Waterbury Municipal Manager Bill Shepeluk. File photo by Elizabeth Hewitt/VTDigger
Settlement talks will continue for another month in a case involving a boy with a difficult upbringing kicked out of a Town of Waterbury summer camp whose parents say he was discriminated against because of his emotional disability.
The town and the Vermont Human Rights Commission mutually agreed to continue talks after failing to reach a settlement in the prescribed six-month window to make a deal.
If no deal is reached by March 19, the commission by law can take the case to federal court or dismiss it. The adopted boy’s parents can also independently sue.
After an investigation, the VHRC found “reasonable grounds” that town officials illegally discriminated against the 10-year-old by failing to accommodate his emotional disability. According to the commission’s investigation, camp officials expelled the boy in the first days of an 8-week summer camp in 2017 after he “lashed out” and was “out of control” during an incident when he threw items, including a rock at a counselor, prompting camp officials to pin him down and call the police.
The investigation concluded that instead of expulsion, a counselor could have been assigned to watch the boy more closely. The boy’s parents requested an accomodation after the incident. They did not tell camp officials ahead of time for fear he would be labeled or unfairly accused, according to the VHRC investigation.
According to the 26-page VHRC investigation report, the boy had a difficult upbringing: he was born to a heroin-addicted mother and a father in jail. He moved through seven foster homes before being adopted at age 3. The report found he “endured severe physical, psychological and emotional abuse” as an infant. He prompted a school lockdown in California, was expelled from several day care programs and was restrained at one elementary school 57 times in two years, according to the report.
The boy has “notable social skills problems” and “engages in inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances,” according to the report. “He is afraid to be alone, is easily frustrated by interpersonal relationships, is impulsive and seeks escape from situations.” The VHRC investigation said the boy had terrorized other students; the California school lockdown occurred because the child went missing, according to the boy’s father, who wrote a letter to a Waterbury newspaper critical of their coverage of the case.
The boy also successfully completed several programs and camps, including Camp Abnaki in North Hero, a two-week overnight camp, where he received more attention, the report said. School officials have also described the boy as “charming and personable” and “resilient, affectionate and sweet.”
The Human Rights Commission voted 4-1 in September that there were “reasonable grounds” to find the town had illegally discriminated. Commissioner Mary Brodsky, a UVM professor, dissented, but declined to say why.
“While it’s true that I voted against the recommendation made by the investigator, the decision has been made and I stand with the Board as a whole,” Brodsky said in an email.
In “reasonable grounds” cases, the commission has six months to negotiate a settlement before a lawsuit may or may not be filed. That deadline ends next week on March 19. Bor Yang, the VHRC executive director, declined comment on the talks.
Waterbury Municipal Manager Bill Shepeluk said the town made several offers for a settlement, as recently as last week, which were all turned down, he said. Shepeluk declined to disclose the offers. He said the town was reluctant to offer a settlement because it believed it had done nothing wrong, but did so because it felt litigation could be more expensive. A separate case involving a dismissed police officer, Shepeluk said, has cost the town about $450,000 so far.
“We’re hoping not to go to court. That’s a lose-lose for everybody,” Shepeluk said last week before the extension was agreed to.
The VHRC is not required to file a lawsuit. The child’s father, however, said in the letter to the newspaper that “the HRC voted to sue the Town of Waterbury in federal court if one last effort at settlement is not successful.”
The investigation found town officials likely expelled the boy because of his behavior, not his disability, since his condition was unknown when he was discharged. The report said camp officials could not “ignore the gravity of the incident.”
According to a counselor, the boy “threw multiple tennis balls over the fence to the pool, threw pieces of monopoly all over the building and one in the trash, pushing chairs over, threw a rock at me, threw a hockey stick into the drain, tried to lock me out of the building…attempted to pick up picnic table and throw it, knocked multiple things over inside and outside, tried to throw other campers’ belongings over the fence and into the trash.”
The discrimination, the commission alleges, occurred when the town rejected the parents’ request for an accommodation after the incident. At one point, the town’s recreation director, Deb Fowler, said “this is not an ADA camp” but later explained she meant the town could not provide one to one support for the boy, the report said.
In the letter to the editor, the boy’s father said a settlement should include having the town modify policy and procedures to make sure no one is denied a requested accommodation. He suggested town staff be educated about children with trauma and that there be “oversight” of the town if they want to remove a child with a disability.
The father also asked the town set up a fund “to provide any other Waterbury child with a history of trauma or abuse some extra support so they can be a part of their community and play with other children.” The father could not be reached for further comment.
Shepeluk noted — as did the investigation — that Waterbury had made accommodations in the past, including an interpreter for a deaf camper and interpreters for parents of campers who resettled from Bosnia. An outside agency paid for that help, the report said. The investigation noted all of the counselors at the 2018 summer camp, the year after the incident, attended a program that included conflict resolution.
The boy’s father told the newspaper: “Kids are wonderful, dynamic and challenging little people who have a flood of emotions and need guidance. Add in abuse, neglect and trauma and that need becomes magnified. My child didn’t just explode into a monster, a chain of events happened that lead him into crisis. When a child who has experienced abuse, neglect or trauma goes into crisis they go into fight or flight mode as if it’s a life or death situation. They are terrified and need compassion and understanding.”
The father added: “We need to surround our kids with love, kindness and a little understanding. It takes a village and that is what our fight is all about, the next child.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: Waterbury camp discrimination case talks continue out of court.