Attorney parents of 'mathlete' lose again in legal battle over right to select son's algebra teacher
The parents of a gifted Florida ninth-grader don’t have a right to decide which algebra class he should be assigned to, a state court judge ruled last year.
And recently, in a parallel challenge filed with the Florida Department of Education by William and Aimee Hefley, a state administrative law judge reached the same conclusion. The judge ruled that the principal of Seminole High School was in charge of determining whether to reassign “mathlete” Jonathan Hefley to a less challenging honors algebra class, the Orlando Sentinel reports.
The Hefleys, who are both attorneys, complained that Jonathan was doing poorly in his original algebra class. Then, after he was reassigned, they complained again and wanted him returned to his original algebra class because they thought his new one wasn’t challenging enough.
It is not known whether the lawyer couple, who have been representing the family themselves in the case, intend to continue to pursue it further, either by filing a new state court lawsuit or filing an appeal. William Hefley declined the newspaper’s Monday request for comment, and Ned Julian, an attorney for the Seminole County School Board, said he could not comment because doing so would violate student confidentiality.
See also:
Orlando Sentinel: “No ruling in Algebra ‘mathlete’ court case”
WFTV: “Parents sue Seminole School District after son dismissed from competitive math class”
