It used to be that a school was a safe place for a student to go. The only threat to a student would be another student, as kids will be bullies. But what if that bully is a grown adult, a grown adult who gets off on physically abusing a child, maybe even sexually if no one’s looking? That appears to be the case here in the Albany area and elsewhere in upstate New York.
There is a lawsuit in progress that alleges that a child in the Salmon River Central School District was placed into a cardboard box as a form of punishment. Oh, and the best part? That student is non-verbal and has autism. So what we have is a special needs student who is defenseless.
How do the adults respond? If the lawsuit is to be believed, then that school district has physically abusive teaching staff being enabled and, hell, maybe even rewarded. I can tell you that I have seen some crazy things go down for myself, with my own beautiful, uneven brown eyes.
You see, ages ago, I was a licensed teaching assistant. I held a Level One license from 2012 to 2015. My employment in the field was brief. I was hired as a substitute teaching assistant, with no license needed. Silly me, I thought I’d try for certification.
After the appropriate background checks and testing, I received my license. I slipped through one background check though. I’ve written about my daughter whom I gave up for adoption. As it turns out, she was never my daughter and for that matter, she wasn’t my wife’s daughter. Yeah, she wasn’t ours to give up. But that’s another tale.
Because of the things that I wrote in those articles, I have a CPS record, which means that I have an indicated (valid) record against me for child neglect. But don’t misunderstand me: she was never abused, physically or sexually. Emotionally, sure, but nothing other than that.
No, the neglect has to do with things like feeding her, changing her and then leaving her alone in her crib all day. But again, you can read those articles if you so choose.
If I did those things (I did) and if I gave her up for adoption, illegally (but unknowingly) as it turns out, how, then, did I slip through the cracks, a move that gave me access to young children? It boggles the mind. Mind you, I never once did anything harmful, neglectful or inappropriate around the children. There’s no way that I should have been hired, but I was.
One day, I called HR to inform them of my licensure. Three days later, I was fired. I would have thought that they’d want more licensed personnel. It was mildly disappointing, but I was more puzzled than hurt or angry. The timing was very convenient. Anyway, I’m getting away from the point here.
I was specifically assigned to certain students with autism. I worked mostly with three specific students, all of whom had varying levels of autism. One student was able to go to at least one mainstream class with me sitting beside him during class. I find the notion of abusing or neglecting students with autism to be reprehensible.
As for the lawsuit and the problems that are alleged, there really are problems. I saw for myself certain teaching personnel physically restraining a student in a special, locked room reserved for violent and otherwise troublesome students. I witnessed it, folks. I saw two female staffers violently restraining a student against a wall. One of them told me they were licensed and, “we get paid to do this shit.”
That student was in third grade and was not actually putting anyone in any actual danger. No ones life or safety was in immediate danger. Other ways of controlling the student were available to them, but they literally choice violence.
When I voiced my concern while the child was locked inside the room with no way of getting out in an emergency, I was essentially told to turn around, go away and, “what you just saw, you didn’t see.”
At that point in my life, I was a mandated reporter and I should have called the child abuse hotline. Forget about the chain of commend…the hotline. I should have called. But I did not. Why? Because I feared for my job. Had I known that I was going to be fired for becoming certified, I would have called anyone and everyone.
As for this most recent issue, problems are popping up every where. In Schenectady, a city right next door to Albany, there is apparently a picture that allegedly depicts a staff member, a librarian, stepping on a second-grader with ADHD with the intent of restraining him. I fail to see why placing that student in a cardboard box is in any way acceptable.
I do understand the need, I suppose, to control a student, but what I saw for myself went way over the line. That means that at least one student at the school to which I was assigned was slammed against a wall. Not gently but firmly restrained for his safety and that of the teaching personnel, but literally slammed against the wall. The behavior that he was exhibiting did not call for what those people did to him.
Still, I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t want to deal with giving statements to law enforcement and I didn’t want to put my job in jeopardy. I also didn’t want to be retaliated against by the personnel at that school. If they’re that violent with a child, how violent would they be with me.
I put my safety over that of the student’s. I own that, but he didn’t deserve what he was getting. I have to wonder if his parents were notified and if they were, I wonder if they were okay with it. If they were okay with what really happened as opposed to the song and dance that they likely got, then I question their parenting decisions. I know, coming from me, that means nothing.
Assemblymember Angelo Santabarbara is enraged and he’s doing something about it. He, like many others is outraged that the alleged abuse was kept secret until someone leaked photographs online, something that in and of itself might be a criminal act, regardless of the poster’s intent.
“When children are isolated and restrained at school and parents are left in the dark, it means the system has failed. So, the need for this legislation could not be more clearer.”
As stated, I’ve seen this for myself. I’ve seen a child being isolated and restrained and it wasn’t pretty. Apparently, the problem isn’t isolated to a few bad actors and to only one school district. To be sure, even if I had spoken up, nothing would have been done. But now, this is in the public eye and heads are going to roll. Things are going to change.
I was warned before my first day that the students could do all manner of things to me as well as my co-workers. I was told to expect to be spat upon, slapped, kicked and maybe even punched. Still, I went forward with it and none of those things happened. All of the students who I worked with were peaceful and safe. Only one student had autism-related meltdowns, but she was loud and non-violent.
I will never forget those images of that child being slammed against the wall and then restrained. I don’t care what he did; nothing could have called for that. This was not a matter of a child being restrained to protect himself or others. What I saw was about two staffers enjoying the fact that they could abuse a child, get away with it and then collect a paycheck. Disgusting.
Santabarbara is proposing a bill that, if passed, will change things throughout the state. Under his proposal, there would be severe changes to the policy of physically restraining students. Parents of such students would be notified the same day of the incident with a complete reporting of everything surrounding the restraint.
Under the bill, students would no longer be confined or put into an enclosure. It goes without saying that using boxes to store children would become illegal.
Santabarbara is demanding documentation for every case of restraint.
As for that librarian, they resigned. That person should, in my opinion, be arrested and jailed for that little stunt. I know that if that had been my child, I’d likely be in jail and the staffer, whomever it was, would be in the hospital.
Well, hopefully, this lawsuit changes things immediately. What else should be changed is how deep background checks go. Had the school district that hired me taken a quick query in the statewide child neglect database, I would have never been hired. If they did check and they hired me anyway, then that’s an even bigger problem. But I can tell you one thing: even if I were allowed to do the things that I saw that day, I would never do a student things that, again, I personally saw.
To close with, if I slipped through the cracks, then who else is escaping that fail-safe as well, people far more violent, dangerous and less patient around special needs students than me? Finally, the news article from local CBS affiliate WRGB, called the student “autistic.” While that is technically true, the proper way to put it is, “a student with autism,” or something like that. But then again, I’ve been throwing “retard” around a lot, so I guess I have no room to point fingers.