Parents, special-education staff and the Committee for Parents of Children with Disabilities told the Beverly Public Schools School Committee on Sept. 10 that some students are not receiving services written in their Individualized Education Programs, prompting the committee to direct the superintendent to form an ad hoc review group.

School committee members voted to ask Superintendent Peter Cushing to convene a working group that will include district leaders and up to two members of the school committee to examine identification and service-delivery processes for struggling learners and students with disabilities. The motion passed unanimously.

The item began as a resolution offered by school committee member Lorinda Visnick that asked the district to "develop a scope of services sufficient to adequately conduct a comprehensive review of the process to identify struggling learners and students with disabilities" and to publish a request for proposals for outside review. Visnick opened the discussion by saying the measure was intended to validate families' experiences and get the district moving toward solutions.

Public commenters described a pattern of missed services and understaffing. Alyssa Crimmins, a Cove Elementary parent and a school-based occupational therapist, said she had spent 20 months advocating for her dyslexic daughter. "The level of resistance and pushback that I was met with is unspeakable. It's disgusting. It's unlawful," Crimmins said. Kelly Riley, a parent with children in Beverly Public Schools, told the committee her son's IEP called for in-class support and small-group sessions twice a week, "which should have been more than 60 sessions. In reality, he only received 8." Riley said teachers report unmanageable caseloads and frequent staff callouts.

Teachers and staff also spoke. Olivia Nilsson, a special educator at Beverly Middle School, told the committee: "We have staff shortages, and we have services that are legally required but not being delivered. At the middle school alone, we are operating without two special-education teachers. That means at least 25 students are legally entitled to services they are not receiving in the upper grades." CPAC chair Mary Lynn Strachan said CPAC is expanding and hearing an increasing number of family concerns about child find, MTSS implementation, and data to support decisions.

Speakers emphasized that state compliance reviews have not always captured families' experiences. Several commenters noted Beverly passed DESE tiered focus monitoring reviews in 2021 (special education) and 2024 (civil rights) without systemic findings, but said compliance does not guarantee that services in individual IEPs are delivered day to day.

Committee members and Superintendent Cushing agreed that outside review may be appropriate but that immediate internal steps and more stakeholder input were also needed. Cushing said the district already is assembling leadership teams to evaluate several areas and he supported a stakeholder-driven approach. The committee ultimately voted 7-0 to ask the superintendent to convene a working group (district leadership plus no more than two school committee members) to pull together existing data, identify gaps, and recommend next steps, including whether to issue an RFP for an external review.

What happens next: the superintendent will organize the group, reach out to CPAC, special-education staff and parent stakeholders, and report back to the committee with a proposed scope and timeline. Committee members said they want work to move quickly but deliberately so that any external review is informed by local context and existing district analyses.

Community members who asked to be heard said the work cannot wait: parents asked for transparency about student service logs, clearer communication when services are missed, and immediate staffing and coverage plans to reduce missed sessions. The district will now bring a plan for stakeholder engagement and initial data review to the committee for the next meetings.

Ending: The committee's action created a short-term, stakeholder-driven pathway — convening district staff, CPAC and two committee members — while leaving open the option of a third-party audit after the group gathers evidence and defines the scope.