Val Morgan spins and laughs while listening to music from a Disney soundtrack at her Lewiston home. If you knew nothing else, she’d seem like a happy 6-year-old.

Life has been anything but normal for the child with nonverbal autism, who has suffered much tragedy and trauma during her short life.

In 2020, her mother, Natasha Morgan, was murdered by Val’s father in the driveway of a home on Scribner Boulevard. Val and her grandmother, Liza Morgan, were sitting in a car just feet away.

Val’s father was convicted of Natasha’s death and remains in prison.

After showing some progress the past couple of years, Val has been moved from her comfort zone at Margaret Murphy Center for Children in Auburn by the Lewiston school system, as part of an effort to provide treatment to all of the city’s special education students in their home community.

The one-step-fits-all approach may be working for many students, but not for Val, according to Liza Morgan, who is now her guardian.

“Honestly, I believe she belongs at Margaret Murphy, because that is where she thrived,” Morgan said.

Kirsten Crafts, the director of special education for Lewiston Public Schools, established the CLIMB program last year. It is designed to keep students with special needs at home instead of having them travel up to an hour or more to different facilities to receive the support they need.

Crafts said she is proud of the program and believes it is a major success. She declined to speak about individual students.

In an interview earlier this year, Superintendent Jake Langlais said the program is saving taxpayers approximately $150,000 per student per year.

Elementary school students in the program are housed in a wing at McMahon Elementary School.

Morgan tried to fight the order she received forcing Val to attend kindergarten at McMahon Elementary School. At first, the school department filed suit in federal court, but dropped the case within a week when attorneys for the two sides agreed to talk.

Officials told the family that the switch was mandatory, and that the department would not pay for placement for services elsewhere.

“Lewiston doesn’t want to pay for it,” Morgan said. “I didn’t have a choice. The Lewiston school system told us we didn’t have a choice. We had to switch, they were not going to pay for it.”

Morgan said she never felt that she was listened to.

“I felt bullied,” she said.

Val started going to the Lewiston program a couple a days per week before finally going to full time by late September. While the other seven students in her kindergarten class have one personal instructor, Val has two due to her tendency to run away.

Morgan’s family, which also includes her boyfriend, his stepdaughter and another of Morgan’s daughters, said they have seen Val’s behavior deteriorate since the switch to Lewiston schools.

In just the past few weeks, Val started hitting more aggressively — herself and others, Morgan said, though her instructors felt it was no more than unusual.

The school took no responsibility for the increased problems, she said.

“To them, it’s not their issue, it’s ours, but I think it has to do with school,” Morgan said.

Two times this past week, Val refused to get on the bus, which has never happened, her grandmother said, because she likes rides.

“I know she has hit herself on her chest and in the head,” Morgan said. “She does throw things at the wall. She can be destructive of property. She’s doing the stuff that I told them that she’s going to be doing. The elopement. The hitting, The aggressiveness at home. I don’t know.”

When she brought Val to the doctor recently for a six-month checkup, Morgan said the doctor was appalled when she learned of the change away from the Murphy Center.

“She asked me, why did they pull her out,” Morgan said. “She told me if things don’t look any better, like her behavior is getting more and more aggressive, to talk to her. There may be things that she can do.”

In recent evaluations, school officials have told Morgan that her granddaughter is doing well, but Morgan said she doesn’t believe them.

“We had a two-week eval just to see how she was doing,” Morgan said. “They said she was doing well, but that’s them saying it. Now that she’s been there a little bit longer, I think they are actually seeing her true her.”

Classroom size is another area of concern of Morgan’s, since Val does not do well in crowds.

There were only four children at Margaret Murphy, but Val’s classroom at McMahon has 16 individuals, including the teacher and instructors.

School officials told Morgan they are attempting to help Val communicate through pictures. At home she has a velcro book, with which she had some success communicating at her previous school.

Lewiston Public Schools has refused Morgan’s request to get Val out more in the community, she said.

“We want to get her out in the community without having a meltdown,” Morgan said. “Margaret Murphy was doing that and she was having success with that, and this school won’t do it.”

Another evaluation is scheduled in December, but Morgan does not expect to see much improvement.

In the meantime, Val has her Disney soundtracks to listen to that brings her joy and eases the stress.

“I don’t think the school system they pulled her into is working for her,” Morgan said. “They should have left her where she was. She’s a trauma child.

“They say everything is going well,” Morgan added. “But I know how people can sugarcoat things.”