Between 2018 and 2021, Andover Public Schools officials made multiple arguments in an effort to support the school committee’s decision to twice reject applications by Fusion Academy to open a private school at Dundee Park in Andover.
Then Andover School Committee Chair Shannon Scully warned “Fusion doesn’t have the capacity to handle special education students,” while former Assistant Superintendent Sandra Trach said the company would be “unable to meet the social, emotional, and behavioral needs of [special needs] students due to inadequate staffing.” She also claimed Fusion’s programs did not comply with student learning time rules as support for the denials.
But in 2023-24, APS paid more than $54,000 in tuition and legal fees to send a student to Fusion’s school in Burlington, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Boston Friday as part of the company’s $4 million lawsuit against the school committee. Fusion says the documents show the defendants have, “in effect, admitted that the special needs student would get an appropriate education at Fusion.”
Fusion in seeking $4 million in expenses, lost revenue, interest and attorney fees in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Boston after having applications to open a private school in Andover twice denied by the school committee.
By policy, APS does not comment on active litigation. In its filing, Fusion predicted the school committee will argue the student was sent to Fusion as part of a “compromise of a disputed claim”
School districts are required to place special needs students in schools if the district cannot provide an appropriate education. Those placements are often expensive, and often disputed by the districts.
“A central aspect of Fusion’s due process claim is that the defendants denied it the right to an unbiased decision maker,” Fusion wrote in Friday’s motion. “The fact that the Town paid a substantial amount of money in 2024 to a Fusion school in Burlington that operates exactly as its Andover school would have done, makes the denial of Fusion’s two applications inexplicable on any basis other than bias and prejudice.”
Fusion is accusing the school committee of violating the Massachusetts Open Meeting law, the Americans With Disabilities, and its First Amendment rights when it denied its applications to open a private school in Andover. The company, which runs schools for students in grades 6-12 who struggle in normal school settings, is seeking $2.6 million for the 10-year lease it signed at 3 Dundee Park Drive in September 2018 and $1.4 million for its build out of the site.
Fusion has also accused APS of withholding evidence during the discovery process, and said the documents showing payments to Fusion the district released last month should have been turned over in the initial discovery phase.