The inspiration for today’s Daily Dawg comes from Kahlil Gibran who wrote:

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

So when they turn 18 and want nothing to do with special education, there’s not much the parent can do about it.  That’s why Elizabeth Harris’s suit against the Cleveland City Board of Education was dismissed.  She said the district violated IDEA by serving her son poorly.  The young man declined to participate in the suit. The court dismissed the case in prose, not poetry:

When Michael turned 18 on March 31, 2017, all rights under the IDEA transferred to him. Therefore, when Michael declined special education services during the April 25, 2017 meeting with school personnel, his position was controlling.

As Gibran puts it:

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. 

Ms. Harris’s arrow has left the bow.  The case is Harris v. Cleveland City Board of Education, decided by the federal court for the Eastern District of Tennessee on March 1, 2018.  We found it at 71 IDELR 189.

DAWG BONE: MIGHT BE A GOOD IDEA TO READ THIS POEM AT EVERY TRANSITION MEETING.