Filing a Complaint with The MAssachusetts Department of Elementary & secondary education (MA DESE)
The Problem Resolution System Office (PRS) is the unit within the Massachusetts Department of Elementary & Secondary Education (MA DESE) that receives and investigates complaints about students’ education rights. You can submit a complaint online through the PRS Intake Form (here).
Anyone can file a complaint with PRS. To help you with this, we’ve created some guides to use while filling out a PRS complaint. The guides describe students’ education rights and the laws that relate to disciplining students, providing special education, reporting bullying, and ensuring that students get the education they are entitled to during Covid-19 school closures.
Here is a visual representation of how to file a PRS Complaint:
These instructions explain how to use the guides:
You can download the guide that is relevant to your concerns below:
Bullying -- The laws that a school has to follow to prevent and address bullying.
Special Education -- Students’ rights to access special education services and the laws that school districts have to follow throughout the special education process. (Coming soon)
School Discipline -- Students’ rights when the school is trying to suspend or expel them. There are different laws and requirements depending on why the school is disciplining the student, choose the appropriate guide below:
Expellable Offense: Students who are being accused of bringing a weapon or drugs to school, or of assaulting school staff. (Coming soon)
Felony Complaint: Students who are being excluded from school because of a felony complaint or adjudication that is unrelated to school (Coming soon)
Violation of School Code of Conduct: Students who are being accused of violating something in the school’s code of conduct.
Covid-19 School Closures -- Students’ rights to access education during remote learning.