Apology For Special Needs Students Forced From Hillsborough Prom

HILLSBOROUGH, NJ — The Hillsborough Public School District has apologized to the special needs students who were dismissed from their senior prom early last month, the district announced Monday afternoon.

The administration said it is also taking steps to ensure nothing similar will ever happen again, although it was not permitted to specify what actions it was taking.

The apologies come weeks after school district aides serving as paid chaperones at the May 17 prom told a group of seven students to leave the prom before the 11 p.m. curfew, despite the school's mandate that no one was to leave early.

After parents spoke out to the school district, to the town and in a post on Hillsborough Patch, the district launched an investigation.

“That thorough and extensive investigation included interviews with numerous individuals, including staff, students, parents, and third-party service providers who witnessed or were part of the interactions in question from that evening, as well as a review of correspondence from the parents of various students, the Child Study Team, and the instructional assistants,” the district said.

In addition to in-person apologies, the principal sent home a letter to the parents reiterating the apology and saying their students deserved better. They also offered a special activity to those students to remind them that they are valued members of the school family, and the Board of Education also apologized.

District administrators said they learned that some parents of students with disabilities did ask for an early dismissal from the prom, which was held at the East Brunswick Hilton Hotel on May 17.

However, the students were dismissed earlier than requested, and contrary to their requests to stay, administrators said.

“The Board (of Education) agrees that this resulted in an unacceptable scenario leaving students and their families with the impression that they could not stay until the end of the prom, which should not have happened,” administrators said.

The prom ran from 7 p.m. to 11:30 p.m., and the earliest dismissal time should have been 11 p.m., administrators said. Limousines were not supposed to arrive before 11:15 p.m.

The limo for the seven students involved in this situation was to arrive at 11 p.m. According to the district, this is done so that students with special needs could leave 15 minutes early to “avoid the crush of the majority of other prom party-goers, most of whom choose to leave at 11 p.m.”

The students in this case were forced to leave at 10:40 p.m., despite protests from many of them. One student tried to call their limo driver, and an aide confiscated his phone and had them removed by security, according to the parents. As a result, they missed the coronation of the king and queen, as well as their traditional dance.

Read more here: Special Needs Students Forced From Hillsborough Prom, Parents Say

“The Board believes that this regrettable occurrence, which was hurtful to those students and families, should not reflect negatively on the hundreds of teachers, aides and administrators who care deeply for the district’s special needs students, and who have done so for many, many years,” officials said. “The Board again apologizes for the students’ earlier-than-anticipated dismissal from the senior prom, and sincerely hopes that the remainder of the school year for these students will be filled with the positive and enriching educational and extracurricular experiences that they truly deserve.”