A legal case against a Cullman High School senior, who has diagnosed Autism spectrum disorder, was filed by Cullman City Schools and had its first preliminary hearing Thursday, Jan. 12.

Court documents — submitted to The Times by the student’s mother, Melanie Roberts — list CHS Principal Allison Tuggle as the plaintiff and claim that she was the recipient of verbal threats made by the student in October.

Roberts said that while her son has never threatened violence in the past, he does have a well-documented history of making inappropriate comments at school.

“He’s always had a problem saying inappropriate things, it’s part of his autism. He has no filter,” Roberts said.

Roberts said that the previous administration — led by former CHS Principal Kim Hall — had been willing to work with her son to find solutions and appropriate disciplinary action. That changed, she said, at the beginning of this year when Tuggle stepped into the position, and that the recent outburst prompting the legal action came as a response to her son not receiving the appropriate required support measures.

According to her son’s current Individualized Education Plan — submitted to The Times by Roberts — her son was to receive 40-minute sessions each month to address his deficits with interpersonal skills. Roberts said that he never received those sessions and began to receive frequent calls from the school over her son’s behavior.

“I was getting called to the school every day,” she said.

Roberts submitted a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights with the Department of Education in September 2022. In the complaint, Roberts said that she had been faced with similar issues with her older son — who also is diagnosed with ASD and graduated in 2020 — and stated that she has filed numerous similar complaints with the district dating back to 2010, but that no action has been taken. Roberts said that she was told this was due to the district being unable to maintain a contract with behavioral support specialists.

CCS Superintendent Kyle Kallhoff told The Times on Tuesday that there had been no staffing difficulties.

“That’s inaccurate. We got them working in our schools right now,” Kallhoff said. “Since I’ve been here I haven’t seen that as an issue.”

In a follow up statement sent to The Times, Kallhoff outlined the support given to neurodivergent students by the school system: “The district holds contracts with several behavioral companies that provide us with school psychologists and or BCBAs (Board Certified Behavior Analysts), who evaluate and provide the appropriate behavioral services necessary for individual students to make progress in light of their circumstances. Part of those contracts is staff training as needed.”

Kallhoff previously told The Times that it had been difficult to find special education workers and that the district approved to offer pay increases for those workers — along with other school support staff — as part of its $1 million dollar investment that was added to the 2023 State Education Budget.

“Those are very difficult jobs for us to fill: custodians, the CNP (Child Nutrition Program) workers and cafeteria, special education aids. Those are positions where we post advertisements and we just don’t get a lot of applicants,” Kallhoff told The Times in July 2022.

In addition to not receiving behavioral services, Roberts said that her son has had his class schedule changed multiple times since the beginning of the school year — which due to his disability, she said, has negatively impacted his attitude — and that he has been approached by administrators on multiple occasions trying to suggest he request to participate in at-home education services.

This resulted in the outburst in October, Roberts said, when her son allegedly said he would “just love to kill administration” after being denied his request to use the school’s resource room to calm himself down.

Guidance issued by the USDOE in July 2022 indicates that schools are prohibited from enforcing disciplinary action against a disabled student if the offense was caused by their disability. Roberts’ son was removed from school and required to continue his education at home.

A threat assessment was performed by a counselor in November at the request of CCS, and according to Roberts it was determined that her son did not present a threat. The criminal harassment charges were also filed in November.

Kallhoff said that Tuggle was legally required to file the charges. Mike Tafelski, Children’s Rights Senior Supervising Attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), said that this practice of “punishment and police” is not uncommon, but was not an effective method of addressing school safety.

“In Alabama and across the South, students with disabilities are commonly and unlawfully being referred to law enforcement and the juvenile court system. The are not being provided services and supports as required under federal law. That is a common occurrence in Alabama,” Tafelski said.

“You need to conduct a comprehensive investigation. You need to not just look at a statement in isolation, but you need to contextualize it and validate whether there is a true threat. Not every time that a student says something — particularly a neurodivergent student — does the default need to be, ‘Well this needs to go to our criminal legal system.’ There are questions and investigations that schools conduct every day with respect to disciplinary decisions because schools have so much discretion with how they discipline students.”

While her son has not been formally suspended or expelled, he has been required to continue his senior year at home. Roberts said that this has resulted in him falling behind in his classes and that being separated from his friends has caused him to feel isolated.

Roberts said that her son was ordered by the court to undergo an additional evaluation and that a hearing was scheduled for March 2.