Frustration with Local Schools
A few days ago, there were three news stories in the Indianapolis News about abuse of Special Needs children by school staff. This came as one of my best friends had watched her nonverbal son go from a child who loved school, even cried when he had to miss it to a child who cried when he had to go to school. The child is in the same school system that was the object of the lead story on the news that night.
For me, it was especially painful, as I had helped her choose where to move last summer, so that she could have her son in a system which did a good job with Special Needs. The school mishandled this child from the start. They mislabeled him, ignoring his testing, placed him in an EH program, in spite of the fact that there was no evidence of EH, and failed to do anything at all to deal with the fact that he was nonverbal.
Over the course of the last year, they have had him doing work two grades behind where he is just to fill up his time because they seemed to assume that nonverbal because of a traumatic brain injury meant he had low intelligence. As a result, he spend 7 of his 9 months receiving educational neglect while in the classroom.
Finally, after going to the school every day, his mother has been able to get the school to look at the fact they might have made a placement mistake. His teacher resigned, and his mom has had to be in the classroom to keep one of the aides from just getting in his face and yelling "NO, NO, NO" to a child with auditory processing issues. In addition, there have been inappropriate holds in the classroom, children being dragged from the room on their knees, and no training in holds.
I have been appalled at the way my little friend has been treated. I am even more appalled that there are stories coming out all over the country of schools doing holds on children as a primary disciplinary strategy, even when the child is no danger to self or other. Holds and physical control are becoming the acceptable form of corporal punishment for undertrained, overwhelmed, and sometimes sadistic teachers. My friend had to listen to a consultant, an employee of the system, talk about how she would beat one little boys ass if he were hers. She said she knew how to scare kids. This was the consultant assigned to her child's room.
Of course this has been an incredibly stressful time for my friend, and her son. As a child advocate for over thirty years, I am both furious and embarrassed that I was part of the decision to move the child to the current school system.
For those of you who have children in Special Needs classes who are hearing rumors about this kind of behavior in your school, but don't want to believe it, check it out. Be sure that your child is being well treated and, if they aren't, step up to the plate and advocate for them.
