to fish". If a parent can be shown, guided or taught how to advocate for their child, Learning Rights is committed to doing this. Learning Rights trains parents and supports them in disseminating that knowledge throughout their community so that fellow parents can also benefit. And should a parent, having exhausted all other channels, truly need a lawyer, Learning Rights will be that lawyer and expend precious legal resources to directly represent their child.
• Learning Rights is focused entirely on education access with no competing agendas. Learning Rights is the only legal services nonprofit in Southern California focused exclusively on education access. While a number of other legal services nonprofits give many education access cases to pro bono attorneys, many of whom do not have a background or much training in education rights, Learning Rights invests deeply in training its staff attorneys to become specialists in this very complex area of the law. Learning Rights staff attorneys are almost exclusively those with education or civil rights backgrounds.
Outcomes and Impact
In 2013, Learning Rights benefited 6,485 students, parents, family members and stakeholders from throughout Los Angeles County. Highlights include:
• Serving more than 615 low-income parents and their children though one-to-one Legal Service Clinics.
• Directly representing low-income students in 265 legal matters, all involving access to a public education.
• Providing intensive advocacy training through the TIGER Program to help 950 parents and their children with disabilities.
• Reaching more than 3,830 individuals through outreach activities.

Learning Rights Law Center is the only legal-services nonprofit in Los Angeles County — and Southern California — focused exclusively on ensuring education access.