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Parent's Stories:
The Tallman Story : Death and the
High Cost of Kidspeace
He was a small, brilliant and
difficult little boy, full of poetry, and cherished by the parents
who loved him, Rick and Jane Tallman. It is over a decade now, but
feels like yesterday. I represented the Tallmans in their special
education dispute against the Barnegat School District in southern
New Jersey. I was in the courtroom when Jason was ordered into
KidsPeace by an administrative law judge, against parent wishes and
medical recommendation. Barnegat had sabotaged the only available
school placement for Jason, so that there was no place for him to go
except a Human Services placement in Pennsylvania. After the order,
his mother whispered to me, “He’ll die there. That’s not for Jason.”
But nobody listened, in spite of Motions to Reconsider. DYFS and the
State of New Jersey abandoned this jumping bundle of creative,
endless energy to the system. He had disabilities. He had genius. He
had parents who fought for his survival. But nothing could win
against the corruption of the bureaucracy and the State. Jason
needed a school. What he got was death. Jason died less than a day
after he was placed at KidsPeace, suffocated by an obese employee
who sat on him and suffocated him.
I’ve learned about more death and
abuse at KidsPeace recently, remembering the federal judge who
refused to hear Jason’s case after his murder until it had gone back
to the administrative court for fact finding. I did that trial, too,
remaining haunted by the school’s manipulation of facts, the
smugness of the school personnel who had neither shame nor guilt.
They were proud of their ability to prevent justice and kill the
child they failed to teach. I remember the look on the face of the
judge when the case was remanded. The same judge who originally
ordered Jason to KidsPeace, Joseph Martone, presided over the
fact-finding trial. He knew his actions resulted in unspeakable
tragedy. He was a good judge who made a fatal mistake that killed a
child because that is the way the system is designed. At the end of
the trial, the political hands within the OAL “Decision Review”
wrote the decision.
The present status of special
education will cost more deaths and abuse at KidsPeace, as well as
other places throughout the country with staff untrained to handle
the needs of disabled children. Spiraling costs of special education
leave school districts desperate to put the funding responsibility
elsewhere. The new Individuals With Disabilities Education Act
recognizes the need to address “high cost placements” through
interagency agreements. But New Jersey has never abided by the
concept that special education is the responsibility of multiple
agencies. It is cheaper to have custodial placements than to create
schools to instruct the extremes of the disability spectrum.
Departments of Education have their list of approved private
schools. DYFS has an entirely separate list of placements. So does
each agency within State government, and none will implement an IEP
except a school. Residential placements for educational reasons are
now treated in a managed care approach that does not permit the
intensity of essential services, or the implementation of a
genuinely individualized program. No agency coordinates with
another. Jason was murdered by an incompetent aide, nobody able to
figure out a way to get the child what he needed. Nobody was found
guilty. Nobody was punished for this worst of sins.
Ten years later, more Jasons are in
line for the KidsPeace mill. Schools and human services agencies
continue to act with impunity, often conspiring with local school
districts against parents in order to intimidate them and have
somebody else pay the bill. The Tallman story is a parable for this
decade. Jason’s mother knew he would not survive. Anyone who
represents children in special education knows the increasing
difficulty of finding appropriate placements, waiting for another
child to die while the schools and the courts grind on.
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