MIDDLETOWN, Conn. — When Stacey Plantt filed a federal complaint against her son’s day care, claiming he was unjustly expelled, she wanted not only compensation for her family but also significant change.
Like many children with disabilities, she thought, her 3-year-old son who dealt with delayed speech and was later diagnosed with autism had not been given a fair chance — sent home for a few days and later “disenrolled” from the school, according to the complaint. The punishment came, according to the complaint, after a dispute over the child wanting to eat his lunch, rather than snack, during morning hours.
“We wanted them to know that they were wrong, and we wanted something to be changed,” Plantt recalled in a recent interview. “They just can’t do that to anybody, let alone someone as fragile as my child.”
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After more than two years, the Department of Justice resolved the complaint in November, with the Town & Country Early Learning Center in Middletown agreeing to pay the family $750. But the resolution also requires the school to establish new policies to better manage students with disabilities, administer additional training for staff and agree “that suspending a child with a disability or sending him/her home early is not an appropriate way to treat a student with a disability in most circumstances.”
An attorney for Town & Country noted in an email that there had been no formal determination of wrongdoing and said the program had “fully cooperated throughout the process,” leading to the voluntary resolution.
“There were no penalties or fines, only reimbursement of certain out-of-pocket expenses,” the attorney said. “Town & Country remains committed to providing an inclusive, supportive environment for every child in its care.”
The complaint claims an incident happened in April 2023, when Plantt’s son, who had a speech delay and would soon be diagnosed with autism, asked for lunch but was told it wasn’t yet lunchtime. After the 3-year-old responded with a “behavioral incident,” the family’s federal complaint alleges, staff told his parents to come pick him up on that Wednesday and keep him home until the following Monday.
When the boy’s parents sent the program a message questioning whether his behavior warranted a suspension, they received a surprising response, according to the complaint: he would be “disenrolled” immediately.
Plantt said she was devastated. Her son had done well at Town & Country and didn’t want to leave, she said in an interview, and with two working parents he had no one to take care of him during the day. So she began calling around to attorneys and eventually connected with the Hartford-based Center for Children’s Advocacy, which filed a complaint with the DOJ.
According to the complaint, Town & Country had failed to provide Plantt’s child “reasonable accommodations” as required under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Bonnie Roswig, an attorney for CCA who filed the complaint on Plantt’s behalf, said the case was emblematic of a broader problem, in which schools expel or remove students with disabilities instead of working to accommodate their needs.
“The bottom line is, you can’t kick out a child with no notice,” Roswig said. “If you are concerned that that child has a disability and you don’t know how to meet their needs, you can’t just kick them out.”
Though Plantt didn’t receive as much financial compensation as her attorneys had requested, she said she was pleased Town & Country would have to change its practices.
“Their policies are now changing,” she said. “And I would hope that other day cares get wind of this and follow through on policies regarding kids with disabilities.”
Plantt says she hopes her example will help make change on a broader scale. Roswig, similarly, said she wants state agencies that oversee child care in Connecticut to see this case as an example of why they should aggressively enforce the ADA.
“We hope that they will do the deeper dive around ensuring that these facilities are complying with federal law,” she said. “We hope that they take that obligation seriously.”
With her case now resolved, Plantt and her family are moving forward. Her son, now in 1st grade, is “a great, healthy 6-year-old,” his mother said, who still gets speech therapy among other specialized services but is otherwise integrated into a mainstream classroom.
One day, Plantt said, she looks forward to telling him the role he played in bringing about some change.
“I can’t wait until he’s old enough for me to be able to explain that we are part of a change,” she said. “And even if it’s one day care, I hope that it reaches other day cares.”
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