After several years of litigation, the Moorestown School District and the Duman family can finally put an end to a lawsuit after a settlement was officially reached last week.
The settlement was reached after the school district had appealed a judge’s decision ruling in favor of the local family in October.
The Duman family sued the school district in civil court in 2008 after the school district did not create an individualized education plan for their son so they could determine if the school district could provide him with a free and appropriate public education, as required through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
Scott Duman, father of the now 15-year-old student, said the family signed a confidentiality agreement and could not speak in detail about the settlement.
“Well, I’m certainly relieved this nightmare is over for my family. I hope this is a wake-up call for the school board to look more carefully at how money is spent,” he said. “We’re all far better off providing the proper services to children that need them — when they need them — than wasting even more money on legal fees.”
Legal counsel for the school district, John Comegno, did not return a phone call for comment.
The family had pulled their son out of the school district and had enrolled him in the Orchard Friends School in Riverton in fifth grade. The district denied their request for the IEP unless their son was enrolled in the district, however. The family had shown interest in reenlisting their son into the district for middle school.
At the time, Duman said they couldn’t take him out of Orchard Friends School and enroll him back into the Moorestown district for fear that the public school district couldn’t provide him with the education he needed. If they took him out of Orchard Friends he most likely would have lost his spot in the district.
According to the IDEA, school districts must provide IEPs to students in the district boundaries, even if they’re not enrolled in the school district.
Duman said he and his wife had initially enrolled their son into the Moorestown district, but found that he wasn’t making progress in their special education program. Their son had been diagnosed with high-functioning autism at an early age.
Duman said the family filed the lawsuit against the district for their refusal to pay for their son’s tuition to the school and their refusal to give him an IEP unless he was enrolled in the district.
Duman said that the district began to pay for his son’s tuition at Y.A.L.E. School in Cherry Hill last year after a judge ordered the district to begin paying in February 2010.
In October, Duman revealed that his families legal fees were over $200,000.
