Waldorf School in Princeton Must Pay $58,000 in Discrimination Suit: AG

Princeton, NJ -- The private Waldorf School of Princeton will pay a learning-disabled student and her parents $58,000 to resolve allegations that it illegally expelled her without prior notice after seven years as a student because of her mother’s aggressive advocacy on her behalf, the Division of Criminal Rights announced Monday morning.

It will also review and revise its non-discrimination policy, provide training for all employees on addressing reasonable accommodation requests, and modify the school’s records to remove any indication the girl was expelled.

As a result, the student, who is now enrolled in the public school system, will be able to participate in alumni events along with the classmates she would’ve graduated from the eighth grade with had she remained at Waldorf.

Waldorf provides education for children from early childhood through eighth grade. Its curriculum is more artistic than most traditional public and private schools, and its method of instruction reflects a different view of child developmental stages. For example, the school does not routinely use textbooks or technology, and its students usually stay with the same classroom teacher from first through eighth grade.

The parents moved from Union County to Princeton to put their child into the Waldorf School as a first grader, beginning in the 2005-06 academic year.. They told the Division they were initially attracted by Waldorf’s emphasis on practical and fine arts.

Two years later, she was diagnosed with a learning disability. For the next three years, her Individual Services Plan (ISP) – under the supervision of the same classroom teacher each year – included a number of accommodations such as “seat student near source of instruction and visual displays” and “allow extended time” for both classroom and standardized testing.

The student advanced each academic year, and at one point, the girl’s classroom teacher wrote a note thanking her mother for “working so hard with me to make her successful.”

She switched teachers in sixth grade, however, at which time the parents claim there was less communication, particularly face-to-face, between teacher and parents.

However, the girl still succeeded and advanced – despite some concerns noted by her new teacher regarding certain areas in need of improvement – and the student was the subject of positive overall assessments at the end of both her sixth and seventh grade years. Among other observations, the girl’s teacher said she had done well with vocabulary testing, continued to improve in math and was “incredibly artistic.” She finished the seventh grade with a “B” average.

However, during this time, there was an undercurrent of tension between the girl’s mother and the Waldorf staff, both sides agreed.

The mother was disappointed in the perceived reduction in communications, a lessening of regard for her concerns, and a diminished amount of attention focused on her daughter’s needs. The education professionals said the mother was overstepping her bounds and spoke with an occasionally disrespectful – even abusive – tone of communication.

In May of 2012, the school told her parents their daughter would not be invited back for the eighth grade. This was after the school provided re-enrollment paperwork and a financial aid package to fill out and noted in a written, year-end assessment that various accommodations “should be continued” for the girl in her final academic year.

However, in telling the parents their daughter was expelled, educators explained that Waldorf was “not the appropriate environment” based on assessments by certain “outside evaluators.” However, there also was a reference to a “history of an unproductive relationship” with the mother, and a “lack of consciousness about appropriate boundaries” on the mother’s part.

The parents offered to “remove ourselves from the scene” in favor of an appointed educational guardian as part of a list of proposals to attempt to make the situation work. Waldorf declined, and school officials sent an e-mail to the parents of the girl’s classmates announcing the decision.

The parents subsequently filed a formal complaint with the Division on Civil Rights, which investigated the situation.

In September of 2014, the Division issued a Finding of Probable Cause against Waldorf.

“It appears that Waldorf engaged in a good faith interactive process with Complainants for six-and-a-half years until May 2012, when it unilaterally determined that a limit had been reached, and that no further accommodations of any sort would be provided,” Division Director Craig T. Sashihara wrote in the Finding. “Perhaps a different conclusion would have been reached if the school had refused to provide additional accommodations, explained why those requests were unduly burdensome, and given the parents the option of accepting the status quo or withdrawing their child. But that is not what occurred.”

“By all accounts the child was well-liked by teachers and classmates, and universally praised for her work ethic, classroom citizenship and artistic talent. She had no disciplinary history or record of failed academics, and required fewer accommodations in the eighth-grade than in past years,” Sashihara said on Monday. “If a school determines that a parent is requesting too many accommodations, it should tell the parent why it finds those requests to be unreasonable, and engage in a meaningful discussion of possible alternatives, rather than simply expel the unsuspecting student before her final year.”

In the public school system, the student completed her freshman year with a “A” average.