Darien Board of Ed Appoints Ombudsman for Special Education

The Board of Education voted to appoint a special education ombudsman for Darien Public Schools at a special 8 a.m. meeting Tuesday.

The ombudsman, who takes complaints from the public, evaluates them and tries to resolve them, will report directly to the Board of Education.

The board sent out the following news release on the appointment:

The Darien Board of Education has selected veteran special educator John Verre as Special Education Ombudsman for the town’s public schools.

In this role, Verre will serve as a liaison to staff, parents, and other members of the school community to ensure compliance with state and federal law related to students with disabilities.

The special education ombudsman may make recommendations to the superintendent of schools and the school board as necessary to ensure this compliance. He will maintain a consistent presence in the Darien Public Schools, regularly working with school teams and parents in the school buildings.

Verre will report to the Board of Education.

Verre has spent more than 40 years in special education. By partnering with students with disabilities and their families, he has focused on guiding schools and districts across the country in improving outcomes for students with disabilities.

“John Verre’s experience makes him uniquely qualified to work with the Darien Schools,” says School Board Chairman Betsy Hagerty-Ross. “His work as a liaison between families of students with disabilities and their teachers will help us enormously as we work collaboratively to chart a new course for special education in the district.”

Until recently, Verre served as the assistant superintendent of special education and Student Services for the Boston Public Schools. He has worked with children with disabilities, their parents, teachers, and administrators in public and private schools and has a lifelong passion for working with children with disabilities: a passion that began in the classroom and that he has carried forward to his work as a special education administrator.

“I look forward to working in partnership with the parents of Darien,” says Verre. “Darien schools have a nationwide reputation for excellence, and the goal is to make sure that parents feel their children have had full access to the services they need.”

Mr. Verre is well suited for the role of Special Education Ombudsman. He has experience assisting schools and communities in forging stronger partnerships with parents. From 1990 to 2010, he worked as a consultant to schools, districts, and municipalities, and directed COMPASS Consulting, a private non-profit consulting group, specializing in policy analysis, program evaluation and development, strategic planning, and legal issues in education. In this role, he directed a wide variety of projects at the state and local levels across the country, and guided the firm’s professional development and technical assistance services. He has worked as a liaison between school districts and the Office for Civil Rights, as a consulting expert to school districts and their legal counsel on issues of student placement and services, and as an independent monitor in class action lawsuits on behalf of students placed at risk in public schools.

Verre holds graduate degrees in special education, and in administration, planning, and social policy. While at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, he served as the Co- Chair of the Editorial Board of the Harvard Educational Review and was a teaching fellow and research assistant with the National Center for Educational Leadership. From 1993 to 2009, Mr. Verre was the Co-Director of the Harvard Institute on Critical Issues in Urban Special Education.

His first official day on the job is October 15, 2013.