For the past few days, I've been blogging about the abuse of special needs kids in New York State public schools and state-approved private schools and why parents in NYS need to contact the Board of Regents to tell them to vote 'No!' on proposed regulations that would essentially authorize the use of aversives and torture techniques on disabled kids. In this entry, I describe some of the past atrocities perpetrated on kids and why we can't trust the NYS Education Department to monitor and enforce protections for children.
In September 2005, the AP reported:
... Formal complaints of corporal punishment in New York classrooms more than doubled over the past five years, with 4,223 accusations reported in 2004, according to records obtained by The Associated Press. At the same time, fewer school districts were filing the required semiannual reports detailing corporal punishment allegations, the records show. Many of the allegations involved faculty or staff pushing, slapping and grabbing students' arms. Among those verified were an incident in which a teacher put a misbehaving student outside to cool off in December without a jacket, a teacher who tackled a student who reached for a pencil on the floor, and several cases of students' mouths taped shut. The state Education Department reviewed the records after they were requested by the AP and said it would recommend revising the reporting policy.
Recommend revising the reporting procedure? Not recommend applying electric shock to school personnel to reduce their serious behavior problems? Why do they propose to allow the use of electric shock on disabled kids but only propose to recommend the way schools report instances of abuse? But let's continue:
The Education Department's analysis of just last year's reported cases found as many as 65 percent of the allegations couldn't be verified by the school, or the district provided insufficient information to support the allegation.
So 2/3 of the complaints were dismissed without action against school personnel because NYSED couldn't get the schools to verify that the abuse had occurred? Were they only taking action if the school agreed and verified that abuse had occurred? Do we usually say that we can't convict and punish people who don't confess to their crimes?
This is one of the greatest problems that disabled kids who have been abused in school face -- no one believes them.
A number of years ago, in a self-contained program in New York, a building principal decided that instead of just leaving a kid under the table in a classroom where he had gone to get away from being overwhelmed, he had to drag him out from under the table. The student grabbed onto the table base. The principal pulled and pulled the kid by the arm to drag him out. As the child's grip on the table loosened, the force of the principal's pull jerked the kid out from under the table, swung him around, and slammed him into the wall.
The child's clavicle was fractured and ultimately required three surgeries. The child's pediatrician was incensed and contacted Child Protective Services and reported the school and the principal for child abuse. The parent of the child later sued the principal, the school, and the school district. The case settled because the lawyers advised the mother that she would lose in court because no one would take the word of the five kids in the classroom who actually witnessed the whole thing because all five kids had "psychiatric" diagnoses. It was the word of the disabled kids against the word of the principal and the teacher.
So what do schools and NYSED do when abuse is verified? AP reported:
School districts' action against the offending teachers, substitute teachers, bus drivers, teacher aides, lunch monitors and other employees varied widely. Most received counseling or a memo in their personnel files. A few were fired. The teacher who put the student out in 32-degree weather for eight to 10 minutes faced a "counseling session ... about appropriate expectations with action plan," according to the records. The tackling teacher was suspended for six months with pay and had to complete online classes in classroom management. Teachers who taped students' mouths shut received counseling memos for their personnel files and one was suspended.
... Corporal punishment has been prohibited [in NYS] for two decades. Deputy Education Commissioner James Kadamus said he believes the most serious cases -- those that could be considered child abuse under state law -- are being reported. "We are trying to emphasize a safe learning environment and that goes for both the kids' behavior and the adult behavior," he said.
Oh really? Then why doesn't NYSED get as serious about the behavior of the adults? How about we propose teacher-specific waivers that would permit the use of aversives on teachers or employees whose behavior is "severe" and who have not responded to positive supports?
For example, there was the case of J.,a NYC disabled kid whose school bus monitor taped his mouth shut with duct tape because of his vocal tics of Tourette's Syndrome. The parents called the police and sued, but nothing ever happened to the bus monitor. There's another case like that right now, too, but I don't know if it's the same bus monitor or a different one. Maybe we should proposing duct-taping bus monitors' mouths as an acceptable technique if they fail to respond to reasonable requests to treat the kids with some dignity?
As if restraining little autistic preschoolers for hours on end in Rifton chairs and having 3 or 4 adults pounce on a kid just because he doesn't want to eat his lunch isn't bad enough, there have been many reports of disabled kids being raped or sexually assaulted by educators -- and NYSED has little or nothing. See Charol Shakeshaft's professional analysis of this topic for a nationwide perspective on sexual abuse of students. Her review includes specific examples from New York, including the following statements of findings:
...For instance, a report on sexual abuse in the New York City schools indicates that more than $18.7 million was paid between 1996 and 2001 to students who were sexually abused by educators, and 110 cases were still active. Fees for attorneys and investigators are in addition to the settlement amounts. (Campanile & Montero, 2001) A 2004 report (Campanile, January 20, 2004, http://www.nypost.com/...) lists more than 600 legal claims and lawsuits filed against New York City public schools in the three years since 2001 at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars if the claims prevail. If educator sexual misconduct had been prevented, the effort and resources necessary to respond to the claims might have been put to better use.
... In an early study of 225 cases of educator sexual abuse in New York, all of the accused had admitted to contact sexual abuse of a student but none of the abusers was reported to authorities and only 1% lost their license to teach (Shakeshaft and Cohan, 1994). All of the accused had admitted to physical sexual abuse of a student but only 35% received a negative consequence for their actions: 15% were terminated or, if not tenured, they were not rehired; and 20% received a formal reprimand or suspension. Another 25% received no consequence or were reprimanded informally and off the record. Nearly 39% chose to leave the district, most with positive recommendations or even retirement packages intact.
Of those who left, superintendents reported that 16% were teaching in other schools and that they had no idea what the other 84% were doing. A recent report on sexual abuse in New York City indicates that 60% of employees who were accused of sexual abuse were transferred to desk jobs at offices inside schools and 40% of these teachers were repeat offenders. (Campanile & Montero, 2001) In many instances, agreements are made to avoid legal battles with the alleged abuse.
For more on sex crimes against disabled kids in NYS, see Dee Alpert's February 2006 newsletter on this issue.
And we're going to let NYSED authorize aversives like electric shock on disabled kids because we trust them to monitor and enforce regulations? I don't think so...
If you post to mail lists or forums that are disability-related, please help spread the word about the proposed emergency regulations and that we all need to contact the Board of Regents and just say NO! NO! NO! NO! to proposed regulations.
Let them diagnose me as "Oppositional Defiant." Let them try to blacklist me from future work in the system. I don't care. This has got to be stopped.