The Cohasset School Committee has in a rare step taken a local couple to court to force them to keep their child in special education.

By JENNIFER MANN
The Patriot Ledger

COHASSET - The Cohasset School Committee has taken a local couple to court to force them to keep their teenage son in special education. Legal experts say the case, scheduled to be heard and decided by a judge beginning Thursday, Dec. 13, in Norfolk Superior Court, is unprecedented.

“Usually, you’re hearing about it in the other direction - a parent wants services, and the school district doesn’t want to give them,” said Richard Robison, executive director of the Federation for Children with Special Needs.

Peggy and Kevin Lewis of Cohasset say their 13-year-old son no longer needs the special education services he has received since first grade. They contend that it is the right of parents to decide whether their child is in special education.

“He wants off; we want him off, and that’s final,” said Peggy Lewis, who did the same with an older son when he entered eighth grade at Cohasset Middle School-High School.

The parents have for the last year sparred with the school over special education services for their son, and want to provide any extra help he needs at home.

But the school committee is arguing that the boy needs school-based special education services to receive an appropriate education and to stem behavior problems in class that have disrupted teaching.

The committee is citing the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which requires a free and appropriate public education for all handicapped students in the least-restrictive environment.

“That’s what the school is doing - simply trying to ensure the child receives the free and appropriate education he is entitled to,” said Doris MacKenzie Ehrens, the lawyer representing the school committee.

What is unclear — and likely to play out at trial in a complicated discussion on how state and federal special education laws intersect — is whether parents have a right to overrule a school district’s decision on “a free and appropriate education.”

The federal law gives parents a role in deciding on the special education services their child receives.

But state law allows school districts to take parents to court to prevent them from removing their child from special ed, said Bob Crabtree, a lawyer with Kotin, Crabtree and Strong who practices special education and disability law.

“The way I see it, the only way that the parents could possibly (win) is if there was some way the court was convinced that (federal law) somehow trumps the state law - and that would be rare,” he said.

When the issue was taken to the state Bureau of Special Education Appeals in August, the hearing officer noted state law requires that a school committee follow the parents’ choice of a plan, except: “Where such placement would seriously endanger the health or safety of the child, substantially disrupt the program for other students, or if the child is currently in a special education program, deny the child a free and appropriate education.”

The hearing officer ruled the parents proposal for extra services at home “will provide (their child) with some benefit but does not constitute a free and appropriate education.”

Crabtree, who represents parents in disputes with school systems over special education plans, said his only concern is the parents did not bring their own expert witnesses to the state appeals hearing.

Peggy Lewis said they recently dismissed their attorney and are forging ahead with the legal battle on their own for financial reasons.

Crabtree said, “School districts have more than enough power to have their way with parents who don’t agree with their services plans. Injecting life into this provision that hasn’t been used so far to my knowledge is just another way of bullying parents.”

Jennifer Mann may be reached at jmann@ledger.com.