Reply To: School Board Monitors in Lakewood & East Ramapo

Another problem facing the Lakewood school monitor is special ed.

It seem the district was found to be submitting false affidavits in order to deny private placement. The Special Ed. supervisor was fired because of it. It seemed that the well connected got private placement while everyone else was denied, this is as per the APP. This has been going on for years, but someone appealed and proved the affidavit was false just last year. Will the monitor tell the parents who were wrongly denied that they are entitled to private placement? Or will every parents denied private placement in the last five years appeal?

This will cause a backlog in court hearings unless the BOE starts giving private placement in mediation instead of by administrative judge, or hires more judges to hear all these cases. Besides all the parents cases, which numbers in the hundreds, wanting private placement, at the same time the Monitor (BOE) wants to get those who are not entitled to expensive private placement off, this also requires a court hearing. Failure to have hearing on a timely basis results in private placements

No matter how you look at legal expenses are going to be going up and quite likely so is special ed. expenses this coming school year. How will the monitor balance the Budget?