Lansing schools ignored students’ need for classroom support, lawsuit alleges

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

Danelle Hovenkamp, a former special education teacher at a high school in the district, names the Lansing School District, the district’s school board and Everett High School Principal Amy Boyles as defendants in the complaint filed Tuesday in Ingham County Superior Court.

“It was frustrating that we had to get to this point,” Hovenkamp told the State Journal Friday morning. “I’m hoping that now that it’s filed, we can see positive changes in the district.”

Hovenkamp alleges in her lawsuit that the school district violated the Whistleblowers’ Protection Act by retaliating against her for filing complaints with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.

Hovenkamp said she was concerned about how the district handles “Individualized Education Programs” for students who need accommodations for disabilities. The IEPs include the student’s current academic status, measurable annual goals and how they are measured, and the services a student needs. 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 that requires accommodations, according to MISchoolData. That’s higher than the statewide average of 14.6%.

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

According to OCR data, there are currently 11 complaints in the district alleging disability discrimination that are being investigated by OCR.

Meeting the needs of students with disabilities during and after the pandemic is a statewide issue. A federal investigation concluded in May found that the Michigan Department of Education failed to ensure that students with disabilities received the education guaranteed to them by federal law, exacerbating problems for these vulnerable students.

Hovenkamp worked as a teacher in Lansing for 6 years. Immediately after joining the school district, she noticed that other teachers were not providing students with the services they were legally required to provide.

“Lansing has always struggled with special education,” she said. “When I got here, they were struggling with providing services, documenting services, providing accommodations, and documenting those.”

In September 2021, Hovenkamp told Boyles, then Everett’s new principal, about the other teachers’ failure to properly complete logs and ensure that students with learning disabilities received the help they needed. The lawsuit alleges that Boyles made no attempt to talk to the teachers about Hovenkamp’s concerns.

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

The information was not entered into Lansing’s student database, and no one followed up with the student when they started with the district. Hovenkamp quickly realized that this was not unusual in the district, and in the lawsuit she said the district had no working system to track the accommodations students needed.

“We had small group testing that was ignored,” she said. “Reading was ignored. This is something that affects (students’) ability to access the curriculum.”

In July 2023, after years of feeling that the school district ignored her concerns, Hovenkamp filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, alleging that the school district discriminated against its students on the basis of disability.

Hovenkamp said that after an OCR complaint was filed, Boyles told other teachers and staff at the school. Hovenkamp also noticed changes in her work environment, including four classes with no prep hour and an Earth Sciences class she was not authorized to teach.

Hovenkamp was fired as a mentor for several students, which she says was traumatic for them.

Hovenkamp filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in September 2023, warning the commission of the retaliation she felt after filing the complaint with the OCR.

One of the final events Hovenkamp said prompted her to leave the district was how Boyles handled a classroom observation in April 2024. Hovenkamp had been put on a “growth plan” because her students were failing classes.

Earlier, during a meeting with Boyles in 2023, Hovenkamp explained that her students were failing courses because other teachers failed “to appropriately accommodate them on their IEPs, and not because of (Hovenkamp’s) poor performance as a teacher,” the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit continued: “The failure of other teachers to provide IEP accommodations to students created problems for students in all of their classes.”

Boyles refused to give Hovenkamp feedback after the 2024 observation, which, according to representatives from the Lansing Schools Education Association who Hovenkamp contacted, is not standard practice. The lawsuit said Hovenkamp never received her feedback and therefore could not prepare for a meeting with Boyles.

The school district and Boyles knew that Hovenkamp needed written feedback before a meeting because of her own disabilities, the lawsuit states.

Liz Abdnour, Hovenkamp’s attorney in Lansing, said the district failed to respond to her requests for mediation, so she was forced to file the lawsuit to comply with time limits for complaints alleging violations of the Whistleblowers’ Protection Act. Abdnour said she heard from the district about mediation Friday morning, three days after the lawsuit was filed.

“Danelle is an expert in special education,” Abdnour said. “It’s super concerning that the district wouldn’t listen to her and instead sought revenge.”

According to Abdnour, the young age of the students being discriminated against makes it extra important for the school district to implement changes.

“Primary and secondary school students have one chance to get their basic education,” Abdnour said. “If they don’t, their whole life can be messed up.”

Hovenkamp is requesting punitive damages, the amount of which will be determined at trial, a $500 fine, costs of litigation, attorneys’ fees, and any additional damages the court deems just and equitable.

Contact Sarah Atwood at [email protected]. Follow her on X @sarahmatwood.