UPDATE: No Restraining Order Issued Between Westhampton Beach School And Killoran Family

An agreement between the Killoran family and the Westhampton Beach School District reached in U.S. District Court on Monday morning made it unnecessary for a restraining order to be issued, Mr. Killoran explained following the hearing.

According to Mr. Killoran, he agreed not to walk his son, Aiden, into the Middle School building on the first day of classes on Wednesday. In exchange, the Killoran family will be allowed to host a rally supporting Aiden outside of the school—but not on school grounds. As long as Mr. Killoran does not try to enter school grounds, and provided the protest remains peaceful, it is not expected any arrests will be made, he said.

In the meantime, he said the court case over Aiden’s education will move forward and the family will continue its battle to have Aiden attend Westhampton Beach schools with his friends. For now, Mr. Killoran said, Aiden will most likely re-enter the sixth grade at the Remsenburg-Speonk Elementary School until the case plays out.

“I am very happy with what went down,” Mr. Killoran said on Monday afternoon. “The whole point was to get them [Westhampton Beach officials] to publicly deny him admittance to the school on the record, and we haven’t been restrained, so I am happy with today’s events.”

The parents of a child who has Down syndrome plan to fight a temporary restraining order that seeks to prevent their son from attending the Westhampton Beach Middle School when the new school year begins on Wednesday, September 2.

Christian and Terrie Killoran of Remsenburg have been fighting with both the Westhampton Beach and Remsenburg-Speonk school districts for the past several months regarding the educational future of their 12-year-old son, Aiden, who is supposed to start middle school next week. Recently, Mr. Killoran stated that he and a group of supporters—including those who joined him at earlier protests demanding that the Westhampton Beach School District educate Aiden—intend to show up outside the district’s middle school on September 2 regardless of whether or not his son is welcome there.

“I plan on showing up to school on the first day of school in Westhampton Beach with my son,” Mr. Killoran said during an interview earlier this month, when he announced his family’s plan to file a discrimination lawsuit against Westhampton Beach over its decision not to educate Aiden. “So they’d better be ready.”

On Friday the district filed a notice seeking a restraining order that, if approved, would bar Aiden and his family from entering school district property. The request is scheduled to be discussed in U.S. District Court in Central Islip on Monday morning.

If the judge agrees with the request, signed by district attorney Anne Leahey of Smithtown, Mr. Killoran said he and his family could be arrested if they enter school district property.

The order to show cause states that the restraining order would enjoin the Killorans “from entering and remaining on the real property of the Westhampton Beach School District, on September 2, 2015 or on any ensuing date, unless they make an appointment in advance through their attorney and are specifically given permission by the Board [of Education] to enter school real property at a time when school operations will not be disrupted.”

Westhampton Beach Schools Superintendent Michael Radday declined to comment on the temporary restraining order request when reached on Friday afternoon, stating via email that “the district will not comment on pending litigation.”

In a letter to the editor published in the August 13th edition of The Press, Westhampton Beach Board of Education member Suzanne Mensch stated that she has become “extremely disheartened by the Killoran family’s repeated public efforts to bully the Westhampton Beach School District into developing an educational program for their son … ” The Westhampton Beach district, she explained, only offers such programming at its elementary school. She added that she was “particularly outraged” by Mr. Killoran’s statement that he will bring his son to the middle school on the first day of classes.

Previously, the Killorans said they were led to believe that their son would be able to attend the Westhampton Beach Middle School after graduating from the Remsenburg-Speonk Elementary School this past spring. Citing Aiden’s educational needs, Westhampton Beach school officials have since informed the family that their district lacks the necessary programming to educate Aiden during his middle and high school years, explaining that he must attend a different district, such as Eastport South Manor or Southampton, or enroll with the Board of Cooperative Educational Services come September.

Since then, the Killorans have filed a discrimination lawsuit against Westhampton Beach, alleging that the district does not want to educate certain special needs students once they reach middle and high school age. The suit seeks a court order allowing their son to attend the middle school, in additional to $20,000 in statutory damages and legal reimbursements.

“I just want to bring my son to school and they are trying to say that it would cause an unsafe condition,” Mr. Killoran said on Friday, regarding the restraining order request. “I would never do anything to create an unsafe condition—we are there peaceably.

“I would be walking my son into the school—just me—not interfering,” he said. “It is a ruse for them to avoid publicly turning Aidan away. They don’t want to be confronted with that reality publicly.”