Mother settles lawsuit over school no-trespass order

[A] mother who was barred from school property in Barre Town amid her persistent advocacy on behalf of her son has settled her lawsuit with the school district and the Barre Supervisory Union for $83,750.

According to Katie Sherman’s lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Rutland in July, the catalyst for the no-trespass order was a comment she made “out of frustration” to Martha Frank, of the Vermont Family Network, to the effect that Sherman understood why Christopher Williams was “pushed to the edge.”

Williams killed a teacher and wounded another in a shooting rampage in 2006 at Essex Elementary School.

According to the lawsuit, Frank relayed the comment to school officials.

Sherman’s lawyer, Ron Shems, called the school’s response “very heavy-handed.” The school did not talk to Sherman about the comment and left no avenue for appealing the no-trespass order except through a lawsuit, according to Shems.

Due to the written no-trespass order — which was indefinite — Sherman was not able to attend school board meetings and couldn’t vote on Town Meeting Day in 2015, according to the lawsuit. The suit listed violations of her rights to freedom of expression, freedom to vote and access to public meetings, information and due process.

Barre Supervisory Union Superintendent John Pandolfo said the school district doesn’t believe the lawsuit had merit and stands by the way officials acted in an effort to keep children safe. A set of protocols is in place that schools must follow when threats allegedly are made.

“By settling this case, we were able to keep our schools safe and to resolve a dispute with a parent,” Pandolfo said. “The district does not wish to participate in protracted disputes with parents. We work hard to collaborate for the benefit of our students. However, at the same time, safety is always the most important priority. We will always act decisively to keep our students and staff safe.”

Sherman says her son, who was in sixth grade at the time of the dispute, has learning, developmental and behavioral disabilities that include autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. He qualified for special education services and had an individual education plan, or IEP, that requires student-specific accommodations under federal and state law.

She accused the Barre Town School District of not providing some of those accommodations and said she began advocating for her son to the school principal and going up the chain of command to Superintendent John Bacon, who has since retired.

Sherman didn’t feel she was being listened to, so she filed a “due process complaint” with the Agency of Education. At the same time, she said, Bacon recommended she home-school her son. She agreed to do so — this was in January 2015 — and was told he could still participate in extracurricular activities at the school, according to the lawsuit.

Sherman continued to pursue the due process complaint with the agency in the hopes of being able to re-enroll her son at school the following fall. While searching for an advocate she was referred to the Vermont Family Network and Frank, her lawsuit said.

It was after she told Frank that she was planning to attend Barre Town school board meetings “to express her concerns and opinions regarding the abilities of the BTSD staff” that Frank told school officials of Sherman’s reference to the Essex shooting, according to the lawsuit.

“There was no need to issue a no-trespass order. They were just getting rid of a thorn in their side,” Shems said. “She had been complaining and vociferously challenging the school in terms of their failures to comply with her son’s IEP, as any mom should.”

Sherman home-schooled her son for the rest of the winter semester and then moved over the summer so her son could attend another school. Shems said Sherman is happy with the settlement. “Her son is thriving now and is on the honor roll,” Shems added.