Thank you to everyone who donated to Owen’s legal fund through our fundraising efforts on fundable.com.  We were able to raise more than our goal of $10,000 thanks to an incredible and very generous group of people. 

We are no longer raising funds through fundable.com and are looking at other ways to accept donations if necessary after we receive the judge’s ruling.  Please check back periodically if you are interested.

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Owen was diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder in April 2008. It is a year later and we are at the end of a due process case against the local school district to ensure that he receives that which the schools are required to provide him by law — a Free and Appropriate Public Education. The hearing lasted 8 days. During that time we asked ourselves many times if we could have avoided a full blown due process hearing, and as more and more information came out about how the schools handled this and how early their lawyers were involved, we came to the conclusion that this was our only option.

Because of this we have incurred substantial legal fees — over $150,000. We have already paid nearly $50,000 of that but have a long way to go. We are in the process of taking out loans but it still won’t be enough — we need your help. We have set the amount here to be raised at $10,000– it is a minimum amount that we hope is attainable in 26 days. Still, we’d like to raise as much as we can up to $150,000.

The Administrative Judge will make a ruling on the case on May 28th. If we are the prevailing party we may be able to recover some of the legal costs. If we are to prevail and do not need the all of the money raised, whatever is left will be donated to a disability rights advocacy organization.