Dear Members of the Joint Committee on Children, Families and Persons with Disabilities,
I’m writing this letter of support on behalf of my dear friends and family at the Team Shawnie Advocacy Group here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In honor of my brother Shawnie’s story, the Team Shawnie Advocacy Group (TSAG) was founded as a Non-Profit Organization in 2021 to create an additional resource for families struggling to navigate our nation’s special education system. Since our founding, we have met and worked with dozens of families throughout New England to help them advocate for their child’s right to special education in public schools. It is through this work, and from our own experiences fighting for my brother Shawnie’s special education services, that we have witnessed both the successes and shortcomings of the Commonwealth’s education system in its attempt to meet the demand for vital special education accommodations that are necessary to preserve the integrity of disability rights in America as a nation. I submit this letter to your committee in support of House Bill 248 to stress the imminent moral burden on the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to make systemic adjustments through legislation and to embrace the opportunity to spearhead a movement of special education reform throughout the nation as a whole.
In our current special education funding model, established by the Circuit Breaker Program in 2004, many families of children with severe special needs are faced with the undue burden of arguing for their children’s education accommodations while simultaneously dealing with a crisis at home. This is the experience that my family endured while Shawnie was a young boy diagnosed with Autism and struggling to regulate his severe behavioral issues. By establishing TSAG and working with families throughout the Commonwealth to advocate for special education services, we learned rather quickly that he is not alone. In light of this harsh reality, it is much more reasonable for the Commonwealth to adjust its system accordingly by passing House Bill 248, to prevent the increasing number of cases just like Shawnie’s. While the Circuit Breaker Program was an important step down the path of progress for special education and disability reform, it falls short of efficiently remedying the heavy burden it places on the 25% of forgotten families of children with special needs throughout the Commonwealth.
Despite its oversights, the Commonwealth’s Circuit Breaker Program has paved the way for more effective and practical reform. The program rightfully attempted to codify the progress made at the federal level but fell short of actually relieving school districts and families of the financial burden that comes with the need for special education services. The Commonwealth’s current system successfully acknowledges the need to protect disabled children from discrimination and marginalization. However, by only covering 75% of the steep prices of special education services like ABA therapy and residential programs, the system fails to provide effective relief to the remaining 25% of communities struggling with the challenges of caring for a child with special needs on their own. Today, nearly 10 years after the end of Shawnie’s fight for his own public education, many other Commonwealth families of children with special needs and their advocates are faced with the same challenge that Shawnie and his team faced back in 2006; that the cost of individualized special education services for some students is once again too high, and as a result school districts are inclined to adopt a strict interpretation of IDEA’s least-to-most-restrictive standard to prevent their budget from breaking.
The Circuit Breaker Program’s requirement of school districts to cover 25% of the special education costs poses a couple of glaring issues. First, it incentivizes schools to cut funding from other valuable educational programs and tools to meet their responsibilities as a caretaker under FAPE and IDEA. Second, it encourages rigid interpretations of special education policies to keep the school’s budget balanced. The more severe a child’s disability is, like in the case of Shawnie, the more intensive and expensive their special education services will be. For my brother, this meant that every month a school board would meet to discuss, in part, if his right to a free appropriate public education and a safe home was worth the cost of maintenance. By only agreeing to cover 75% of the cost of special education services, the Commonwealth enables the systemic discrimination and marginalization of the remaining 25% of our special education citizenry.
Finally, it is my contention that Shawnie’s Story can be retold as a way to point out the glaring issues that still exist in our special education system today and push the Commonwealth down the path of progress. By examining his case, along with dozens of cases just like his in the Commonwealth alone, it becomes clearer that any family would crack under the pressure of oppression without support from their community. Due to the severity of Shawnie’s experiences in the Commonwealth’s education system, we have a unique opportunity as members of the legal community to spot the glaring issues his case presents in order to spare the next generation from his suffering. Fortunately, we have the ability to prevent future generations from experiencing this type of injustice. It is for these reasons that I submit this letter to your committee in support of House Bill 248, in honor of my brother Shawnie – one amongst many citizens of the Commonwealth who were marginalized by this critical flaw in our special education system.
Best Regards,
Shane J. Halajko Jr., J.D.
Team Shawnie Advocacy Group | Board Vice Chairman
Suffolk University Law School, Boston, MA
508.491.7057
www.teamshawniegroup.com
