HONOLULU -- Two Honolulu attorneys filed lawsuits on Wednesday aimed at stopping the furloughs of public school workers that would give students about 17 fewer days of educational instruction.

The first day of furloughs is set for Friday.

Families of special education students are taking on the state over a plan to reduce the school year to save money. Attorney Carl Varaday is handling that lawsuit.

Multiple lawsuits challenging the move to furlough school workers could halt the state's budget cutting plan at the 11th hour.

Lawyers filing separate complaints in courts are asking for a restraining order they hope will be heard by a federal judge on Thursday.

A Wahiawa mother of a 6-year-old autistic boy said she just wants to be heard.

"I am standing up as a parent of a child who has these services that are going to be interrupted. I want what's best for him," the woman, who would only be identified as P.F., said.

Her son, identified only by his initials T. F., is a student at Kaala Elementary School. She is afraid that cutting her son's treatment plan by several days each month will mean a setback that will be tough to recover from.

"He has come a long way and he means the world to us," P.F. said.

Her attorneys claim the Department of Education is violating the civil rights of special needs children. Without due process, they are invoking a "stay put" clause in the federal special education law that keeps the children's treatment plan in place.

The loss of 20 percent of instructional days, the attorneys said, is more detrimental for some special needs children.

"If they lose services for more than two days, they are liable to regress," Varaday said.

Their suit specifically names nine autistic children across the state but they said they are looking to help everyone.

"Our objective is to broaden the relief to as many families as we can help," Varaday said.

While there is some doubt they can get a class action lawsuit, attorney Eric Seitz filed a broader complaint on behalf of special education and regular education students.

"We want to see that everybody who is aggrieved by this action has a voice," Seitz said.

By late Wednesday he seemed to have doubts the complaints would put the breaks on furlough Fridays the first, which is just a day away.

"We may not be able to stop the first or second of these furloughs, but the hope is we are initiating a process to curtail the impact and the number of these furloughs," Seitz said.

Both complaints are expected to be heard before federal judge David Ezra some time tomorrow.

Gov. Linda Lingle, state Schools Superintendent Pat Hamamoto and Hawaii State Teachers Association President Ron Okabe met on Tuesday night to discuss expanding educational instruction time in schools. Some days are scheduled as short days to give teachers preparation time. The idea is to add a few minutes to each of these days.