“It was a huge stress,” Slaughter said. “It’s very hard being a single parent under any circumstances, but to have a high-needs child is overwhelming. And then to have him inappropriately placed in the school, and have the school fighting with her, was really traumatic.”
Jensvold also offered an explanation for taking her son’s life.
“She did mention in the note that she knows people whose parents committed suicide when they were children and how difficult and traumatizing that was, and she didn’t want to do that to Ben,” Slaughter said.
“It is very true,” she added. “I can’t imagine Ben ever recovering from the loss of his mother.”
Special-needs education is an emotionally freighted issue, perhaps especially so in Montgomery County – an affluent region where parents tend to be actively engaged in education and where schools are consistently rated among the country’s best.
School district spokeswoman Lesli Maxwell said that privacy laws prevented her from discussing the particulars of Barnhard’s case, but that the district offered vast options for its 17,000 special-education students and will refer students for private schooling when it can’t meet their needs.
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