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So Luke's parents searched online for better intervention methods and came upon Boston Higashi. The school uses rigorous exercise to get autistic children to start eating and sleeping regularly. And once those biorhythms are on track, students can begin to acquire basic living and academic skills. Within four months of being at Higashi, Luke went home for vacation mostly toilet trained. He has since conquered such complex tasks as riding a unicycle and walking on stilts--activities that have given him confidence to try other new things. "I do think he can have a life that's happy and maybe even productive," Jeff says. "If we had left him in the situation he was in, he would have ended up being institutionalized."
That belief makes it particularly hard for the Perkinses to hear people criticize them for fighting to keep Luke at Higashi or suggest that they just wanted to get a troublesome child out of their house. At their due-process hearing, the school district's attorney "was telling us that we were bad parents and that we just wanted to have an easy life," Jeff says, blinking back tears. He also insists that "we're not insensitive to the money issues." But he argues that the family's tax dollars contribute to the $2 million tuition-assistance fund Colorado created this year to help local districts with children whose special-ed services cost $50,000 or more a year. In other words, Luke is entitled to his share.
As other states create similar funds for high-needs children, the cost crunch has been complicated by mixed messages from the Federal Government. Parts of the No Child Left Behind Act require schools to raise the academic performance of children with disabilities, but the Federal Government picks up less than 18% of the additional cost of educating those students. And amid the increasing demand for special-ed services, Congress and the Supreme Court have made it harder for parents to challenge school districts' decisions on how much support their kids should receive. Although the latest version of the statute added a requirement for a last-ditch resolution meeting before the start of court hearings, which often cost each side $10,000 a pop, there's also a new provision that makes parents pay a district's legal fees if a court finds that they have filed a "frivolous" or "unreasonable" lawsuit. And the Supreme Court upped the ante in June when it ruled that a district didn't have to reimburse parents who prevailed in court for the fees many pay consultants to help wring additional services from school systems. The resources required--in terms of money and time--make it all but impossible for low-income parents to mount a successful campaign.
"It is very much a David and Goliath situation," the Perkinses' attorney, Jack Robinson, says of going up against a school district. Even parents who have the means to get a good slingshot don't always win. Over the past 15 years, a few dozen kids have been pulled out of Boston Higashi because their families failed to get public funding and couldn't afford the tuition. As the Perkinses await reimbursement from the Thompson district, money is getting tight. The family has had to take out a $90,000 loan to battle the school district. "We've spent every penny," Julie says. "We are right on the line."
To weigh in on the special-education-funding debate, post your comments at time.com/specialed