From the above article, "
Board member's duties cut" (by Lori Stabile; May 22, 2009;
The Republican):
"The suit was filed last month in Palmer District Court against Patenaude and her husband, James A. Patenaude, by the Monson Public Schools. The School Department said that the Patenaudes wrongly accepted $14,381 to transport their son daily to a private school in Hardwick when he was actually at a Christian boarding school in Utah."[/list][/size]
Interesting. I'm curious as to how this lawsuit turned out... if it ever got off the ground, and what the issues raised by the defense were or perhaps still are.
That "private school in Hardwick" was most likely
Eagle Hill Academy, another behav mod program, albeit one that claims to specialize in "learning disabilities." The Patenaudes' son probably attended as one of their day students, and may have needed daily transport, the distance between the towns of Monson and Hardwick being roughly 23 miles.
I'd venture that the Patenaudes
possibly saw the funding of $14,381 for transportation as being part and parcel of whatever they were allotted to educate their son
vis a vis his "learning disabilities," if indeed he was categorized as having "Special Needs."
Unfortunately for them, they may not have appreciated that the allocation/granting of this type of funding is very task/job/function specific, constrained by governmental red tape, and cannot simply be transferred to something else the parents deem more suitable, or even to a different institution for the same purpose without jumping through a whole lotta hoops beforehand.
Of course, this is all pure speculation on my part...
Fwiw, to my knowledge,
Abundant Life Academy in Utah has about
zero expertise in "learning disabilities," though I really wouldn't be surprised if they advertise that they're experts at dealing with "learning
differences."
