Cole Camardo, eight years old, lives in Cherry Hill and has been out of school for eight months, his only instruction a private tutor his parents are paying for. Why? Based on Cole’s experience over the last four years, his mother and father believe placement in Cherry Hills’ special education classrooms — Cole was diagnosed with autism as a two-year-old— puts Cole in physical and psychological danger. The district doesn’t agree. 

What happens when you have a child with disabilities and the Child Study Team (CST, the specialists who collaborate with parents to design an Individualized Education Plan compliant with federal and state education law) doesn’t agree with parents about necessary placement or programming? The process is meant to be collaborative, with parents equal partners with school staff. Yet sometimes that process breaks down. Cole’s story, according to his parents, is an example of what can happen when a school district refuses to consider reasonable accommodations, tensions escalate, a family is caught in the middle, and all that is left is expensive litigation — for both special needs families and taxpayers.

The saga doesn’t start here. As NJ Ed Report and other outlets have reported, in 2021 when Cole was a four-year-old preschooler enrolled at the district’s Barclay Early Childhood Center, his parents saw a photograph on a district portal that showed their son (according to  Politico) “climbing ladders, playing with classmates and crawling through tunnels with weights strapped to his still-developing legs” because staff members wanted to “slow him down.” Cole’s father Shane describes how those weights were on his son for the full school schedule of three hours a day, five days a week, a violation of civil rights law that requires districts to notify parents immediately when they want to use restraints or seclusion. Another day that year Cole came home with bruises up and down his legs and he started regressing socially and verbally. The school accepted no responsibility (although both the principal and teacher resigned later that year).

Earlier that year the Camardos had asked for a one-on-one aide. That request was denied

“It’s heartbreaking to look back now,” said Camardo at the time, “knowing that we were sending him into a toxic environment and he couldn’t tell us.”

Cole’s parents filed a complaint with the district for restraining their son without notice. The district didn’t deny the lack of notice but wouldn’t change anything, according to Cole’s father. Fearful for Cole’s safety they disenrolled him and availed themselves of home instruction for the rest of the school year.

In September 2022, at a meeting with Cole’s Child Study Team, they asked for an out-of-district placement in a state-approved private education school. They had one in mind in a neighboring town but the district said  “no,” that Cole belonged in a district self-contained autism classroom. The parents deferred to the Team and signed the IEP placing him at Cooper Elementary School. During recess in the playground,  he ran onto a heavily-trafficked main road despite the presence of four adults. (The teacher, whom they love, called to tell him about it but Cherry Hill’s Director of Special Services Caitlin Mallory denied it happened.) Another time he came home with a cut on his neck inflicted by a classmate and, somehow, suffered chemical burns on his hands, which his father said were third-degree.

At the time, Cole’s father said, “You see all these ads on TV, you hear all these people saying ‘special education in New Jersey, it’s the place to be, we care about these kids. But how can you say that when this one five-year-old, autistic child went through this, let alone how many others are treated like that?”

Despite the economic hardship (Cole’s father is a former Marine with a security business) they enrolled their son at their own expense in a private Christian school and also paid for a one-on-one aide. That worked well until it didn’t; they and the school concurred that Cole needed a specialized program for students classified with autism. Cole’s parents were hopeful that the district would agree to an appropriate and safe placement for their son.

In a timeline compiled by Cole’s father he lists what happened next:

• They asked again for an out-of-district placement and again were told “no.”

• They were told there were no open seats in-district for the remainder of school year 2023-2024 and offered home instruction.

• They were told he would be placed in a general education classroom for up to 90 days for a re-evaluation because “his current IEP wasn’t valid.” (Camardo disputes this because IEP’s are valid for three years.)

• They had a meeting with the superintendent and suddenly a spot at another elementary school, Kingston, opened up.

• They were informed that this spot was now unavailable and Cole would be placed at Mann Elementary School, but they would have to send him within the next five days.

As far as Cole’s parents are concerned, Cherry Hill is not a safe or effective placement for Cole. Instead they want him placed in a private special education school or in a neighboring district with suitable programming. As members of the CST, their opinion must be taken seriously but, according to them, they’ve been gaslit and stonewalled.  

Therefore, according to regulations regarding special education disputes in New Jersey, Cole’s parents have only one option: file for mediation and due process. That means, assuming an informal mediation doesn’t work — and it hasn’t as of now —  hiring and paying for a lawyer and going through the process of litigation, which is lengthy, expensive, and stressful. 

It is worth noting that this is not just a Cherry Hill problem. According to a recent report an eight-year-old non-verbal girl with developmental delays was restrained with tape by five school staff at Russell O. Brackman School in Barnegat. Montclair is regularly in the spotlight for placing young students, mostly Black boys, in a “seclusion room” that is actually a closet. And these are just the instances that get press attention.

“We love living in Cherry Hill,” says Cole’s father. “But one of the reasons we moved here is we heard it was the golden district for special education. It seems like such a simple thing: give my child what he needs to be safe and educated because he’s not setting foot in another Cherry Hill district school. Either the lawsuit gets settled or we have to move. I hate to uproot my family but we have no other option.”

NJ Education Report has asked Cherry Hill’s Director of Special Education Caitlin Mallory for comment. As of press time she had not responded. (Update: The Public Information Officer for Cherry Hill Public Schools replies, “we have no comment at this time.”)