State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is investigating a private school that booted an 8-year-old student for threatening other kids with a paper gun, The Post has learned.
Officials from the AG’s civil-rights unit are probing the Lang School’s treatment of Asher Palmer, who is diagnosed with ADHD and has problems communicating.
The inquiry centers on whether Palmer’s legal right to be educated is being violated and whether the school deceived or defrauded the parents and the state, sources said.
Palmer’s parents paid $119,500 in tuition and related costs to have their son educated at Lang’s classes in lower Manhattan for five months.
But it’s taxpayers who eventually will pick up the tab. The Board of Education either pays private schools that take in special-needs kids or reimburses parents for a portion, if not all, of the tuition costs.
Palmer’s parents have already applied for their reimbursement. Asher’s mom, Melina Spadone, said she was stunned when Lang Principal Micaela Bracamonte recommended her son be home-schooled and not return to classes this fall.
In a June 12 email to Spadone, Bracamonte complained about Asher’s “use of pretend guns on fellow students and mention of killing” and said he “had a concrete plan for killing [a female student] that he would not retract after discussion with our psych staff.”
“He might well present a risk to the emotional and possibly (though remotely so) physical safety and well-being of his classmates,” Bracamonte wrote.
Spadone said the claims were nonsense and that the principal overreacted. She said her son wouldn’t hurt anybody and had made paper guns just like he makes paper airplanes. The Post first reported on the controversy last week.
Spadone told The Post she was contacted this week by Alvin Bragg, the executive deputy AG for social justice, and another civil-rights lawyer in the department who are looking into the case.
“I was pleased to learn that the Attorney General’s Office is taking steps to protect special-needs children in New York. As to whether Ms. Bracamonte and her staff are engaging in unlawful or criminal conduct, I defer to NYAG on that question,” Spadone said in an email.
“As a member of the bar, I was certainly troubled by some of Ms. Bracamonte’s comments.”
Spadone said the Lang School agreed it was the appropriate setting to educate Asher — and accepted the hefty tuition — before suddenly reversing course.
Spadone doesn’t know where Asher will go to school in September. “That,” she said, “is a big problem.”
“Lang didn’t accept tuition from me to be a baby sitter. The state is not paying for tuition at Lang to be a baby sitter. They’re paying for an education,” she said.
Schneiderman’s office declined comment.
Bracamonte declined comment Thursday after defending her decision last week.