Former Torrington Middle School principal sues school board, superintendent, alleging special education violations, retaliatory termination

TORRINGTON — Former Torrington Middle School Principal Valerie Bruneau sued the Board of Education and Superintendent Denise Clemons Tuesday, alleging that the district discriminated against and violated the rights of special education students during her tenure, including by not providing required paraprofessionals, then illegally fired her as retaliation for reporting the issue.

In the complaint, Bruneau alleges that Torrington Middle School students were not provided required paraprofessionals even after she repeatedly reported the situation to Superintendent Denise Clemons and Director of Student Services Le’Tanya Lawrence in August and September 2017.

Torrington Middle School required 25 paraprofessionals to be in compliance with students’ Individualized Education Program (IEP) — an agreement between parents and a school district on the proper education of a special education student required by federal law — but was instead assigned 22, according to the complaint.

This includes the case of three students new to Torrington Middle School, whose paraprofessionals transferred to other district schools and were not replaced.

According to the complaint, Lawrence and Clemons directed Bruneau to reassign other school paraprofessionals on multiple occasions to address the compliance issues. This would either perpetuate the district’s noncompliance with the law or create new issues, Bruneau alleged in the complaint.

In the case of some students, Lawrence said that paraprofessionals Bruneau believed were mandated by the IEPs were instead “recommended,” according to the complaint — a statement “completely contradictory to State and Federal educational law.”

“Despite her continuous reporting to Clemons and Lawrence — regarding the District’s mismanagement, illegal practices, and its failure to provide special education services to disabled students — nothing changed,” said attorneys representing Bruneau in the suit.

The parents of a special education student began to keep their child out of school Sept. 18, as a reaction to the district not providing a paraprofessional and, after Lawrence reportedly declined to attend a legally-required meeting with the parents, informed the district of their plans to hire an attorney, according to the complaint.

Bruneau brought this concern to Clemons and Lawrence, according to the complaint.

In a Sept. 22 meeting, she was allegedly fired as Torrington Middle School principal after Clemons said the “potential litigation would likely be at a significant cost to Torrington.”

Clemons told Bruneau that it was her responsibility to assign paraprofessionals to cover student IEPs in that meeting, according to the complaint — which Bruneau describes as “duplicitous,” since both knew she did not have the authority to hire or reassign paraprofessionals from other buildings.

Bruneau reiterated that there were not enough paraprofessionals assigned to the middle school to be in compliance with student IEPs in response.

Bruneau had been employed by the district for 84 days. Thus, according to the complaint, the district said she was not entitled to a hearing on the firing.

“(O)n or about Sept. 25,” Lawrence said that she would hire a paraprofessional to cover a medically-fragile student and directed Bruneau to use a paraprofessional from the Life Skills program to cover the student who was being held out of school, according to the complaint.

The directive “did not alleviate the lack of vital special education services for other students who needed them,” according to the complaint.

“(Bruneau) reiterated to Lawrence that if any paraprofessional in her building was reassigned to accommodate the student not attending school, the District would be faced with further issues of noncompliance with IEPs in the building, thus compounding the District’s illegal discrimination and neglect,” said the attorneys.

In the complaint, Bruneau also alleges that special education students in co-taught classes did not have required paraprofessional support and that certain classes in the Learning Resource Center, which separate special education students from the regular education population, were not in compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act as they did not place the young people in the least-restrictive environment possible.

The suit alleges that Clemons and the Board of Education violated Connecticut General Statute 31-51m, the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, both in failing to supply required special education services and in her firing which Bruneau claims was retaliation for the protected act of reporting the areas of noncompliance.

According to the complaint, Bruneau is seeking reinstatement of her employment and employment benefits, as well as monetary damages and attorneys’ fees.

Clemons declined to comment Tuesday.

Lawrence and Board of Education chairman Fiona Cappabianca did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Bruneau was hired as the Torrington Middle School Principal before the beginning of the 2017-18 school year, coming to the district from West Haven.

She shared her explanation of the situation around her firing in an October interview with The Register Citizen.

At the time, Clemons said the district stood by the decision to fire Bruneau, as it had a “legitimate and proper basis for doing so.”