WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, Mont. (AP) — “You can’t hit me, Will. You know that,” Katherine Walter says to her 11-year-old son, deflecting a swat.
“Why?” William asks, half-heartedly pushing his chest into his mother’s open hands.
“You are in the red zone,” she says. “I need you to take it back to the green. What can I do to help you?”
A few hours later, Will is curled up in his favorite chair, listening to his mother read.
It takes skill and patience to teach Will, who has autism and a neurological disorder that makes it difficult to speak. The Walters say they no longer trust their school system to educate him without restraining him. Katherine Walter teaches him herself.
America’s public education system offers some of the world’s best services and protections for students with disabilities, guaranteed by federal law. But more parents like the Walters are abandoning their rights to those services. They say public schools are failing their kids and they’re better off teaching them at home.
In many states, they’re receiving thousands of dollars from taxpayers to do it.
The Walters initially choose public school
Before the Walters even married, they debated where their future children would go to school. Mike insisted their children would attend the same rural Montana school district he did.
“He had such a good experience,” Katherine says. “But I’m not sure the school is the same now.”
The Walters’ children also have more complex needs than Mike had. Their oldest child, Lester, 15, has dysgraphia, a neurological condition that made it difficult to learn to write. Along with autism, Will has apraxia, a rare speech disorder.
Will thrived in a privately run preschool program, owned by a former special education teacher. But the academic expectations of elementary school would pose a challenge.
“Will’s speech and language delays will make it difficult for him to learn to read in kindergarten,” his preschool teacher wrote in his special education plan.
Will’s mom was most concerned about Will’s inability to communicate, fearing he would get frustrated if he wasn’t understood.
Federal law guarantees students with disabilities the right to study in what’s called the “ least restrictive environment.” That means they receive support to learn alongside children without disabilities as often as possible.
The school district agreed to place Will in a mainstream classroom and provide him a teacher’s aide.
Will’s education hits a roadblock
Two weeks before Will would start kindergarten, Walter called the White Sulphur Springs superintendent. She says she was told the district had hired neither Will’s aide nor a special education teacher. Later, the superintendent disputed some of this, saying he did hire “extra” aides.
Walter kept Will home for kindergarten — plus his siblings, for convenience.
She planned to send Will back to school for first grade. In March, on a visit to meet the newly hired special education teacher, Will’s future first grade teacher stopped by to meet him too.
Written accounts collected by law enforcement and the school district and supplied to The Associated Press by the Walters portray different versions of what happened that day.
According to the first grade teacher, Will hit her early in their encounter. Then, he approached her with an object she thought was a toy, holding it in front of her face. In interviews, Will’s mother explained it was actually his communication device — an iPad with software that speaks the pictures he chooses.
The teacher said she gripped Will’s wrists and moved “the toy” down from her face. He tried to pull away, dropping to the ground. She followed him, still gripping his wrists, and he kicked her.
Will’s mother described the incident in starker terms. She told the superintendent that the first grade teacher pulled Will from where he had fled under a table and “pinned” him to the floor.
Walter filed a complaint with the sheriff, alleging the teacher had assaulted Will. The county attorney concluded the teacher was defending herself. However, he said, “her actions escalated an already difficult situation.”
The superintendent at the time determined the teacher had acted appropriately, calling Walter’s allegations “not credible.”
“I never set out to homeschool my kids,” Walter says. “But we needed the school to say they would never restrain a child to the floor again.”
Walter filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education, to no avail. Finally, the family filed a personal injury lawsuit against the district, arguing it was negligent and didn’t properly train its staff. They settled last year for $40,000, with no admission of wrongdoing by the district.
The whole Walter family kept homeschooling.
For therapies, Will and his mom drive hours
Every Wednesday for the last nine years, Will and his mom have driven 90 minutes to Helena for his specialized therapies.
At occupational therapy one morning in July, Will sits on a platform swing. He reaches a noodle into the pretend water and almost loses his balance, then rights his body. The exercise helps Will strengthen his core, but more importantly, he practices managing his emotions and behavior.
Practice like this has helped Will and the Walters minimize conflict.
But Will does still occasionally get frustrated. The reasons can vary — a change in routine, guests in the home — and sometimes they’re not apparent at all.
This year, Will is working on first and second grade reading, third grade math and sixth grade science and history. He’s progressed to doing more things independently.
Therapies are vital for Will, and the public school would have provided them at least partially. Now, the Walters pay for them through their health insurance, which covers one visit a week for occupational and speech therapy.
His apraxia diagnosis calls for speech therapy three to five times a week. At $100 an hour, the Walters can’t afford that. On average, they told AP, they already spend $10,000 to $12,000 a year on his therapies and evaluations.
Taxpayers could pay for homeschooling like Will’s
After the incident at the public school, Walter lobbied the Montana Legislature for a ban on physical restraint in public schools. It didn’t pass, but lawmakers took interest in the Walters’ work to homeschool Will on their own dime.
In 2023, Montana created a taxpayer-funded scholarship to help students with disabilities pay for therapies, homeschooling expenses or private school tuition after they leave public school.
Seventy-five students were approved for the scholarship, worth $6,600 on average, before meeting a court challenge. The state paused the scholarship distribution this year.
Advocates for children with disabilities argue the scholarships hurt students with special needs because their rights are no longer protected when they leave public school. And, they say, the money is insufficient to educate them adequately. They say these programs incentivize parents to pull their children out of schools, taking funding from other kids.
Walter doesn’t think her decision has hurt remaining public school students. And she’s convinced she’s the best person in White Sulphur Springs to provide Will’s education.
She plans to homeschool him from now on.
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