City Council set to authorize mediation in autism services lawsuit

NORWALK, Conn. — Almost two decades after Norwalk Public Schools hired a “behavior analyst” with falsified credentials to work with autistic children, the Norwalk City Council is slated to authorize the Board of Education’s legal team to enter mediation with impacted families.

In 2007, the Board of Education hired Stacy Lore and her company, Spectrum Kids, LLC., to “provide autism-related services” in the district, according to a 2025 complaint against the board.

Lore told the school district that she was fully certified with three post-graduate degrees, including a doctorate from New York University. The board nor three other individual defendants never conducted a background check, according to the lawsuit, which would have shown she had received no such degrees or certifications.

Lore hired a staff of so-called therapists “and/or other personnel to provide autism-related services within NPS,” the complaint reads. According to the lawsuit, the hired staff included Lore’s “carpenter and/or handyman and others similarly unqualified to provide such services.”

That next Spring, parents noticed that their children working with Lore stalled in their progress, regressed in their symptoms, and acquired “harmful learning patterns,” according to the complaint. They notified the district and also raised concerns about Lore’s credentials.

The lawsuit’s other three defendants — former NPS Superintendent Salvatore Corda, Janie Friedlander, former director of the district’s pupil personnel services, and then-administrator Beatrice Krawiecki — never investigated Lore, according to the complaint.

The complaint states that the three individual defendants were potentially negligent in several ways: their failure to confirm Lore’s qualifications or those of her employees, to supervise Lore’s programming, or to investigate parents’ concerns.

The Board of Education, according to the complaint, should be held liable for “all injuries and damages” to two former NPS students impacted by Lore’s services. 

“The Norwalk Board of Education … knew, or should have known, that hiring, retaining and failing to supervise an unqualified, uncredentialed, and unlicensed individual to provide autism-related services … would result in serious and permanent personal injuries,” the complaint states.

Lore was arrested and sentenced in 2010.

The City Council is scheduled to vote on whether to authorize the mediation process during its Tuesday meeting. Angelo Ziotas, an attorney representing impacted families, said it would be “very unusual” if the council voted against the measure, as both parties were ordered to enter mediation.

Brian Candela, an attorney for Norwalk, told NancyOnNorwalk that the city “will not provide any comment about this matter at this time” as the City Council will go into executive session to discuss the active litigation.

“I’m hopeful that the town is going to approach this in the way that we are, which is that we’re going to take all sides’ positions into consideration and try to reach a fair resolution if we can,” Ziotas told NancyOnNorwalk.

He also noted that over 95% of civil claims in Connecticut settle before a jury trial. If a resolution cannot be reached, the Superior Court’s e-filing system notes that “Jury selection / Trial” is set to start in November.

The case previously went to the state Supreme Court after the defendants attempted to dismiss it using a series of legal arguments, Ziotas said. Those included being protected by governmental immunity and that the families had not exhausted their administrative remedies.

Those arguments failed in the state’s highest court, kicking the case back down to the Superior Court to wrangle with the plaintiffs’ claims and the assertion that the board and other NPS staff members should be held accountable for their alleged negligence.

Autism presents “a very, very different scenario for every family dealing with this condition,” Ziotas said. “But to have the school system fail to vet professionals … in any way — that’s what this case has always been about.”

One plaintiff, Nathan Graham, was diagnosed with autism just before his second birthday in late 2006, according to the lawsuit. Through the state’s “Birth-to-Three” program, Lore created Graham’s curriculum, the complaint reads.

When he moved into NPS as a special education student, a “shadow” from Spectrum Kids LLC tagged along “for the purpose of receiving services related to his autism,” according to the complaint.

Due to the district’s negligence, “Nathan Graham suffered a permanent regression in his neurological, social, and language development, and an increase in the symptoms of autism spectrum disorder and in his inability to communicate,” the lawsuit argues.

Vasisht Krishna was also enrolled in the “Birth-to-Three” program due to his “significant language delays,” and, similarly, moved to NPS as a special education student in 2007, according to the complaint.

Krishna’s parents pushed to have him tested for autism around May of 2007, but the lawsuit states that neither Lore nor Norwalk Public Schools did so and that NPS did not change his diagnosis to autism until March of 2008.

Despite the change, Lore and the district did not make “appropriate changes” to Krishna’s objectives,” the complaint reads. He was also placed with Lore “despite previous complaints by other parents.”

After Lore’s temporary disappearance in 2008, the three individual defendants “failed to provide any appropriate autism-related services,” according to the lawsuit, meaning Krishna was without specialized support for two to three months. 

“Krishna lost a significant portion of the limited period of time during which effective neurological, social, and language development is possible,” the lawsuit continues. “This loss of time negatively affected the trajectory of his neurological, social, and language development.”