Dec 29, 2017 4 min read

The mother of a McGuffey School District student whose special needs allegedly were mocked by three teachers in a conversation recorded by mistake is accusing the district of discrimination and other violations of her daughter’s rights in a federal lawsuit.

Beth Suhon of Donegal Township said in a lawsuit filed Sunday in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh McGuffey officials also improperly terminated a plan granting accommodations for her daughter’s special needs without the family’s consent and failed to conduct appropriate testing to identify learning disabilities that warranted special services.

In February 2015, one of Suhon’s daughter’s teachers left Suhon a voicemail, apparently with two colleagues in the room. After what seemed to be the end of the message, the recording continued. During the ensuing discussion, the three allegedly mocked difficulties faced by Suhon’s daughter, who was in fifth grade at the time, and another student they named.

Speaking Thursday to reporters in the office of her attorney, Noah Geary, Suhon said one of the teachers tried to “reason with me” about the comments in the recording when they spoke over the phone that same day.

“Her response to me was, ‘Have you ever had one of those days?'” Suhon said. “That was her reasoning for making hideous remarks about my child and another special-needs child.”

The recording figured in a due-process complaint decided in September. Michael McElligott, a special-education hearing officer, found the district had discriminated against Suhon’s daughter.

“Anyone listening to the voicemail recording would agree – it is nearly unfathomable, and frankly heartbreaking, to gauge that the speakers on that recording are educators working with 10-year-old children and are particularly discussing some of those children who clearly have significant disabilities,” McElligott wrote.

He noted in his decision that the district had since claimed that the conversation centered on the other student. Yet, he added, district officials failed to correct that supposed misunderstanding in subsequent interactions with Suhon, who contends the teachers were making fun of both children.

Geary also wrote in the complaint that McGuffey officials “failed to appropriately discipline/take appropriate corrective action” against the teachers.

District solicitor John Smart didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment Friday morning.

Suhon and her husband, who has since died, withdrew their daughter from the district and enrolled her in cyberschool for the remainder of that year. They “reluctantly” placed her back in a McGuffey school the following year. She’s now in eighth grade.

As a result of the message, Suhon learned that an education plan created for her daughter in September 2012 under the federal Rehabilitation Act, pertaining to a diagnosis of Turner’s syndrome, a chromosomal disorder that affects a small percentage of women and girls, had been terminated in January 2014, allegedly without the family’s consent.

Geary said Suhon’s daughter was unable to inform her parents the plan had been terminated.

“Nevertheless, in that time period, crossing two school years – which, of course, is an eternity for a child – Beth went to meetings with the teachers and said, we really don’t think this … plan is working very well …,” Geary said. “The teachers never said to Beth, ‘Oh, that’s because we removed it, and here’s why we did that.'”

McElligott found the plan wasn’t ended “with deliberate indifference.” He also found in favor of the district on a claim that officials retaliated against Suhon’s daughter and her family.

Suhon’s federal complaint contains claims of retaliation; violations of the Rehabilitation, Americans with Disabilities and Individuals with Disabilities in Education Improvement acts; and denial of her daughter’s constitutional right to an education, along with the discrimination claim. It seeks damages against the district.