News

SPEDWatch sat down with Commissioner of Education Dr. Mitchell Chester less than a month after his arrival in Massachusetts, and spared few words in describing the long-standing, widespread and egregious noncompliance with special education law in the state, and its tragic human consequences. More Information…

SPEDWatch students, parents and teachers demonstrated outside the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education offices in Malden on Dr. Mitchell D. Chester's first day as the Commonwealth's new Commissioner of Education. Participants came from towns as far away as Springfield, Danvers and Taunton to insist that students with disabilities be given the education to which they are legally entitled. More Information…

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Federal and state laws say children with disabilities are entitled to a free and appropriate public education, but according to SPEDWatch, there is a huge discrepancy between what the law says and what many districts are doing. More Information…

“Parents call me and ask where they can move where it’s better. The answer is that there’s no place to move. Stay put and fight for your children’s rights,” said the founder and executive director of SPEDWatch, an activist civil-rights movement fighting for the educational rights of all Massachusetts children with disabilities. More Information…

Ellen M. Chambers, the executive director of SPEDWatch Inc., a statewide nonprofit group, met with about 20 parents in Springfield yesterday, and said many school districts don't fully comply with laws governing special education services. "Students in Springfield are in really grave danger of not receiving the education to which they are entitled," she told a group at the Central Library. Mary Anne Morris, executive officer of special education for the Springfield public schools, could not be reached for comment.  More Information…

Marcia Mittnacht tells SPEDWatch that students with disabilities, as a group, cannot consistently perform similarly to their non-disabled peers. In addition, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (formerly the Department of Education) cannot substantially diminish noncompliance with special education law by our public schools (May 2007). Complete letter…

MALDEN – Vowing to fight on until the Massachusetts Department of Education (MASSDE) stops public schools from violating students’ special education rights, a group of fifty parents, teachers and students protested in freezing temperatures outside MASSDE headquarters on January 17, 2008. All are members of SPEDWatch, a non-profit civil rights movement founded by Pepperell resident Ellen Chambers to secure the educational rights of the Commonwealth’s schoolchildren with disabilities. More Information…

Jeffrey Nellhaus tells SPEDWatch that the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (formerly the Department of Education) cannot eliminate noncompliance with special education laws (January 2008). Complete letter…