A state investigation has found that students at eight private special education programs in Connecticut were “grossly underserved.”
The Connecticut Office of the Child Advocate and Disability Rights Connecticut conducted a three-year investigation into High Road Schools, a group of eight state-approved private special education programs owned by Specialized Education Services, Inc.
The students, some of whom are as young as 5, are among the state’s most vulnerable students, according to the report. It says that High Road receives millions of dollars of public funds each year and primarily serves children from low-income school districts.
A report released on Tuesday says they found that many of the students were “grossly underserved in educational planning and service delivery.“
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“It is a report about High Road and what we saw there, and it is one of the state’s largest players, and it is a report about the consistency and quality of oversight,” CT Child Advocate’s Sarah Eagan said.
Investigators reported consistently seeing students who were “left entirely to themselves” during a 30-minute or even 45-minute class period, alone in a cubicle or at a computer, without any or only the briefest of interactions with a teacher or an aide, the report says.
“Over the last few years that the program that they were in, frequently didn’t have credentialed teachers, frequently didn’t background check staff that were working directly with children, frequently were not reporting to school districts that they were not in compliance,” Eagan said.
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The investigation found widespread student disengagement, chronic absenteeism, failure to adequately assess and support students’ educational needs through individualized service delivery, and “gross deficiencies in the number of certified special education teachers and other credentialed educational staff working with children and systemic failure to ensure and/or
document that staff had undergone employment checks and criminal and child welfare background checks.”
Investigators noted that one administrator who was not state-certified told investigators, “Students here don’t have academic goals; they are here because of behavior.”
The report goes on to say that High Road couldn’t document that it conducted basic background checks for staff, including employment checks, criminal history, or DCF background checks.
And that it lacked background check documentation for more than 60 of its employees during a three-year period.
The report also found more than 1,200 reported incidents of restraint and seclusion of students during the 2021-2022 school year and says High Road School of Hartford Primary/Middle School had a total of 543 instances of restraint alone during the 2021-2022 school year.
Investigators are recommending that state law be amended to strengthen Connecticut State Department of Education oversight of state-approved private special education programs and annual inspections and site visits.
They also recommend that the state Department of Education consider making rules about the use of restraint and seclusion.
According to the report, the State Department of Education “expressed its disagreement with the Report's conclusions and recommendations. Specifically, CSDE “disagrees . . . with the Report to the extent that is suggests that the CSDE may have failed to adequately exercise general supervision over the High Road Schools.”
In a statement Tuesday evening, the Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE) said it received no complaints from parents, guardians, students, attorneys, parent advocates, or local or regional school districts during the period of investigation.
The statement went on to say:
The CSDE vigorously disagrees with the conclusions drawn by the OCA/DRCT Report regarding the CSDE's involvement with High Road Schools.
The Report’s claims regarding the CSDE do not comport either with the actual steps the CSDE took or with the performance of our oversight responsibilities for students whose local or regional school districts have placed them at Approved Private Special Education Programs, or “APSEPS,” of which High Road is one.
The CSDE maintains compliance with current federal and state requirements regarding approval and monitoring/oversight of APSEPS. Additionally, the CSDE is attentive to concerns that are brought forth to the State’s attention and engages in off cycle monitoring reviews, as acknowledged by the OCA on page 52 of their report.
High Roads Schools of Connecticut also released a statement to NBC Connecticut Tuesday:
"High Road Schools is a trusted, decades-long partner to more than 40 school districts across the state of Connecticut devoted entirely to providing a safe, secure, and positive learning environment for students with academic, behavioral, and emotional disabilities. We hold ourselves accountable to our students, their families, our communities, our district partners, and state agencies that enable our work, and as such embrace a higher level of responsibility and transparency, which is why we actively participated in the two-year process with OCA and DRCT.
The final report simply does not accurately reflect the academic and behavioral supports at our schools, which follow state and federal regulations and guidelines. Our programs are based on serving the academic and behavioral needs of our students, making the absence of clinical services referenced throughout the report misleading. High Road Schools only accept students who require the services we provide in our schools.
Over the course of two years, High Road Schools provided comprehensive responses that outlined these inaccuracies, as well as highlighted the specific improvements we implemented as part of this process. Unfortunately, the Agencies refused to acknowledge this in their report.
We remain committed to collaborating with all stakeholders in the state, including the OCA, DCRT, and CSDE to ensure the highest standards of education and care for our students."
