The Thompson School District must continue to pay $130,000-a-year private-school tuition for a severely autistic boy whose educational needs weren’t being met in a traditional classroom, a U.S. District Court said.
Judge Walker Miller dismissed the school district’s appeal that the cost of tuition at the private Boston Higashi School for Autism was above and beyond the “free adequate public education” required of all school districts.
The boy, Luke Perkins, has been attending the Boston school since January 2004, and the Thompson School District has been footing his tuition along with other fees.
School counselors and his parents, Jeff and Julie, found that Luke wasn’t making progress educationally at Berthoud Elementary after he started there in 2002, according to court documents. Counselors there worked with his parents, but Luke’s disabilities were severe and getting worse, according to court documents. At home and at school, Luke had extremely destructive behavior.
In a 23-page dismissal filed last week, Miller upheld an Individuals With Disability Education Act requirement, which says that students be educated in the “least restrictive appropriate educational environment.”
The Higashi school fulfilled that, Miller wrote, because there were no other options for Luke in the area.
Thompson district spokesman Wes Fothergill said he was disappointed in the judge’s dismissal.
The Board of Education hasn’t made a decision about whether to pursue an appeal with the 10th Circuit Court.
Staff writer Allison Sherry can be reached at 303-954-1377 or asherry@denverpost.com.
