In fiscal year 2024, the state recorded 4,290 Child Requiring Assistance filings, a 6 percent increase from 2022. Petitions from parents, usually filed due to a child running away or being difficult to manage, accounted for close to 60 percent of those petitions in 2024, the report found.
In some cases, children as young as 6 years old were brought to court to address behavioral or discipline problems, including truancy, the Office of the Child Advocate reported. Petitions associated with children ages 6 to 12 increased by 17 percent from 2022 to 2024.
Among the state’s counties, Suffolk reported the highest rate of children subjected to the petitions, a possible sign of insufficient resources in the Boston school district, Threadgill said.
The district did not respond to a request for comment.
Families at times are advised to turn to Child Requiring Assistance filings by educators, therapists, or medical providers who don’t realize that they are often unnecessary and aren’t aware of the power the petitions can give the court. In some cases, a petition can result in the child’s removal from the home.
Latino children were 3.5 times more likely than white students to have a CRA petition filed against them. Black children were referred to the court system at similar rates to Latino children, the report found.
Glenn Koocher, head of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, expressed concern that Child Requiring Assistance filings, also called CRAs, were more likely to be filed for students in poverty and noted that aggressive immigration enforcement this year was likely to exacerbate existing racial disparities by encouraging children to miss school.
“If you were afraid that your parents are going to get deported, or that your uncles or aunts or cousins are going to get deported…” he said. “I would think that would make them anxious about going to school.”
A 2022 report from the Juvenile Justice Policy and Data Board, a statewide policy evaluation organization that includes representatives from organizations involved in the juvenile justice system, recommended addressing the needs of children subject to CRAs without the court’s involvement.
Since then, though, the opposite has happened, with petitions initiated by schools growing the most. Petitions due to chronic truancy and habitual misbehavior account for roughly 43 percent of all those filed in 2024, the report stated, an increase of almost 14 percent over two years.
Families statewide often struggle to obtain from schools the special education supports their children are entitled to, or accommodations that allow children with disabilities to attend school or receive an education. Chronic underfunding contributes to a lack of resources that particularly penalizes families without the wherewithal to fight back, at times through the legal system. Critics say schools are turning to the courts instead of providing special education resources or disability accommodations students are entitled to receive.
“The special education system is very complex, the procedures, the process, the regulations that need to be followed,” said Ellen Chambers, founder of SPEDWatch, a Massachusetts activist group for children. “It is very easy for a school district to pull the wool over a family’s eyes.”
While the latest report didn’t include data on the connection between CRAs and special education needs, the 2022 report found that almost half of all petitions were filed for children who needed to be evaluated for special education services or disability accommodations.
The Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents did not respond to a request for comment.
School absences or discipline problems, the kinds of behaviors that are often causes for school-filed CRAs, are also signs a child isn’t getting needed educational supports, said Chambers, who also works with families as an adviser appointed by the court through the CRA process. The vast majority of children she connects with through CRAs are disengaged at school due to unidentified disabilities or a lack of special education supports.
“They become very, very anxious because they can’t keep up with what’s going on,” she said.
Karrie Conley is the parent of a teenage girl, who she asked not be named, who was the subject of a CRA petition last year in the Acton-Boxborough School District as she dealt with extreme anxiety.
“She was locking herself in the bathroom for four hours at a time,” Conley said.
The school’s attempts to accommodate the teenager’s difficulties understanding math as well as her physical and mental health challenges were inadequate, the mother said.
The district withdrew the petition shortly after it was filed, but Conley said the experience only deepened her daughter’s antipathy for attending school. Now, she’s attending a private school that allows her to learn at home, but she still struggles to manage a full course load, she said.
“I will be lucky if I can get this child to community college when she graduates,” she said.
Peter Light, superintendent of the Acton-Boxborough School District, said he couldn’t speak about a specific case involving a student but said the district turns to CRA petitions rarely, once or twice a school year.
“We typically work with parents very closely in these cases,” he said.
In its report, the Office of the Child Advocate pointed to pending legislation as an important step to weaning schools and families off court involvement. The legislation proposes barring CRA petitions for children under 12 years old. The state’s Family Resource Centers can connect parents with an array of supports for children, and the legislation proposes expanding these centers’ roles, requiring schools refer a family to one of these centers 45 days before filing a CRA petition, and prohibiting schools from filing petitions for services that federal or state law require schools to provide. The bill also includes a requirement that a probation officer must determine whether all other possible options have been explored before a petition can be filed.
“A court process is just not going to be the best way to deal with complicated behavioral health situations, educational situations, or family dynamics,” Threadgill said.
Jason Laughlin can be reached at jason.laughlin@globe.com. Follow him @jasmlaughlin.
