Parent of special needs student outraged by officials’ use of handicapped parking spaces during meeting

By RUSS OLIVO

LINCOLN — When Deborah Ambeault took her handicapped 15-year-old boy to a recent School Committee meeting and saw the school superintendent’s and principal’s cars parked side-by-side in handicapped-only parking spaces outside Lincoln Middle School, it was like a slap in the face.
“I went all the way back home and got my camera I was so mad,” recalled Ambeault.
Ambeault, of Front Street, later returned to snap numerous photos of the illegally parked cars, but she hasn’t cooled off yet. Ambeault was surprised to see Middle School Principal Bruce Macksoud’s car parked where it was, but she says it wasn’t the first time she has seen Supt. Georgia Fortunato’s coral-colored Lexus parked in a restricted area — and not just during after-hours meetings.
“She’s an ex-special education teacher and the ex-director of special education,” says Ambeault. “She should know better.”
Ambeault, who openly admits to being embroiled in a testy dispute with the School Department over her son’s schooling — or lack of it — says the issue isn’t really separate from the parking problem. Her son, who suffers from profound behavioral and developmental problems, was able to complete only 72 days of school this year because, she contends, the school department does not have the resources to provide him with the proper services. Ambeault said the boy, who has been diagnosed as autistic, is now getting some school-sponsored home tutoring because he has been banned from the classroom, but the arrangement does not meet his educational needs.
The services the school department needs to handle children like hers in a classroom setting have been excluded from the budget for financial reasons, Ambeault claims.
To Ambeault, when she saw school officials parked in handicapped-restricted areas, it felt like they were taking something else away from her son.
“How much more are they going to take from handicapped people?”  Ambeault said, her eyes watering up. “They’ve already cut services. Now they’re going to take the parking?”
Reached by telephone, Fortunato denied that she has made any sort of habit of using handicapped-only spaces. On the night Ambeault snapped the photos, May 19, Fortunato said she and Macksoud parked in handicapped-only spaces because they were both carrying hefty boxes into a School Committee meeting. The boxes were filled with citations and awards that were to be distributed to students who had been invited to the meeting to receive them.
“No, I do not do it all the time,” said Fortunato. “It’s never happened before. This is the first time and this is the last time. This was a night we had a lot of boxes to carry in.”
Efforts to reach Macksoud were not successful, but Fortunato said the principal does not park in handicapped-restricted spaces, either.
Even if Ambeault encountered two handicapped spaces occupied, she should have been able to find another spot conveniently located in front of Lincoln Middle School because there is ample parking and School Committee meetings seldom draw more than 20 motor vehicles, the superintendent said.
Fortunato did not want to discuss the internal problems involving Ambeault’s son, saying that the school department is “in litigation” over the matter — a characterization Ambeault said was inaccurate. Ambeault said there have been some school-based hearings over the matter, but no lawyers are involved and no lawsuit is pending.
School Committee Chairwoman Mary Anne Roll said handicapped-only signs mean what they say and those without proper authorization should be using them. But Roll seemed incredulous that Ambeault was particularly inconvenienced by a lack of parking outside the middle school and said, that, if she was, Ambeault could have complained to members of the school committee or the police – which she apparently didn’t.
“If Mrs. Ambeault needed a handicapped spot and she was unable to find one, that’s certainly an issue, but I don’t know that that was the case,” she said.
Ambeault, who has a handicapped windshield placard, said she did not look around for another parking space when she first saw the cars parked in the restricted areas. She drove home to get her camera, dropped her son off, and returned to Lincoln Middle School without him. She said she looked around for a convenient parking spot in front of the school but was unable to find one.
“I had to go around to the other side of the building,” Ambeault insisted. “I could not get a space out front.”