Many of you have heard me say that the City Department of Education committed document fraud by altering my son’s educational records, but you do not know how the alteration of educational records occurred, so I decided to write a post detailing how it happened.
Do you see the attendance page below?
If you have ever received a copy of your child’s Individualized Education Program (IEP), then you know the above attendance sheet is the last page of the IEP document. The attendance page is the only document that was presented to me at the Initial Eligibility Meeting. I never once was given a copy of my child’s Individualized Education Program (IEP). When I signed my name on the attendance page, I was only consenting to my attendance and participation in the initial eligibility meeting. Above the signature lines, the attendance page clearly says, “Please note that your signature reflects your participation at the conference and does not necessarily indicate agreement with the Individualized Education Program.”
The procedural safeguard is heavy on parental consent, special education, and parental rights. I did not know that by providing my signature, I was unknowingly placing my son into special education. In other words, by signing your name in the attendance page’s signature line, you are unknowingly or knowingly, depending on your specific situation, placing your child in special education with or without your consent. BUT there are exceptions. Meaning, there are ways to sign the attendance page without compromising yourself, but that is for a later post.
I audio-recorded the initial eligibility meeting, so I never received my son’s IEP, nor did I receive any tangible documents at the initial eligibility meeting.
The initial eligibility meeting occurred on June 23, 2016, as shown by the yellow rectangle and arrow on the attendance page. However, you can also see that it was backdated to December 16, 2015, at 8:52PM, which can be seen by the red rectangle and arrow. By backdating the attendance page, the City Department of Education misrepresented information and made it appear as though I was not in attendance at the eligibility meeting, but you can clearly see my signature.
“Backdating a legal document or contract intending for perpetrating fraud (misrepresentation) is illegal and unethical. Backdating is also impermissible when the contract describes an act that occurred at a date different from the date on the document. This may be done to secure benefits that the party is not entitled to.1 ”
In my case, the City Department of education were not entitled to placed my son on special education, revised his IEP without my knowledge or consent, , and many other illegal acts just to secure special education benefits.
On June 24, 2016, the day after the initial eligibility meeting, I walked into the PS 83 psychologist’s office, provided the school psychologist with a two-page letter denying special education and services, and provided reasons in detail. What should have happened was for the City Department of Education staff to close my son’s special education case and remove him from special education, primarily since I never once gave them consent and had provided them with a parental refusal letter as shown below.
The City Department of Education backdated yet another document with the intent to commit fraud. Backdating my parental refusal letter makes it appear as though I never refused or revoked special education and special education services. It basically made it looked as though I never wrote or provided the letter.
The educational documents list page shows two attendance pages. I believe the City Department of Education never expected me to provide them with the parental refusal letter, which led them to backdate the attendance page. Basically, they committed document fraud and made it appear that I never revoked consent by backdating the above attendance page and parental refusal letter. They then used the other secret attendance page to make it seem like I provided consent to continue their perpetration.
A student’s special education history, process, and documents are kept in the Special Education Student Information System (SESIS). Below are lists of procedural processes that should occur within SESIS depending on parental request, refusal, or agreement.
In order to close a special education case, a parental refusal notice or letter needs to be uploaded and documented into SESIS, 2 but since the City Department of Education backdated my parental refusal letter then SESIS could not follow the appropriate prompt since the document was not properly dated and uploaded into SESIS due to document misrepresentation fraud.
As a little boy, my son had always loved school. He would be happy about school, and as the years went by, his love for school grew, which, as a parent, made me really happy. You can imagine how concerned I was when my son began crying about not wanting to go to school because it was unlike him.
What I would hear from Principal Frances Castillo about my child led me to make a request for his special education records. On June 20, 2017, during a meeting at my request, I asked Principal Frances Castillo for my son’s academic records, and the only thing she gave me as she was logged into SESIS was the special education case closing letter below, which shows that my son’s special education case was closed on June 27, 2016. Since she was the PS 83 principal, I believed Principal Castillo when she told me the letter below was my child’s special education case closing letter.
As I mentioned in the blog post, I Advocated For My Child’s Rights in NYC School. And Then CPS Was Used As A Weapon, I requested my son’s special educational records from the Committee on Special Education through USPS-certified mail in June 2017 and received them in August 2017. Maybe it was intuition, but if it was was not for the fact that something prompted me to request my son’s records I would not have had anything to backup my side of the story. Click on the link above to know more.
- Birmingham Law Group. “Is it legal to backdate a contract?” Birmingham Law Group, 12 Dec. 2022,
https://bhmlawgroup.com/2022/12/12/is-it-legal-to-backdate-a-contract/ ↩︎ - SESIS NYCENET.EDU, Last revised: February 5, 2013 “Closing a special education case.” https://sesis.nycenet.edu/help/assist/systems/SH7226.html ↩︎
Katia For Justice 
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