LYNN — Kim Sweeney doesn’t know what to do about her autistic 22-year-old son.
Sweeney, 49, had to take her son out of Lynn Public Schools during his fifth year of ninth grade. He was a special education student, but she said the district wasn’t meeting her son’s needs.
“I have a 22-year-old who lives in his bedroom because the anxiety of co-existing with the world is too much to learn all at once, when he should have been learning this since he was 4,” Sweeney said. “There’s a lot of parents like me who don’t know what to do.”
Her son was placed on an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) when he was 3 years old. The IEP is a legal document that spells out educational objectives for a child with a disability. According to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, all children who receive special education services must have an IEP.
But Sweeney said despite her son being retested every three years for his IEP, which included a complete psychological evaluation, he wasn’t diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder, a serious developmental disorder that impairs the ability to communicate and interact, until he was 16, and in his fourth year of ninth grade.
His life could have been a lot different if his autism was caught earlier on and his IEP could have been tailored to meet his needs. Instead he was suspended a lot and held back, Sweeney said, because he didn’t understand sarcasm or know how to pick up on social cues and it came across as him having behavioral issues.
Her son was moved between different schools, which exacerbated his social anxiety because he had to start off somewhere new each year and didn’t know anyone. With the support provided, her son never advanced beyond a third grade level of education.
“Schools aren’t equipped, so they would have had to pay for a landmark school or one of the private schools and it’s very expensive, so they pushed him along as if he was getting an education,” Sweeney said.
Sweeney’s experience is not unique.
Last month, Lynn Public Schools was found by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to be in non-compliance with some special education requirements, according to a correspondence sent by DESE to Superintendent Dr. Patrick Tutwiler, which was obtained by The Item.
DESE’s finding stemmed from a May 31 complaint that stated the district failed to evaluate an autistic child for an IEP, as required by law, according to the letter.
But school administrators say they’re actively working to better meet timelines for IEPs, which they cite as one of the department’s biggest challenges.
Part of the issue has stemmed from not having enough special education staff, which Tutwiler said the district worked to address in the last school budget cycle, when 30 new special education positions were added. That increase in staffing was more than any other department received.
“Special education is an area that we need to improve and that starts with taking substantive steps through your budget to get there and that’s what we did in the last cycle, and we’re not done,” said Tutwiler. “Here’s one area that we can do better and there’s already an ironclad commitment to do that.”
Those hires included seven new positions — two new psychologists, two new behavioral specialists, two speech pathologists and a full-time special education parent liaison — who are directly involved in performing evaluations for IEPs, according to Phylitia Jamerson, who was brought on as the district’s administrator of special education last year.
Still, the department remains understaffed, administrators said, which makes it challenging to keep up with students ready to be tested. About 2,700 students in the district were on IEPs last school year.
Jamerson said she’s restructured her team and streamlined the scheduling process with an aim of improving the testing system and better meeting deadlines. A new team has also been created, which will be fully dedicated to early childhood testing, she said.
There’s been a financial investment from the district to speed up testing by transitioning from printed booklets to ones online. To do that, 30 new iPads will be purchased, according to Jamerson.
Tutwiler said closing the education gap for special education students also lies in the approach.
“Some people look at the student and judge or question what is wrong with the student,” he said. “I think these problems are education-facing problems. Instead of saying what’s wrong with the student, we should be saying what are we doing wrong with the student that the student isn’t succeeding?”
Overall, Jamerson said she believes the supports are fine for special needs students and that students are getting the services they need, based on their IEPs.
But Lisa Wallace, 43, said her son, who suffers from sensory integrated disorder and pragmatic social dysfunction, has not been adequately served. She is contemplating pulling her son, who starts the seventh grade next month, out of LPS and enrolling him in an online school.
Her 12-year-old son has been on an IEP since the second grade, but he hasn’t had an agreed-upon IEP since the fifth grade. She said she hasn’t signed off on it because she doesn’t believe it addresses his needs.
“He needs special services that Lynn Public Schools — not only do they not have the programming for (him), but they don’t even have people qualified to do the testing for him,” Wallace said.
“As a parent, we’re supposed to work together as a team for my son’s best interests and that hasn’t happened. My son doesn’t understand social situations. Instead of putting him in an emotional-based program, (the district) put him in a language program and that doesn’t fit for him.”
Wallace said she had to pull her son out of Pickering Middle School because of bullying and safety concerns. At one point, he was stabbed with a pencil by another student.
She later moved him to Fecteau-Leary School because the district said there was a program for kids with emotional issues. But he didn’t receive the support he needed, she said.
“Overall, Lynn Public Schools does not have the funds to handle special ed,” Wallace said. “They just don’t. As a parent, I’m not the only one.”
But Tutwiler said it would be “unfair and inaccurate to say that categorically parents are unhappy with special education.
“Some are very happy and feel that kids are well-served, but everyone needs to be well-served.”
While the two stories are awful, Jamerson said they represent less than 1 percent of the 2,700 kids who receive services.
“We have a lot of work to do,” Jamerson said. “It’s not perfect, but I can definitely say that in my less than a year’s time in Lynn Public Schools, I can say that the staff here, the teachers, the administrators here truly care about not only the kids, but the entire community of Lynn.
“I’ve seen people bend over backwards and give up so much of their personal time for kids and really do what’s right. I’m just awed and extremely impressed by this community and how they pull together for kids. Yes, it’s not perfect and yes, we have a long way to go, but we’re getting there.”
