State Report Provides Details of Odgren
January 26, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
16-year-old John Odgren, who is accused of fatally stabbing 15-year-old James Alenson in a bathroom in Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School last Friday did not understand the “effect of his behavior on others,” according to a decision by the Massachusetts state Bureau of Special Education Appeals in 2003 referred to in an article in the January 23rd Boston Globe. A pseudonym, “Galen,” is used to refer to Odgren in the report, the Boston Globe and the Sudbury Town-Crier both note.
After Odgren’s parents argued that he needed better services than those he received from the Wachusett Regional School District, he was placed in the Caldwell Alternative School in Fitchburg for two months in the fall of 2002, during which time he was suspended three times for physical aggression. At a hearing in June 2003, it was determined that the Wachusett Regional School District did not offer the services recommended for Odgren and he attended the Pathways Academy at McLean Hospital in Belmont; this placement was paid for by the school district. The Sudbury Town Crier notes that “it was unclear yesterday, if the hearing dealt with Odgren, how and why he might have transferred from Pathways to Lincoln-Sudbury High School.”
The full text of the 2003 hearing decision can be read here.
