Parents Face Charges for Keeping Son From School

Justin Cocco is a 14-year-old boy who hasn’t been in school for a year. His parents say that’s because he suffers from Tourette syndrome and several learning disabilities--he’s a “square peg,” as they put it--and he doesn’t get the kind of education he needs at a public school.

So he stays home. And his mother, Brenda Cocco, says she is going to keep him there even though the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office has charged her and her husband, John, with four counts of failing to send their son to school.

The case is a rare one, according to local officials, and could land the couple in jail for up to a year if they are convicted during a trial scheduled to begin May 27 in Newhall Municipal Court.

The Coccos, both of whom have pleaded not guilty to the charges, are scheduled to be in court Wednesday for a pretrial conference. Neither their defense lawyer, Milton J. Simon, nor the prosecutor in the case, Terry White, would comment.

But Brenda Cocco, 56, said last week that she is willing to risk jail rather than send the youngest of her three children to Sierra Vista Junior High School in Canyon Country.

“I told my husband I’m willing to go to jail on this issue,” she said.

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The Coccos seem an unlikely pair to run afoul of the law.

John Cocco, 59, is a doctor who was educated in Montreal and has practiced medicine in California for 27 years. An internist at Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital, he owns a home in one of Valencia’s most exclusive communities.

He and his wife have two other children several years older than Justin who both have some of the same disabilities as Justin.

But why, local officials ask, would the Coccos jeopardize their son’s education and risk criminal prosecution?

Because the local school district’s special-education experts placed him in a class that stigmatized him and did not adequately address his learning disabilities, Brenda Cocco said last week. Her husband could not be reached for comment.

“Those classes are only interested in teaching enough minimal skills,” said Brenda Cocco. “They want them to get jobs wiping down tables or cleaning floors. No. I have higher expectations for my son. Justin is very bright.”

Officials from the William S. Hart Union High School District deny that their program is inadequate and said Cocco is trying to cloud the issue.

“The problem is this: The kid hasn’t been at school,” said district Supt. Robert Lee. “Whatever our shortfalls are or aren’t, you don’t help the kid by yanking him out of school.”

State law requires that Justin and every other child age 6 to 18 attend school. Parents who choose home schooling are required to file affidavits listing their homes as private schools with the state Department of Education. Few actually go to the trouble, and few ever suffer any consequence in a system that is not closely regulated, state officials said.

But local school districts do have the power to disqualify students from home schools if they believe it would be detrimental, said Lee, and that is what the Hart district did in Justin’s case.

Besides Tourette syndrome--a neurological disorder that causes facial tics and uncontrollable bursts of obscenities--Justin suffers from attention-deficit disorder and mood swings, according to school district reports that were submitted to the court as evidence. His behavior was disrupting class, the reports said.

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District officials including two psychologists began meeting with the Coccos in June 1995 to discuss the best type of special-education program for Justin, records show. The district’s experts were convinced that a program for seriously emotionally disturbed children was the best place for him.

They also concluded that although Justin had participated in a home-school program in the past, he was “lonely and isolated” and did not have friends.

After the June meeting, officials were encouraged by the Coccos’ attitude, court records show. They said the couple appeared “comfortable” and “willing to work with the district.”

But Justin continued to miss school, records show, and as his absences piled up, his parents’ cooperation diminished.

In an interview, Brenda Cocco said she kept Justin home because she does not consider him emotionally disturbed and objected to his being enrolled in a program with that label attached. Justin spends hours calling college professors all over the country to talk about his passion, dinosaurs, she added.

She also accused his junior high teachers of being impatient with him and often sending him to the vice principal’s office to sit out the day.

“They didn’t want to deal with his learning disabilities,” she said. “They only cared if his body was at school, they didn’t care if they were successful at putting anything into his head.”

Brenda Cocco also said that she, not her husband, was to blame for the dispute with the school district. Indeed, according to court records and district officials, the couple seems divided over their son’s education. On one occasion in February 1996, John Cocco dropped off his son at school only to have Brenda Cocco pull up a short time later and take the boy away, the court records show.

“It appears that Mrs. Cocco has trouble separating from Justin,” a district report said.

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Not only did Justin miss school, but his parents missed appointments with school officials and refused to attend counseling sessions or accept phone calls from district workers checking on why Justin was absent. Neither parent would accept responsibility for taking him to school, according to the district’s reports.

“A lot of what they’re saying in the reports isn’t true,” Brenda Cocco said after hearing the report. “It’s also not true that my husband and I kept our son out of school because we didn’t want to drive him. That’s ridiculous.”

The district stepped up its warnings to the Coccos. School officials sent them letters, made them sign contracts promising to send Justin to school and scheduled more meetings.

Finally, on Sept. 20, 1996, John Cocco not only came 22 minutes late to a meeting but he failed to bring important documentation from Justin’s psychiatrist.

The district’s School Attendance Review Board turned the case over to the district attorney’s office, and the couple was charged in February. Justin had missed the equivalent of an entire school year, prosecutors and school officials alleged, from March 1996 through February.

“We don’t view having to take parents to court as a victory,” Lee said. “On the contrary, we see it as a loss. When we resolve the problems, and the kid gets back in school, that’s when we win.”