BEVERLY — A plan to open a private school for autistic children has met opposition from the School Committee.
Futures Behavior Therapy Center is seeking approval from the School Committee to become an elementary, middle and high school for autistic kids. It currently provides services to autistic preschoolers and kindergartners at the Cummings Center.
Superintendent James Hayes advised the committee to deny the request, and they voted to table the issue at Wednesday night's meeting. Hayes said he's received conflicting messages as to how the school would be run and has concerns about the level of autism that would be served, whether there's enough space in the Cummings Center location and the expertise of the executive director.
Henry Clark, the attorney for the center, responded that the School Committee shouldn't be looking at that criteria.
Their job, he said, is to make sure that the "instruction in all the studies required by law" meets the same standards as the public schools. Looking into the administration and safety of the facility goes beyond the local board's scope, Clark said, and is something that should fall to the Massachusetts Department of Education.
But Hayes disagrees. "He's saying we don't have the right to investigate those areas," Hayes said. "But we're doing what the DOE says we can do."
School committees don't have to address such in-depth issues, he said, but the state Department of Education encourages them to do so, and in January the Beverly School Committee updated its policy to do just that.
"You're saying we shouldn't be able to set reasonable standards," Hayes told Clark at Wednesday night's meeting.
"No, I'm saying that a denial of Futures Behavior ... would not hold up under the law," Clark said.
Clark said Futures is "very interested in resolving this issue constructively, without litigation, but we may also think about litigation."
Both sides agreed to meet and discuss the concerns. Hayes said he believes the center can come up with a successful application, but the chances of doing so by the fall, which is when Futures wanted to open, seems unlikely.
"I don't see that happening," he said. "We've got some big issues to iron out."
Staff writer Cate Lecuyer can be reached at clecuyer@salem news.com.
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