US probes civil rights violation at Dedham Middle School

The U.S. Department of Education sent an investigator to the Dedham public schools’ administration offices Tuesday as it scrutinizes a complaint lodged by Dedham Middle School teachers alleging that “the district denied students with disabilities a free, appropriate public education by not providing teachers trained in instructing” such students.

The investigation is the latest development in a special education controversy that started last winter, when two special education teachers left Dedham Middle School during the week before Christmas vacation, and in January until about Jan. 22. Both teachers provided two hours of home tutoring, most days per week, for the child of then-School Committee member Joanne Flatley. Flatley was voted off the school board in the April town election. She later said she received “no preferential treatment” when her child was provided in-home services in December and January.

Many middle school teachers seriously questioned whether the reassignments – carried out by Kathy Gaudreau, then the interim special education director, with the support of Superintendent of Schools June Doe – caused a lapse in special education services for students in the affected classrooms.

Now, federal Department of Education spokesman Jim Bradshaw said investigators from the Office for Civil Rights are looking into a complaint, received June 18, that the Dedham school district did not provide students with disabilities the education they are due. The complaint also claims “that the district failed to implement a grievance procedure that provides for prompt and equitable resolution of disability discrimination complaints,” he wrote in an e-mail to the Dedham Transcript on Wednesday.

Doe said earlier this year that a retired Dedham teacher and a full-time aide provided substitute coverage in each case during the reassignments, using “very detailed lesson plans” left by the departed teachers.

The Office for Civil Rights told the school district on July 14 that it was going ahead with an investigation.

“Once a complaint is filed, the process goes through, and a representative from (the Office for Civil Rights) was here (Tuesday) to interview staff and gather the facts as we know them,” Doe said. “He conducted those interviews, and there is no result from that at this time.”

Doe said she and Gaudreau talked with the investigator. So did the two teachers who provided the tutoring, their instructional aides, and the substitute teacher.

School Committee chairman David Roberts said the district is cooperating fully.

“It’s not a criminal matter, it’s a civil matter. And I think it’s a process that obviously the Department of Education and (its) civil rights division has to work through,” said Roberts, who had not seen the complaint. “And we’ll just see what they find, see what comes out of it.”

Bradshaw emphasized that the investigation does not mean the civil rights office has decided on the merits of the case. Instead, “the office is merely a neutral fact-finder. It will collect and analyze all relevant evidence from the parties involved in the case to develop its findings,” he said. “We try to wrap up our investigations within six months, although sometimes it takes longer, depending on the complexity.”

Daniel Megan, the middle school’s Faculty Council cochairman and one of the teachers who filed the complaint, could not be reached Wednesday.

Flatley said she welcomes the investigation. “The fact that this is still ongoing is upsetting to my family, and I’m sure upsetting to the other 13 families involved,” she said, referring to the complaint, which alleges that 13 students had their civil rights violated.

“I didn’t ask for, I didn’t expect, and I didn’t receive any special treatment, and I’m sure none would be offered,” reiterated Flatley, who initiated an inquiry by the state Ethics Commission into the matter in March, and was cleared the following month. “I would really be distraught if any child, including mine and the others in that classroom, were denied rights while I was sitting on the board.”

Dedham Transcript staff writer Edward B. Colby can be reached at 781-433-8336 or ecolby@cnc.com.