When a Student Is Left Without a School: CLCM Advocates for Access and Accountability
When a middle school student with nonverbal autism moved to a new district, his mother expected a fresh start and the specialized supports her son needed. Instead, within weeks, the district concluded it could not meet the student’s needs and began seeking an out-of-district placement at a private day school.
As the district waited for responses from private programs, it refused to allow the student to return to his public middle school — and offered no educational services while he waited. Weeks turned into months, then over a year. The student remained isolated at home without peers, a classroom, specialized instruction, or even an at-home tutor. He lost critical learning time and stability. To provide her son with daily educational support and care, his mother was forced to leave her job.
When his mother turned to the Children’s Law Center of Massachusetts (CLCM) for help, attorneys Alyssa Schnoor and Shruti Peri took immediate action. They filed a complaint with the Bureau of Special Education Appeals (BSEA), arguing that the district had failed to provide a placement and had denied the student the free and appropriate public education guaranteed under the law, entitling him to compensatory services above and beyond the appropriate placement.
“I am not sure where we would be or how things would have turned out at the BSEA without Alyssa and Shruti.”
Nineteen months after the initial referrals, the student was finally accepted into an appropriate private day school. CLCM continued to advocate for accountability for the lost educational time and for the harm to the isolated student and his family. After extensive negotiation, the team reached a favorable settlement that included compensatory services.
Reflecting on the case, CLCM attorney Shruti Peri shared: “In thinking about compensatory services, the question we kept asking ourselves is, ‘how do you compensate a middle school student who has been sitting at home, out of school, for almost two years?’”
The case highlights a systemic problem: when districts struggle to meet the needs of students with disabilities, children can spend months — or even years — waiting for an appropriate placement while their education stalls. Legal advocacy can be the difference between months of lost education and a resolution that restores opportunity.
The family’s story was featured by The Boston Globe in “Dante Fowler Finds a New School” and “The Cost of Special Education.”