‘There Is No Yelp’: Parents Struggle With The Special Ed System
Marie walks with her 13-year-old son, who has autism and acute anxiety disorder, as he rides his bike through their Norfolk neighborhood. Marie struggled to find a special education school that was a good fit for her son. “There is no Yelp,” she said. “I can’t just go online and say, ‘How is this school rated?’” Credit Jesse Costa/WBUR
But the Disability Law Center, which last Monday revealed those findings on the Chamberlain International School, says it’s worried about oversight of all such schools serving special needs children.
“We have a growing concern about students with disabilities across the commonwealth being severely mistreated,” said Stan Eichner, the center’s head litigator. “It’s our sense that the mistreatment of these youngsters with disabilities is not limited to public or private schools, it’s not limited by geography, and we think it’s a widespread problem.”
For parents, figuring out which of these schools is the right fit for their child can be a complicated maze.
This complicated network of schools for some of the state’s most vulnerable students is the focus of an investigation by WBUR and the investigative news agency The Eye.