P.O. Box 212
Norfolk, MA 02056
United States
What We Do
SPEDWatch identifies, confronts, and publicizes noncompliance with special education laws in Massachusetts public schools. We expose the failure of Massachusetts governmental agencies to act to protect students’ special education rights. We ensure that families have access to accurate, easy-to-understand information about special education law, process, and policy, to aid them in advocating for their children.
SPEDWatch is organizing parents and guardians into a grassroots, family-driven, civil rights movement utilizing the strategy of nonviolent direct action to secure the educational rights of all Massachusetts schoolchildren (aged 3-21) with special needs. Nonviolent direct action is a social change strategy that works by manipulating the balance of power between an oppressed group (in our case, families of schoolchildren with disabilities) and their oppressors (in our case the federal, state and local authorities that control the provision of educational services to our children). This strategy has proven successful in civil rights struggles throughout history. SPEDWatch views this as the critical missing variable in the fight for special education rights in Massachusetts.
