Current, Former Staffers Charge Cottage School Failing Students

Three current and former educators at the Mount Pleasant Cottage School have accused its superintendent of making program changes that are harmful to students, a charge that Superintendent James Gaudette strongly disputes.

Jeannine Angiolillo, a special education teacher at the school since 1987, Laurie Tyler and Diane Payson charged that under Gaudette’s stewardship, students who should have been classified failed to receive individual education plans (IEPs) that would provide them with needed classroom modifications. Much of the new emphasis, they argue, is to save money.

“I feel as if student needs aren’t being taken into account as much as the profitability of the organization,” said Tyler, a special education teacher at the school for 20 years before leaving at the end of last year.

Angiolillo said the school, which educates students who have suffered abuse and neglect and are sometimes in the foster care system, is also pushing out special education teachers with tenure to replace them with teachers who are certified in special education and general education. She and Tyler said changes began occurring after Gaudette arrived in July 2011.

Payson, a former guidance counselor whose position was eliminated at the end of the 2013-14 school year, filed complaints with the state Education Department (SED) during that year alleging that special education laws were being violated.

Four of the five complaints were upheld by SED, resulting in corrective measures. The four verified complaints were a violation of age compliance because a student was placed in a class with students where the age differential was more than three years; educational neglect stemming from a pupil being kept out of school for more than two months without being provided with an IEP-specified program; class sizes that were increased from eight to 12 students without holding meetings; and an IEP that was changed.

An SED spokeswoman refused to go into detail about the formal complaints brought against the school.

“These allegations came to the Office of Special Education as formal state complaints and each was investigated and, where violations of law and/or regulation were identified, corrective actions were required,” spokeswoman Jeanne Beattie said last week.

To address concerns, Gaudette invited a panel of 15 current staff members to a meeting with The Examiner on June 25, which was also attended by more than three dozen additional teachers. Gaudette addressed concerns that were sent to him prior to the meeting, but additional questions, including the SED complaints and further inquiries into the women’s allegations, were not permitted due to an ongoing lawsuit initiated by Payson.

During the meeting, Millicent Lee, assistant principal for student services, said Payson inaccurately claimed the Guidance Department was eliminated, but rather it has been modified to link psychiatrists and social workers to handle academic and personal issues and manage student records. Instead of two counselors being in charge of records and scheduling for the entire school, seven counselors and psychologists now manage those tasks for smaller groups of students, Lee said.

Under the old system, the district had a data entry error rate of 15 percent with the entry of more than 18,000 data points, as opposed to only two errors this year.

“When they were separate, it was a pretty Herculean task,” said Gaudette. “Basically it’s easier for a kid to navigate the system and get what they need [now].”

The most recent data from the school, which houses students in all grades, show there are currently 427 IEPs and that 19 students are awaiting classification.

Gaudette denied that changes were made to save money, although he acknowledged the school has saved about $300,000.

One of the biggest concerns for Angiolillo, Payson and Tyler was that in recent years the school has switched from self-contained classrooms, where students remained with the same teacher for the entire day, to students being assigned to different teachers for each subject.

Since many Cottage School students have experienced abuse, there can be difficulty with trust and being able to adjust to multiple teachers, Tyler and Angiolillo contended. Tyler said there is a direct correlation between how much time a teacher spends with a student and the ability to connect with that teacher.

Tyler said children who act out and skip class demonstrate that they are unable to handle multiple teachers and require self-contained classrooms. Angiolillo also claimed that teachers have been removed and replaced during the school year, leading to greater confusion.

“The teacher is the only constant these kids have,” Angiolillo said. “They know for sure every day they’re going to see that same teacher in the classroom, so that teacher really does become a very important part of their lives, and for that teacher to be ripped away from them, it’s almost like having a parent ripped away.”

The three women have also charged that Gaudette retaliated against teachers who criticized the changes and attempted to force tenured teachers from their positions to reduce opposition. Payson and Tyler have filed a federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in White Plains, claiming their First Amendment rights were violated.

“I’m only getting reports of what’s happening now through staff that are working there, and they’re very afraid to speak up because whoever speaks up gets their position cut so they’re petrified to make claims,” Payson said.

Gaudette explained that the change in classroom model stems from state education law, which requires a student be taught in the least restrictive environment. Laws governing least restrictive environment concern a classified student’s right to get the same education as any general education student.

An attorney for Adult and Child Services, which helps place many students at the Cottage School, advised that the school needed to use a least restrictive environment model.

As a result, the way a student becomes classified has changed, staff members said. Previously, students were admitted to the school and immediately classified, but now they are placed in general education and modifications are made if they struggle. If the modifications fail, then the student is moved to a more restrictive self-contained classroom. A successful student in a self-contained classroom can also be moved to a general education environment.

Cottage School teachers explained that the removal of the self-contained model has allowed them to create stronger, more interactive lessons because they only need to focus on one subject, which better prepares students, Gaudette said. Cottage School students are often transient wards of the state who are educated and housed on the campus until a permanent location is found. The class-switching model allows the students to transition more easily to a traditional public school, he said.

School psychologist Daria Kolesar said students favored a more traditional class model because a self-contained classroom made them feel like they were receiving a vastly different education from their peers.

“The students felt it didn’t represent a true high school feel and that they considered it to be more of a fake school, so they advocated for more transitioning just like their normal community schools are doing,” Kolesar said.