Special Needs Students Ejected From Senior Prom

HILLSBOROUGH, N.J. — On Friday, May 17, senior prom ended in disaster and tears for a group of special needs students and their guests at the Hillsborough High School Senior Prom at the East Brunswick Hilton Hotel.
HHS district aides who agreed to be paid chaperones defied school regulations that no students should be dismissed prior to 11 p.m. and no limousines to exit until 11:15 p.m. Instead, the district aides told one neuro-typical student of her new plan to have the students leave early, personally calling the limo driver to rearrange the pick-up time.

Other students overheard the conversation and immediately protested the early end of the evening, desperately explaining the rules of the prom and the direction of their parents.

Amongst multiple protestations, all while the annunciation of King and Queen was transpiring, the district aides continued with the forced ejection of these students at 10:40 p.m. The crowning moment of the night, the first dance all barely seen by the students as the aides forced the students out of their table while everyone else watched.

The official end time of prom was 11:30 p.m. No parents were notified that the students would be arriving home early or that the aides had changed the end time of prom.

Outraged parents are calling for the immediate dismissal of these aides, a public apology, and special education training for all remaining district aides, among other damages.

HHS Principal Karen Bingert and Supervisor of Special Services Emily Keyes have taken no significant action as of this writing, nor has superintendent Dr. Jordan Schiff intervened. The three aides continue to work alongside the very students they discriminated against. Mark Gaswirth has been asked to relieve the aides of their positions with no pay but has not responded to the request.

The duo of Keyes and Bingert began meeting with students, some without parental permission or notification, offering leading questions, said some parents, and attempting to smooth over “mistakes that adults make.” As of now, the district has done nothing for the students and no repercussions or accountability has been taken.

A Board of Education meeting was held on Monday, May 20, and many outraged parents and students attended. Emily Valentino, one of the neuro-typically developing peers involved, wrote a letter read at the meeting, “It broke my heart to see how sad everyone was. We were ushered out of the prom like animals at the zoo.” In another letter read on Tuesday, May 28th at the Hillsborough Town Council meeting by Julie Lashen, she shares her experience, “Me and my whole group of friends were being discriminated against. We were the only ones leaving at 10:40. It was both embarrassing and humiliating.”

A 17-year-old prom-goer with a disability, a junior and guest of a senior, attempted to protect the rights of his fellow students and to clarify the correct exit time by calling the limo driver the parents had hired and asked him to be in touch with. In reaction, the aides tried to confiscate his phone and called hotel security to have him thrown out against his will, his efforts silenced.

“Do aides have the authority to change instructions with a contracted limousine driver? To defy the rights of these students? To defy the very rules and printed instructions of the district?” asked Katherine Trusky in her meeting with Bingert and Keyes. The response was “Typically, no.”

Another neuro-typically developing student in the group, Madison Hansen, summed it up best, “Because of the aides’ discriminatory actions, their [the students’] memories of the night were tarnished based on the last hour of discrimination and confusing mayhem. Only the negative memories will remain. This is not what senior prom, or any prom, should be like, for
anyone.”

Written by Katherine Trusky
In conjunction with the following families:
Veronica and Marty Mayes
Ken Doyle
Lynn and Dave Lashen
Deborah Myers-Eisenberger
Jeffrey Eisenberger
Debbie Hansen
Donna and Mark Mazzeo
Lisa Valentino

If you would like more information about this incident, please call Katherine Trusky at 732-763-2140, or email katherinetrusky@gmail.com.