Vermont Education Secretary Zoie Saunders is pressing forward in her attempt to bar the I.N.S.P.I.R.E. School for Autism in Brattleboro, which has been on probation since September, from accessing public funds.
The State Board of Education has the final say over which schools can receive taxpayer dollars. At the secretary’s request, the board held a short meeting Thursday and voted unanimously to appoint a hearing officer to review the matter. That officer, Adam Powers, will be tasked with collecting written materials from the school and the Agency of Education, holding a hearing, and presenting a written recommendation to the board.
A date has not yet been set for the hearing, which will be open to the public.
The state began investigating the school last year following complaints from four former I.N.S.P.I.R.E. educators. A report released by state investigators in March concluded that the school was violating a slew of state regulations. The school’s leaders, the report suggested, appeared unaware of their basic responsibility to provide students with content-area instruction.
Saunders has since sought to strip the school of its ability to receive public tuition dollars as an approved independent school. She went to the Council of Independent Schools, an advisory panel, to seek its endorsement. But after receiving a lengthy rebuttal from I.N.S.P.I.R.E., the council in June recommended extending the school’s probation through the end of the year.
For weeks, it was unclear whether Saunders would continue her effort. But agency officials have since written to the state board to say that the state should indeed yank the school’s funding. An extended probation, the agency’s legal team wrote, “further delays addressing the needs of currently enrolled students.”
A vote to revoke the school’s approval would likely shut it down. Therapeutic schools like I.N.S.P.I.R.E., while private, are wholly publicly funded. Federal law requires public schools to educate all students within their borders. To serve students with disabilities they cannot accommodate in-house, districts will pay tuition to specialized therapeutic schools.
Vermont had authorized the Brattleboro school, which can serve up 23 children and adolescents at a time, to charge up to $99,840 per student last school year.
At least one school district that has relied on I.N.S.P.I.R.E. is publicly backing its fight to retain approval. Tate Erickson, the director of special education for the Windham Southeast Supervisory Union, which serves Brattleboro and surrounding towns, told the board Thursday that I.N.S.P.I.R.E. met “unique needs” that were “very challenging” to meet in traditional school settings. Other therapeutic schools likely won’t have capacity to take their students, he added.
“We have independent schools that have literally a line out the door,” Erickson said.
Heather Day, an I.N.S.P.I.R.E. parent, also came to the school’s defense. Her son had been so ill-served in his local public school, she said, that he had attempted suicide. But at I.N.S.P.I.R.E., she said, he had improved.
“He has become more independent, responsible, and shows much more initiative and engagement in school. Most importantly, he is happy,” she said.
The school has not disputed most of the agency’s initial findings. But it has argued that the state is not giving its newly installed leaders enough time to come into compliance.
In their memo to the board, agency officials noted that I.N.S.P.I.R.E. had cycled through five executive directors since 2020. This turnover, they suggested, was not cause for optimism.
“Going back to 2020, Agency staff have experienced the transitions in administration as ‘starting from scratch’ on the same persistent compliance issues each time,” agency officials wrote.
