By Adrianne Paderna, Clovis Community College
Students with special needs often find themselves in situations in which their specific needs are not accommodated or accounted for – and in many cases, their parents find themselves fighting grueling, unexpected battles; Jodie Howard is one such parent, but the battles she fought were not only for her own family.
Howard’s victories, instead, extended to catalyze those of other families around her. Jodie Howard welcomed her first child, Bren, with her husband, Robert, in Sanger, California, in 2004. She noticed some developmental issues in her son when he was around 18 months old, and at the age of three, Bren was diagnosed with autism. Autism, or autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is a developmental disorder that affects an individual’s communication and interactions. Not all who are affected by autism exhibit the same tendencies, or habits. According to an article by Patricia Braus in the Gale Encyclopedia of Science, many do not “greet parents when they enter the house or seek comfort when in pain,” while others can converse “but may be obsessed with … unusual behaviors, such as a fascination with calendar or timetables.”
ASD is considered by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, the Autism Society of America, and the national Institutes of Health to be America’s fasted growing developmental disability, and its prevalence has grown from on in 150 children in 2000 to one in 54 children in 2020 – its heritability is estimated to range from 50 percent to 90 percent. While multiple types of genetic factors of ASD have been found, “an effective treatment for the core symptoms of ASD has not yet been discovered and used in clinical practice.”
Howard notes when a child with special needs reaches three years old, “in the state of California … if you need help, the assistance comes from the school district.” Howard had cooperated with her son’s school district in Sanger starting when Bren was three, “but as soon as he turned five [and entered] kindergarten, we started hitting some issues where I disagreed with the route the school districts wanted to take,” Howard said. Bren is nonverbal. He, however, had “amassed a sizeable vocabulary” in sign language that he used to communicate. When his school district refused to accommodate his mode of communication, Howard found herself frustrated: The school district said “we need to teach him to either type or speak. And I was fine with him learning those skills as well, but ... he wanted to sign and I kept thinking, if he has a really hard time communicating, why would we want to take away his preferred mode and make him do something he doesn’t like as well?”
When Bren was in kindergarten, his school district filed a case against Howard and her husband. Bren “had been allotted so much funding from the state to receive services, and they wanted to cut that. And we didn’t feel like that cut was justified,” explains Howard. Local attorneys lacked knowledge of the laws that pertained to the Howards’ situation. Legal professionals handling cases that involve children with special needs adapt different mindsets due to differing needs; for example, individuals with special needs require individualized services throughout their lives, not only during childhood.
For the Howards, Los Angeles lawyers were unaffordable, so Howard represented herself and her husband in court. The Howards won, to her surprise, which she said drove her to the realization that she could untangle some of her situation. With much encouragement from her husband, Howard “just started diving back into the law.” With no legal background – Howard had majored in recreational management – she started to learn more about her rights and Bren’s and began to understand both the law and the difficulty parents have in understanding it.
After much research, Howard envisioned creating a clinic that would educate parents like her and allow them to more effectively advocate for her children. To this end, she applied to San Joaquin College of Law. SJCL allowed her to continue to live in the Central Valley with her family, and with the instruction of professors she enjoyed. Howard graduated as valedictorian in 2019.
“My ultimate goal was to run a nonprofit clinic,” Howard says, expecting to accumulate funds by starting her own law firm. However, she met a parent associated with GRAND (Growing Resources for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders, a private organization. The parent supported Howard’s idea by providing funds for Howard to establish a nonprofit clinic. By the time Howard passed the bar, the funds and SJCL’s approval were in place. The BREN Clinic – whose name comes primarily from Howard’s son but is also an acronym for “Bolster partnerships between families and schools; Reform special education services within communities; Empower families and individuals to self-advocate; Network Peer to Peer” – opened in 2019. The clinic offers consultation sessions for parents and caregivers regarding special education law and any related legislation. Howard says that about 30 percent of clients receive legal services and representation, which sometimes leads to complaints filed against school districts. The other 70 percent, she says, get an attorney-written action plan “with legal advice to recommend their next steps.”
The clinic’s staff is composed of one director – Howard’s position for the first five years – and three or four students working under their guidance. Last year, the BREN Clinic served 201 people, clinic representatives attended 40 meetings with school districts, and nine students who had been denied special education were able to receive the services they needed. Howard has recently filled the positions of Director of the Law Library and Director of the Research and Writing Department at SJCL. While she no longer directs the BREN Clinic, she still works at the law school that houses it and is happy to assist with the clinic’s operations when needed. “My heart will always have a home there,” she says. Her son Bren is now 20 years old and has an honorary high school diploma. He attends Clovis Adult School, where his studies center around life skills.
Originally published in the Fresno County Bar Association Bulletin.
