School District Settles with Family for $239,000

paid $239,000 to settle a long-running legal battle with a family who sued the district on behalf of their autistic son.

The district after a four-year battle over whether the district was responsible for providing an Individual Education Plan (IEP) for their son, who lived in the district but was not enrolled.

Attorneys for the school district argued the boy, now 15, had to be enrolled before the district could provide an IEP. But to do that, without seeing the IEP first to know if it was acceptable, the Dumans would have risked losing their spot at Orchard Friends School in Riverton, where the boy was attending at the time.

The Dumans argued——the district’s refusal violated the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which requires school districts provide an IEP to all disabled students living in the district, whether or not they’re enrolled.

The U.S. District Court Judge Renee Marie Bumb’s ruling, but ultimately came to terms on a settlement during mediation. The settlement was unanimously approved by the board of education earlier this month.

Moorestown Patch obtained a copy of the settlement agreement through the state's Open Public Records Act. (To view a copy of the document, click on the PDF above.)

The $239,000 the district paid to the Dumans for the family’s legal expenses and tuition costs (at Orchard Friends) is in addition to what it spent on its own attorneys.

Solicitor John Comegno would not discuss the details of the case with Patch, but told the Philadelphia Inquirer in December the district paid his firm about $150,000 on its legal fees, with another $125,000 in legal services provided free of charge.

Board President Don Mishler said the district was following state guidelines in its case with the Dumans. The district receives money from the state and federal government to provide educational services—through Burlington County’s Educational Services Unit—to students who aren’t enrolled in the district, but live within its boundaries.

“That’s the state system,” he said. “We didn’t make that up.”

But Scott Duman, the father of the boy in the case, said the district is mandated to provide an IEP for a special needs student if the parents request it. Judge Bumb agreed.

Duman has been critical of the district for what he sees—in his case and in others—as a blatant waste of taxpayer money.

“It seems really stupid to me to turn this into what it turned into,” he said. “It would be certainly much more beneficial if the money was spent on programs and not on legal fees.”

Mishler also conceded the settlement amount is significant, “because if you think about what you could have used that money for,” he said.

In settling the lawsuit, the school district admitted no guilt.