This Braintree teen hasn’t been to school a single day this year. Is a broken special education system to blame?

Samantha has been in a state of academic limbo since the Braintree Public Schools unilaterally decided in September not to reenroll the teen in her special education placement at a private school in Hingham; the town had been paying her tuition there under a federal law that requires districts to cover the cost of privately educating students whose needs they cannot meet.

But this school year, Braintree, in the midst of a budget crisis, is refusing to pay the roughly $90,000 annual tuition for the private school, saying the placement at the Hingham school, which does not employ special educators, was only temporary. Instead, Braintree offered daily tutoring at the town library, away from school, classmates, or any enrichment activities, or at the 1,700-student high school, an overwhelming environment for Samantha, who has multiple disabilities.

Her mother, Alicja Frechon, refused and has been fighting the district since to enroll Samantha back in the Hingham school, where she had been thriving both academically and socially. Frechon alleges Braintree violated Samantha’s “stay put” rights, a key tenet of both federal and state special education law. Under the provision, special education students have the right to stay in their current placement while administrators, teachers, therapists, and their parents sort out a disagreement over a potential change.

In a statement, Braintree Superintendent Jim Lee said the district could not address specific questions about Samantha’s case because of her privacy rights as a student.

“The Braintree Public Schools is deeply committed to providing every student with a free appropriate public education in accordance with state and federal law,” Lee said. “Regarding this specific student, Braintree has at all times acted consistent with its legal obligations and has made available many educational opportunities during the course of the 2023-2024 school year.”

Students are meant to be in school, and advocates say the deadlock over Samantha’s schooling is an acute failure, especially in the wake of the pandemic, when social isolation and disrupted academics took a toll on so many teens. Samantha’s case also sheds light on the historically opaque system around disagreements over special education services, and, advocates say, exemplifies why they’ve pestered federal officials for years to investigate whether Massachusetts’ Education Department provides adequate oversight. (An audit by the federal Office of Special Education Programs of the state’s monitoring efforts is expected in June.)

“This scenario is unfortunately not unique,” said Ben Tobin, a special education advocate based in Western Massachusetts. “The usual tactics are to delay and drag things out and make them expensive and unpleasant.”

For Samantha, the wait has been grueling.

“You feel like you’re like the scum of the earth or something, like you’re just so useless, that you contribute nothing,” she said, shaking her dark hair, cut into a shaggy bob, from her eyes. “The adults have the keys to send me to school, and I can’t do anything about it. I just have to sit here.”

School was never easy for Samantha.

As a younger girl, she didn’t like strangers, loud noises, or people getting too close to her. She grew easily agitated, even combative, and was often the target of bullies. By late elementary school, she was diagnosed with traumatic stress disorder, ADHD, generalized anxiety disorder, and autism. A potent combination, her disabilities made it impossible for her to function in a regular school, a therapist would later determine.

“I was always distracted,” she recalled. “I could not focus on my academics. I would not eat for the whole school day, because I was just thinking someone’s gonna judge me.”

Samantha’s anxiety grew debilitating both in and out of school, even requiring her to be hospitalized, her mother said.

But landing at the Hingham private school last year, midway through the seventh grade, felt like a turning point in Samantha’s young life. Fusion Academy, selected for Samantha by Braintree after she was bullied at her previous school, specializes in one-on-one instruction. She could tell her teachers cared about her, and she raised her grades from C’s and D’s to all A’s. With her mom’s urging, she put herself out there socially, even starting a schoolwide walking club.

For Braintree Public Schools, which paid Samantha’s roughly $30,000 tuition for the final trimester of the year, her enrollment at Fusion was considered an “out-of-district placement,” which is required by federal law when districts cannot meet a student’s special education needs in-house. Braintree spent more than $9 million to send 80 students out of district last year, according to district figures. (The state is expected to reimburse the district just over one-third of those costs.)

Before Fusion, Samantha had attended eight different schools in three years, including a stint in California. Fusion was the only place she ever felt safe. There, Samantha could finally start to envision a future, one with a good college, a good job, and a life spent helping others.

Before eighth grade, however, her mom received notice from Braintree that it wouldn’t pay for her continued enrollment. Nor would Braintree reenroll Samantha at her previous school, the South Shore Educational Collaborative, another out-of-district placement. To Frechon, who moved to Braintree 20 years ago, in part for its schools, the offer of tutoring in an isolated situation sounded like a farce.

“She start coming out of her shell,” said Frechon, whose native language is Polish, which has caused difficulty navigating the bureaucracy. “She felt more safe around people. And they cut this off.”

Up against the district’s attorney, Frechon, a single mom, then did what many special education parents in her position feel compelled to do: find her own lawyer. Unable to work while Samantha remained out of school, Frechon found one willing to take her case pro bono, but after roughly two months of unsuccessful back-and-forth with Braintree, he and Frechon parted ways.

Frechon then scraped up money to hire a special education advocate who helped her file a complaint in December with the state’s Problem Resolution System, an office within the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education that investigates complaints of districts failing to follow educational law.

A decision from that office wasn’t slated until March, a frustrating wait for both Frechon and Samantha, who grew more depressed by the day.

Just days before the scheduled decision, however, Braintree took a separate action, filing for a hearing with the Bureau for Special Education Appeals. That filing effectively quashed forward movement on the Problem Resolution System complaint and started a new timeline on Samantha’s case.

The change of venue also means Frechon now must take her fight to a quasi-judicial system that state data show most often sides with districts over parents — especially those, like her, not represented by an attorney. An expedited hearing was scheduled for early April; days before, Braintree asked for a delay. Contrary to the state’s own rules, which require fast-tracked hearings when a child is out of school, appeals bureau hearing officer Sara Berman granted the district’s request, pushing the hearing — and a decision over Samantha’s fate — to mid-May.

“This is the product of how out of control this state of affairs has gotten,” said Adam Tiro, Frechon’s special education advocate. “And how empowered school districts think that they are to behave like this.”

Back in her bedroom, now more than seven months out of school, Samantha spends her days surrounded by the trappings of girlhood: mounds of stuffed animals, butterfly wall stickers, a Hawaiian lei encircling a lamp shade. Evidence of adolescence is apparent, too: a Call of Duty poster, its menacing skull looming over her white dresser, the pink headphones she wears during chats with friends on Discord.

One recently sent Samantha a math problem he’d been assigned in class. She had no idea how to solve it.

“It was humiliating to me, because all my friends already know all this stuff,” she said. “And I know nothing.”

In fighting for her daughter, Frechon knows she’s developed a reputation with the district as a “difficult mom.” It didn’t stop her, one recent evening, from attending a town budget hearing to speak her mind.

“When I start something, I don’t stop until I’m done,” she said.

With more than 400 people crowded into Braintree Town Hall, Frechon, in a navy-and-persimmon-striped dress, stood out amid a sea of pink — the color upset residents wore to protest a forecast of devastating school budget cuts. Seated with her older daughter, Frechon listened as Lee presented reasons for the district’s $8 million deficit.

A former special education teacher, Lee cited the escalating cost of out-of-district placements: those students, like Samantha, who attend public collaboratives or private schools on the district’s dime.

“These are services our kids need. We absolutely need to be providing them,” Lee said. “But it does give you a flavor for how some of our costs have increased over time.”

Frechon was unmoved. When it was her turn to speak, nearly three hours into the meeting, the School Committee chair struggled to read her name. As Frechon approached the lectern, her high heels clacked on the pale wood floor.

“If the district put the money where they should go, there will be no need to cut anybody or anything,” she said, then turning to Lee: “Have mercy. This child is out of school, out of right. Nobody care, and the lawyer pocket thousands and thousands.”

In his statement, Lee said Braintree’s current budget difficulties “had no impact on any educational decisions” in Samantha’s case.

Federal law prohibits districts from making special education decisions based on funding constraints.

Last Wednesday, Frechon met privately with Mayor Erin Joyce to plead her case. Frechon left the meeting feeling hopeful.

Within hours, a plain-clothed Braintree police officer, accompanied by two family service workers, showed up at Frechon’s house, where Samantha was home with her 25-year-old sister. Frechon, terrified their intention was to take her daughter away, could do nothing; she was at the Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham filing for an emergency injunction against Braintree Public Schools with the help of a new pro bono attorney. If granted, the injunction would force Braintree to immediately reenroll Samantha in Fusion.

The officer and family service workers left Frechon’s house without incident. An officer would later tell Frechon they had visited to extend the family “help” at the behest of the mayor, Frechon said.

Frechon and her attorney, Collins Fay-Martin, returned to the courthouse on April 11 to have their request heard by Judge Catherine Ham.

Ham, unfamiliar with the intricacies of special education law, listened as Fay-Martin explained Samantha’s stay-put rights; Samantha had a right to return to either Fusion or the Collaborative while her special education team sorted out its disagreements, Fay-Martin said.

That argument didn’t appear to sway Ham, who pressed Fay-Martin why Frechon hadn’t sought redress from the court months earlier. Ham also questioned why Frechon didn’t accept the district’s offer of tutoring.

“Isn’t something better than nothing?” Ham said.

Braintree’s attorney, Caitlin Leach Mulrooney, told Ham that Samantha’s enrollment at Fusion was never meant to be more than a temporary placement. She said the district was now willing to support her enrollment at a different, and less expensive, special education private school in East Bridgewater. (That offer was not part of the district’s filing, nor has Samantha been formally accepted by the school.)

Ham closed the proceeding without an immediate decision, again leaving Samantha without a school.

Rivulets of tears forming in her makeup, Frechon couldn’t help but feel misunderstood.

“Everyone tell me, ‘Wait. You have to go through the process,’ and, for me, it’s hell,” she said. “If I can only explain to the judge how much I did, how much I tried.”

The Great Divide team explores educational inequality in Boston and statewide. Sign up to receive our newsletter, and send ideas and tips to thegreatdivide@globe.com.

Mandy McLaren can be reached at mandy.mclaren@globe.com. Follow her @mandy_mclaren.