Principal Susan Willis of William Fleming High School said nine days of testimony from a dozen witnesses poked enough holes in a state Department of Education report to prove her innocence. The June report implicated Willis as the ringleader in an initiative to manipulate the schedules of more than 30 special-education students to keep them out of state-mandated Standards of Learning tests.

Principal Susan Willis of William Fleming High School said nine days of testimony from a dozen witnesses poked enough holes in a state Department of Education report to prove her innocence. The June report implicated Willis as the ringleader in an initiative to manipulate the schedules of more than 30 special-education students to keep them out of state-mandated Standards of Learning tests.

School divisions identified as being too heavy-handed when it comes to disciplining minority special-education students now must put money toward early efforts to keep children out of special education. Chesterfield and Henrico counties were cited by the Virginia Department of Education earlier this year for suspending or expelling a disproportionate number of minority special-education students during the 2007-08 school year.

State lawmakers don’t want special-education students in Virginia to lose their one year to appeal a due-process hearing decision, so they are trying to write it into law. The move circumvents the Virginia Board of Education, which voted on broad changes to the state’s special-education regulations in September, bringing many of them in line with federal practices. Federal regulations provide 90 days to appeal due-process hearing decisions, a policy the state board voted to adopt.

A federal judge in Richmond again has ordered the Hanover County school system to pay costs of privately educating an autistic child and again has rejected a hearing officer’s conclusions in the long-running case. In an 81-page ruling made public yesterday, U.S. District Judge Robert E. Payne found that testimony from Hanover special-education teachers about the child’s progress was “not credible.“ The judge said that what progress the child made in Hanover schools was “trivial.“