Mom: Seclusion room felt like jail cell
September 23rd, 2009
From WTVF Nashville, and the [Columbia, TN] Daily Herald:
A judge has issued an emergency injunction against educators at a Tennessee elementary school following allegations that a student with developmental disabilities was stripped down to his underwear and locked in a seclusion room.
Michelle Parks, mother of the 9-year-old boy, said her son’s civil rights had been violated. “I don’t think our elected representatives envisioned a prison cell inside an elementary school for special needs children,” said Kevin Latta, her attorney.
Parks said she was called to Joseph Brown Elementary School in Columbia to pick up her son for acting out in class. She found him wearing only his underwear and standing in a small cinderblock seclusion room with a concrete floor, no chairs and a door with no handle.
The school suspension notice says the boy, who is diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and oppositional defiant disorder, was verbally abusive and kicked a teacher. Parks said she was told her son’s clothes were taken away for his own protection.
(Photo from Daily Herald)
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October 1st, 2009 at 7:40 pm
Unacceptable! I have found that most school districts operate with their “thumb in the dike” when it comes to offering a free and appropriate public education to children who have disability labels that trigger serious behavior issues in the classroom.
My question is this. Why do parents sign off on IEPs and behavior plans without knowing who will be there for their child in the classroom if a behavior should emerge?
After working a few years with children diagnosed with various disability labels, I observed aggressive behaviors are often times triggered by people who are not trained to be with students with medically diagnosed behaviors that are not acceptable in the classroom.
I also suspect that this school district like many throughout the US operate a special education by proxy where the “real” experts pop in once or twice a week to fill out the paperwork leaving students like the one in the article in an environment with people who are not the experts.
This child should have had specially adapted and alternative education plan written up & implemented by a certified special education teacher and behavioralist on hand to diffuse a situation like this.