Freeport mom seeks state investigation over tutoring hours

A mother who says the Freeport school district is shortchanging her children by providing fewer hours of in-home tutoring than required by law has asked state officials to investigate the matter.

Lynnette Lawrence, 33, and her attorney say her son, an eighth-grader who has been suspended from school for several months, is entitled to 10 hours a week of tutoring and her daughter, a special education student who attends a BOCES high school, is entitled to five hours of weekly instruction.

But Lawrence said one tutor has been teaching both children simultaneously for an hour a day four days a week, short of the 15 hours total she said her children are entitled to under the law.

Her son's grades were in the 80s and 90s before in-home tutoring began, Lawrence said, and now the 13-year-old is getting 70s in all subject areas.

"I want him to get an education," said Lawrence, a single mother and a billing representative at Winthrop University Hospital in Mineola.

Freeport Superintendent Kishore Kuncham referred questions to district spokeswoman Theresa Giusto.

The district did not address specific issues raised by Lawrence but said in a statement issued by Giusto that it "adheres to the guidelines" set by the state Education Department.

"Our district makes every effort to provide alternative instruction to students who are entitled to receive it," the statement read. "At this time, we are conducting a review to ensure that all procedures are being followed."

Frustrated that her complaints to school officials have gone nowhere, Lawrence hired Melville attorney Kenneth Mollins, who on Monday wrote to the state Education Department, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and other state officials, asking them to look into the matter.

Jonathan Burman, a spokesman for the state Education Department, said he was unable to comment on the case because of possible future litigation.

Mollins said previous state education commissioners have ruled a school district must provide a daily minimum of two hours of alternative instruction to a suspended student.

"Taxpayers are being ripped off one way or another because they are paying for services that they're not getting," Mollins said Tuesday.

Lawrence said her son was suspended from November until Jan. 31 for accidentally injuring a classmate while playing with him. On Feb. 1, she said, her son returned to class for two days before he was suspended again for threatening to harm his English teacher; Lawrence said her son was speaking to another student.