You would think student learning, achievement, safety and comfort would be top priorities for Denver Public Schools. Alas, DPS has a pattern of doing precisely the opposite. Especially when it comes to disabled children.

When DPS closed schools for in-person learning, they hurt special-needs kids the most. Now that schools are reopened, district mask mandates fly in the face of numerous studies that underscore the importance of facial cues in child development. As Parenting Science explained in 2018, “children who have more trouble identifying emotion in faces are more likely to have peer problems and learning difficulties.”

It’s not hard to imagine greater socio-emotional challenges for special-needs children. Sadly, DPS doesn’t care about disabled students. They’d rather sue the law firm representing a disabled child.

Let that sink in. Because that’s exactly what they did.

Igor Raykin is a partner at the law firm Kishinevsky & Raykin, which specializes in representing special-needs children so they can access the crucial educational support services.

Several months ago, Raykin filed a federal lawsuit against DPS on behalf of the single mother of a special-needs child. Her 10-year-old daughter has been trapped at a first-grade level despite being moved up in grades. According to Raykin, her mother had a very difficult time trying to work with her daughter’s school to set her on the right educational path. Nothing was working. It was heartbreaking.

“Most parents don’t come to us when one thing goes wrong,” Raykin said. “They come to us after something has been festering for a long time.”

The little girl’s mom finally reached a breaking point. She turned to Raykin, who sued DPS for additional educational services. DPS hired the law firm of Semple, Farrington, Everall and Case (Semple Farrington). Raykin lost the suit but found ample cause to file in federal court for a completely fresh review.

Then, on Aug. 2, an attorney at Semple Farrington emailed Raykin. On behalf of DPS, they had filed a separate suit against Raykin and two former employees who had already left the firm, accusing them of filing a deliberately frivolous lawsuit. In an apparent attempt to bully Raykin, they coveted $32,000 in attorneys’ fees.

While the child and mother were not named in DPS’s lawsuit, it was obvious what this was about. The threat came only weeks before the deadline for opening briefs in Raykin’s federal suit.

“They tried to create a conflict of interest,” Raykin explained, “so that I’d go to my client and say, ‘I’m being sued over your case, and this can cost me money. So, I have to drop your lawsuit. Good luck battling DPS on your own.’”

Undeterred, Raykin “let mom know that there is no way that we are dropping representation of her daughter. We lost the (original) suit — and these types of suits are notoriously difficult to win in the 10th Circuit, which protects school districts at the expense of disabled kids — but there was nothing remotely frivolous about it.”

DPS must have agreed because on Aug. 25, Semple Farrington dropped their lawsuit. They never even served Raykin or accepted his offer to waive service, Raykin says. The timing was noteworthy: Because they withdrew their suit on Aug. 25 – only a couple days after the 21-day attorneys’ fee deadline – Semple Farrington wouldn’t be obliged to reimburse Raykin’s attorneys’ fees.

“I was really angry about the lawsuit. Not because I was being sued, but this was an assault on disabled kids everywhere,” Raykin said. A former high school teacher who was inspired to become a lawyer specifically to help disabled kids, Raykin and his wife, herself a special education teacher, understand what “special needs” really means.

“This was to try and get us to no longer represent disabled kids,” Raykin contends. “But nobody was going to be intimidated into dropping the case.”

Rather than working diligently with a single mom to develop a meaningful individualized education plan for her disabled daughter, DPS used bare-knuckle intimidation tactics. They tried to sue a lawyer into withdrawing his client – a SPECIAL NEEDS child – but because Raykin wouldn’t submit, Semple Farrington ultimately dropped their case.

The general callousness of DPS — and their zealous self-protection — should come as no surprise. Consider the saga of DPS board member Tay Anderson. Accused of sexual assault this spring — including upon 60+ DPS students — Anderson has been under “independent investigation” by Investigations Law Group.

Anderson returned to full duties even though the investigation continues. “Our legal team told me that ILG has shared that they anticipate having the report sometime in the coming weeks,” DPS spokesman Will Jones said Wednesday.

DPS leadership doesn’t seem to take seriously allegations of sexual assault upon their students. Hiring Semple Farrington to quash lawsuits on behalf of special-needs kids seems par for the course.

As DPS keeps failing their students, they outright neglect the neediest among them: disabled children. When a single mom fights for her special-needs child, DPS doesn’t listen and try to work it out. They’d rather hire lawyers to browbeat her lawyer into submission with threats for settlement.

Jimmy Sengenberger is host of “The Jimmy Sengenberger Show” on News/Talk 710 KNUS. He also hosts “Jimmy at the Crossroads,” a webshow and podcast in partnership with The Washington Examiner.