Free Motion to Compel - District Court of Connecticut - Connecticut

Case 2:91-cv-00180-RNC Document 532-6 Filed 08/27/2007 Page1 0f4
EXHIBIT D

Case 2:91-cv-O0180—FlNC Document 532-6 Filed 08/27/2007 Page 2 of 4
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State of Comtecticut
July 2, 2007
David C. Shaw, Esq.
34 Jerome Avenue
Suite 210
Bloomfield, CT 06002-2463
RE: PJ er dl. v. State of Connecticut, at al.
Dear David:
Thank you for your letter of June 19, 2007. I appreciate your efforts to resolve the differences
over our objections to your production requests of March 30, 2007. 1 am optimistic that we can
resolve our differences to our mutual satisfaction.
At the outset, please note that Anne Louise will be away on vacation until July 9. Thus, although
you and l were unable to speak before her departure - l left a message at your office on June 26
— we thought it appropriate to share with you our thoughts on the outstanding discovery issues.
lt is our hope that after reading this letter you will better understand our previous response.
Interrogatory 1
Ambiguous and unduly and unreasonably burdensome
Thank you for helping to clarify what your intent was in this interrogatory. Based on your
clariiic ation, we believe that the interrogatory is requesting the defendants to confirm that the
approximately 600 students listed by COMPID in Exhibit A is an accurate depiction of students
whom at any time between 1998 and 2005 were identified as a student with an ID and who
moved in and out of the dataset of class members that were provided to the plaintiffs bythe
defendants for those years. When we indicated that we needed to know the procedure in order to
replicate it, we anticipated receiving a descriptive task analysis of the procedure so that we could
understand and replicate what data was being presented in order for us to provide a truthful
response as to its accuracy. The code that you provided is not programming language used at the
State Department. However, the CSDE believes that, most likely, Exhibit A is an accurate
depiction ofthe data set the plaintiffs have. However, Exhibit A may not be and most likely is
not an accurate depiction of class membership over time and we have attempted to explain why
in the response to interrogatory #2 below.

Case 2:91-cv-00180-RNC Document 532-6 Filed 08/27/2007 Page 3 of 4
Dt dd C. Shaw, Esq.
July 2, 2007
Page 2
We do not find it unduly or unreasonably burdensome to provide a list of class members, update
that list periodically, and make reasonable progress on the tive goals of the settlement agreement,
and cooperate in plaintiff` s discovery as these are our duties under the terms ofthe Settlement
Agreement- We also recognize that it is important to determine, to the best extent possible, the
status of each class member over time for as t`ar back as our data system will permit in order to
‘ assess the CSDE’s progress on the goals of the Settlement Agreement. The burden which was
noted in our objection is with respect to the tasks that need to be completed in order to determine
if the 600 floaters that you identiiied are accurate (interrogatories 1 and 2) and an explanation of
the "tloater" status (Interrogatory 3).
As we have stated over the past several years at EAP meetings and in our annual reports, to
determine the accuracy of this information requires a complicated procedure which was broadly
outlined in the Third Annual Report, June 2004, page 45. CSDE recognized the need to address
the migration issue through determining the status of each class member in the years subsequent
to their initial determination as a class member, yet the CSDE, as recorded in their, Fourth
Annual Report noted that this, “. . process was not yielding significantly useful information to
meet the expressed needs ofthe plaintis. Specifically, the CSDE was working to investigate the
plainthjis ’ concern that the enforcement ofthe Settlement Agreement was inadvertently provoking
districts to, appropriately or inappropriately, exit members from the class by either re-
determining eligibility for class members under dn§’erent eligibility categories (e. g. not
intellectually disabled, but another disability) or exiting class members jrom the system of
special education altogether. in discussion with the EAP in October 2004, a decision to
discontinue the statewide tracking ofclass members and focus on the movement of class
members from l998-2004 within the twentyfour targeted districts was agreed upon. This
analysis examined the impact of patterns of re—determining eligibility, exiting class members and
identification of new class members on districts ' incidence rates across the years. These data
were presented to the EAP and the plaintnfs in January 2005. As a result of these analyses,
several audit and monitoring activities were identified in conjunction with the EAP and
plaintipis. "
Following the auditing activities described in the Fourth Annual Report, and in dialogue with the
plaintifts, the CSDE attempted a different approach to achieve a more precise accounting of class
membership status over time. ln 2006-07 we contracted with an independent data expert to assist
in developing analytic procedures (a Longitudinal Analysis of Class Members) that, with tl1e
available data, would yield a more accurate depiction of class membership from l998 through
current date than plaintiff s Exhibit A. This process is anticipated to be completed by Fall_y200'?
and we will, ofcourse provide you with the results once they are available. The information
revealed through this will allow the CSDE as well as the plaintitl”s to have as accurate a picture
as is possible of each class member since 1998 and what has occurred to them in each
subsequent year to date. This will yield answers tothe plaintit? s interrogatories as well as _

Case 2:91 -cv-001 80-RNC Document 532-6 Filed 08/27/2007 Page 4 of 4 ‘
Dr rid C. Shaw, Esq.
Jill} 2,
Page 3
additional information on class members over time. The CSDE determined that investigating the
plaintiffs analysis would be unduly burdensome if it were to occur in addition to the analytic
work already underway at the C SDE.
It is important to note that, in 2005-06, a system of assigning each public school student in
Connecticut a unique identifier was developed. Beginning with the special education data
collected in 2006-07, data on students with disabilities will now be able to be reliably tracked
over time.
Interrogatory 2
Our intention was not to be unresponsive to Interrogatory #2. When asked to explain why
Exhibit A was not accurate we believed it was our obligation to note that the comment on page
2of the interrogatory that "2'?27 students move in and out ofthe data set two or more times ..."
was inaccurate. it seems that there are approximately 600 students that moved in and out ofthe
data set. ‘
To clarify our objection on the grounds that interrogatory 2 was ambiguous, we were unclear if
you were asking: l) is Exhibit A is an accurate depiction of a student as a tloater in this dataset
(i.e. the student is missing data in a given year in the data set provided to the plaintiffs)?, or 2) is
this student truly a floater (i.e. the CSDE has no information on this student in the given year)?
if you were asking question #1, the CSDE believes Exhibit A is accurate. if you are asking
question #2, then Exhibit A is most likely not accurate because your dataset does not have the
universe ofinfonnation about students with disabilities.
To get all of the information on a class member across time, you need to be able to look for
information on that class member in the dataset that contains information on all students with
disabilities. Based on the data sets that you have, just because a student record is identitied as a
floater, this does not mean the information on this student was not reported to the state in that
year (eg.; the student would not be a “floater" in the all-disability dataset, but would be in your
dataset). For example, the student may have been reported as having a disability other than ID,
i reported under another compid, {note: the variable OLD_COl\/[PID does not necessarily capture
changes in COMPID over time, so it cannot be used to resolve instances of floaters over time),
student may have exited (as per one of the 8 exit codes), or the student’s information was never
reported to the state. All of these examples would have created a floater status for a student
record in your dataset because you did not have this information in your dataset. This
information is contained in the all-disability dataset and we do not have the authority to release
to you the all-disability dataset as this database contains all the students with disabilities in the
state and our authority under FERPA and the Settlement Agreement only extends tothe class
members. The Longitudinal Analysis of Class Members will extract the information on class
members trom this database in order to provide this to the plaintitfs. Since the CSDE has access