Teacher locks special needs child inside of a cage in the classroom

[Cali_Democrat]

A mother is suing her daughter’s teacher and school administrators after she said she found the 7-year-old special education student locked inside a makeshift cage in the classroom.

In a suit filed on October 16, Ledelldra Brooks alleges that in late May, she “made an unannounced visit to her daughter’s classroom” at Viking Elementary School in Fresno, California, according to court documents obtained by the Fresno Bee.

When she got there, she says her daughter — who is mentally disabled and is diagnosed with a seizure disorder — was “locked inside of a cage” with “dried feces on her body which had caused a skin rash” and “was wearing a soiled diaper.”

A photo of the “cage” shows a makeshift enclosure composed of toddler and crib gates spread between two bookshelves that are pushed against the wall.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/11/ledelldra-brooks-special-needs-student-locked-cage-fresno_n_6139722.html?utm_hp_ref=crime

[MineralMan]

1. They should just get some of those wire kennels.

Cheaper and they can be folded up when not needed.

[HockeyMom]

2. As a TA, I took then out of the classroom when they got "antsy"

Do they have adequate staffing? That is what a Special Needs TA is for. I worked with one Autistic boy who was calmed down with about 10 minutes of watching fish swim around in the tank in the hallway. "Are you ready now to do your work?" "Yes, I am ready to work now". Is that really so bad? Even ADULTS need a break from work!

Cages? No, no, NO!

[lpbk2713]

3. That gave an unspoken message to the other students.

"It's OK to treat her like a freak."


Infuggencredible.

[longship]

4. Teacher fired.

One can only hope.

Once fired, a teacher will almost inevitably lose their career, as this one should.

[LeftyMom]

6. Reassigned and at another school.

The administrators who let this go on for three years are still there.

[Stuart G]

10. Adminstrators protect adminstrators, perhaps the ugliest example ever..yes, ever..

There was a principal who was accused of sexually abusing students in the system I worked in. He was protected and defended up to the day he was convicted of his crime. Moffat was his name, and his administrative friends, one of which I met and knew, were protected to the point that their careers continued, but they got transfers to other schools to avoid the embarrassment of defending a convicted teenage rapist.

from the Chicago Tribune:


James G. Moffat, former principal of Kelvyn Park High...


October 08, 1985|By Linnet Myers.



James G. Moffat, former principal of Kelvyn Park High School and onetime deputy Chicago school superintendent, was indicted Monday on charges of sexually molesting five students at the school.

A Cook County grand jury charged Moffat, 56, with using his job as principal to commit sex acts against four boys and a girl in 1982, 1983 and 1984. Some of the sex acts were performed in the school, 4343 W. Wrightwood Ave., investigators charged.______

Another link on this situation, more complete, with results of trial:
http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=461
__________________________________________________________________________________

Now you might say that this is a long time ago..yes, those of us who worked in the system then, heard stories about Moffat, but there were those who defended him up to the moment of conviction. The line was the students lied for one reason or another..Now there was a trial that lasted a while and he was convicted and got lengthy jail time. Those higher ups that had defended him/ never paid any price of any kind....................If you read the comments at the end of this article, by George Schmidt ...you will see the worst side of this case, Moffat chose those who he raped carefully and with intent. Also, his lawyer has become a judge on the Illinois Supreme Court..and Schmidt discusses her role ..It is beyond ugly

[Bonx]

7. The principal knew about it

Fire her.
It had going on for at least three years:

"The police report sheds some light on the Viking School allegations.

Two teachers aides interviewed by police said the special needs children were put in the gated area only when they were out of control or posed a risk to themselves and classmates, but the enclosure was not used for punishment. On the day Brooks discovered her daughter there, the aides said, she had been disruptive in class. She’d also scratched one of the aides, they said.

Yang, the principal, told police the enclosure, which was installed about three years ago, was merely a safety precaution. She didn’t know how often it was used, but said she’d witnessed children inside before."

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2014/11/07/4223860_fresno-special-ed-student-caged.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

[rocktivity]

11. But DO THEY KNOW THE DIFFERENCE???

Do they FEEL that they're "not being punished?" More to the point, do they have any CONTROL over these outbursts? The teachers may simply be "protecting" them from themselves and others, but do THEY see it that way?


rocktivity

[Bonx]

14. Probably ?

If this was 'the way' that they had been handling it, those in charge should be the first to be punished.

[Omaha Steve]

5. I'd file suit too

[rocktivity]

8. Seven special needs students and one teacher?

Fresno Bee: Her daughter, who is intellectually disabled and has a seizure disorder, was allegedly found on May 27 isolated from her classmates in a locked enclosure made from a toddler gate and a crib gate attached to bookshelves. The girl was one of seven special needs students in the class, a teacher’s aide told police...

The school’s principal, Christie Yang, told investigators the cage had been set up about three years ago as a “safety precaution,” (but)...district policies and state law forbid teachers from using locked, secluded areas for punishment or any other reason...Staff can restrain children or put them in a timeout during a violent outburst or other crisis. But isolating a youngster in a locked room or other area is prohibited...

Is this supposed to be a regular class? And this is supposed to be better than medicating them?


rocktivity

[mmonk]

12. Those special needs kids...

I bet some of them can make it through and graduate from college like mine will do this December.

[dilby]

9. Considering I highly doubt the Teacher built that contraption by herself

I think the whole school is at fault here. My only question would be did no parents ever not notice the fricking cage by the door before, what the heck. I attend everyone of my kids Parent teacher conferences and I check out the classrooms, if I would have seen that I would be asking wtf is up in this room.

[pacalo]

18. Good point.

[lindysalsagal]

13. Administration heads will roll, too. But this is only one story in a larger problem.

With the advent of IDEA (National special ed legislation) regular K-12 neighborhood schools are increasingly keeping special needs students in regular schools.

Problem is, regular public schools are not designed to handle children who are physically dangerous.

And before you think children can't be dangerous, you should spend an hour with an autistic class: They can run the gamut from the easiest child in the building to banging their heads on the floor to running out the door down the street. Elementary school children can be 130 pounds and 5'5". And since they're easily agitated without warning, they're really really strong and unpredictable. It's dangerous.

I see students routinely restrained by hand by non-trained $8/hour aids. They haven't been instructed what to do, and have no knowledge or expertise. They haven't been provided even the most basic details about their student's individual challenges. They're winging it.

Because that's what taxpayers are willing to pay for. Some of them are amazingly good, don't get me wrong. I couldn't do it. The students are lucky to have them.

So, before you get your pitchfork and torch, and blame this one teacher, remember that she, herself, may have been left in an impossible situation, created by society and politics.

Of course this teacher has to leave the classroom, but she didn't create the larger problem. We want education to be cheap, and sometimes, you get what you pay for.

[hunter]

17. Not enough training, not enough staff, not enough funding.

Mildly autistic me, Asperger kid, was the runaway sort.

School officials who hadn't yet begun to know me would call my mom in a panic when I vanished during the school day. She'd tell them something like "He'll probably come home when he's hungry." People don't believe me and sometimes think I'm joking when I say I was often a feral child. But I was. If something was going wrong at school, I'd escape.

I was a feral young adult too. I quit high school for college. I was "asked to leave" college twice, but managed to graduate, eventually. I lived in my broken car in a church parking lot for awhile, and later in a shack in a crazy war veteran's backyard.

Fortunately nobody ever put me in a cage. Not for long anyways.

I wanted to repay the kindness I'd been shown by others and decided to become a public school teacher, Welcome Back Kotter style. That was the most difficult job I've ever had, and I've had plenty of jobs that are generally considered worse than that.

[aikoaiko]

15. Shameful.

Public education is falling apart.

[Wella]

16. Was the teacher a special ed teacher or a regular ed teacher (without training)?

That makes a difference.

[rocktivity]

19. DING DING DING! Wella, you're our grand prize winner!

More to the point, was it a regular ed class or a special ed class?

I can't imagine a regular ed teacher being expected to command both regular and special needs children, especially if they're prone to seizures. I would hope that a class with seven such students would have at least three specially trained teacher aides.


rocktivity

P.S. After I completed second grade, my mother showed me a letter me a letter informing her that I was to be placed in an IGC class the following year. It stood for Intellectually Gifted Children, but I wasn't intellectual enough to know that -- I got it confused with my school's special needs classes, which also went by an acronym -- CRMD, they called it back then.

[Wella]

20. I know well-meaning classroom teachers who would have no clue what to do with a child having a

seizure. It is, of course, helpful to seek out the special ed teacher in a case like this, but there may not be someone who can deal with this. This sounds like a medical issue that is way beyond the average classroom teacher.