Legal
Jonathan King Would Have Been 18 Years Old
Published July 28, 2009 @ 02:05PM PT
Jonathan King died almost 5 years ago, on November 15, 2004. He was 13 years old and this past July 13th would have been his 18th birthday.
Jonathan died at school. He hung himself with a rope that teachers had given him to hold up his pants as he habitually didn't wear a belt. The July 27th Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a long article about Jonathan and about the lack of regulation of Georgia's "psychoeducational" schools. There are 24 such facilities in Georgia and some 5,600 students in them who are "emotionally disturbed, autistic or so brain-injured that regular schools can’t control their behavior."
Jonathan was diagnosed with ADHD in kindergarden and "began a regimen of prescription medications." By sixth grade, the school district decided to place him at the Alpine School due to his being "disruptive."
Jonathan was in eighth grade in the fall of 2004. He never complained about school, his parents say, never told them anything other than he had occasionally gone to “time out.”
The Kings’ lawyers, though, eventually learned the extent of Jonathan’s understatement.
A log book for Alpine’s seclusion room showed Jonathan was confined part or all of 15 school days between August and November, sometimes twice in one day. Over two consecutive days in October, Jonathan spent 15 hours in seclusion. The first day, Jonathan ripped the hem from his shirt and wrapped it around his neck in a suicidal gesture. The next day, the log says, he was “threatening to kill himself.”
Rather than using the seclusion room only as a last resort to get the boy under control, the log suggests it became a place where teachers sometimes placed Jonathan for minor infractions. On Oct. 26, 2004, for instance, Jonathan was “cussing, argumentative and disruptive during testing; demanding water bottle be filled; swearing; [and refusing] to follow instructions,” the log says. He spent seven hours, 10 minutes in the seclusion room that day. Ten days later, on Nov. 5, Jonathan was locked up for five hours, 50 minutes after he “refused to accept feedback.”
Alpine never told Jonathan’s parents about any of the seclusions. It didn’t have to. In court papers, Alpine contends the state’s lack of regulation gave it implicit authority to use seclusion as it saw fit.
The "lack of regulation" meant that the school could just use such practices "as it saw fit," without spelling out under what circumstances Jonathan would be placed in seclusion, and without indicating an educational plan so that he would not have to be in such a place?
Jonathan's case sounds too many familiar notes to me. My son has not been placed in a timeout room, but he has been restrained in more than one New Jersey public district. The kind of "psychoeducational" facility that Jonathan died in has been suggested for my son. Certainly many things about the staffing and the training that staff receive at the schools here differs, but the use of restraints and timeout rooms are not at all unheard of.
Jonathan could talk more than my own son, and yet he was still unable to communicate what was really going on to his parents. Besides medication, what educational and behavioral methods were used to help him in the classroom? What had not happened in his education? And what kind of a society are we that allows children with disabilities to be placed in what are in essence cells with bars on the window and locks the door?
Violence and Bullying: What happened to Sean Carter
Published July 25, 2009 @ 02:18PM PT
I wrote yesterday about school abuse and before that about sexual abuse: Safety has been on my mind a lot and then one reads about a 14-year old boy on the spectrum, Sean Carter, who was severely beaten on his face and back. Sean's father, Ron Carter, claims that an organized gang in west Clacton is responsible, as reported in yesterday's Gazette (UK). Now Sean is
“.....literally frightened to leave the house.”
Mr Carter no longer wants to send Sean to school because he is too afraid. He hopes to move out of the area.
He said Sean had been tormented by his peers, who took advantage of his autism ever since he moved into a new class at the town’s Bishops Park College in September.
Dora has posted about violence and abuse and particularly noted the "complexity of power imbalances" in such situations. She and I have both posted about bullying -- it sounds as if this had happened to Sean prior to being beaten. What did or didn't school authorities do, if anything? Even if there were anti-bullying programs in place, these are not enough. As a commenter wrote yesterday on a post about school abuse and the call to form a group to create a new statewide policy on reporting abuse in the school system by Georgia governor Sonny Perdue:
It's not just that they help some but not enough, it's that those people who work for these agencies don't really have the opportunity to say how their agency is really failing. They end up protecting the agency by continuing to sacrifice the rights of the victims.
There are a lot of subtle as well as overt ways that staff members in these agencies are allowed to discourage those who have been abused from reporting it. It's important to remember that no matter what type of abuse it is, the victim first has to deal with their own shame. That's what abuse does. It makes the victim feel ashamed.
That means that the opportunity to report what has happened to them won't be enough. They need to be in an environment where they are encouraged and empowered.
Here's hoping that Sean can find a better place to live and attend school that is such an environment where he is "encouraged and empowered," and accepted.
You're Under Arrest
Published July 17, 2009 @ 02:41PM PT
Autistic girl arrested; family wants damages is the head line in yesterday's MSNBC. Back in January, 8-year-old Evelyn Towry was arrested at Kootenai Elementary School after staff said that she "spit on and inappropriately touched two instructors." She was handcuffed---
Wait a moment. She is an 8-year-old girl.
And there's more: Evelyn, who has Asperger's Syndrome, was taken to the county juvenile lockup and released to her parents. The charges against her were dropped by a county prosecutor. Now her parents, Charles and Spring Towry, wants the school district and county to pay more than $500,000 in damages.
Scandalous and out of proportion, and yet that headline describes something that many of us, parents and self-advocates feel. Individuals and students with disabilities may not actually be, as Evelyn wrongly was, arrested (though it has happened to at least one other student on the spectrum). But they are daily subjected to discrimination and daily have their rights and dignity trampled upon in a multitude of ways (like the financial abuse that Dora wrote about recently).
No wonder restitution or its equivalent, and justice, must and is being sought.
Financial Abuse
Published July 14, 2009 @ 04:00PM PT
Abuse most commonly conjures images of physical or sexual violence or verbal taunting. But there are many types of abuse, and one that's come up here before but never in its own post is financial abuse.
In Austin (TX), a woman who ran several group homes has been accused of exploiting residents by opening up credit card accounts in their names and using those accounts to make her own purchases. The woman, who has a list of prior convictions mostly for theft, is still at large.
This has echoes of the woman who stole thousands from the people she "helped" with their finances, local to me (OR). That woman was convicted and sentenced to a year in jail.
Such things don't only happen to people who are unable to manage money independently either. One of the panel speakers at the Megaconference personal care assistant session is completely capable of managing her own finances under typical circumstances. But a PCA once feed her double medication until she became so disoriented that the PCA was able to extort literally all of her money. The speaker ended up having to file for bankruptcy.
What to do about this? Especially for those of us who have no clue how to tell if finances are being managed properly or not?
A background check of the sort that any federally run service organization requires would have helped out with the woman in Austin. But not with the woman in Oregon who had no prior crimes and worked for a reputable service organization.
What else can we do to protect ourselves?
Summertime : : IEP Time
Published July 14, 2009 @ 12:46AM PT
Yes, we interrupt this summertime of beach trips and bike rides and (in the US) Extended School Year" to talk about IEPs. Specifically, Charlie's IEP: While his IEP meeting back in May was cordial and efficient, things thereafter took an interesting turn. This morning, there is a district-requested IEP meeting regarding Charlie's education.
(And if I'm sounding vague here, it's intentional: I'm not the only parent curious about whether her child's school district and others read her blog.) (Hello school district, if you are reading.)
So I spent some of a sunshiney Monday in July reviewing the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act . Many of you are more than familiar with the Wrightslaw website and publications, as well as sites like AboutAutismLaw and COPAA, the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates. COPAA holds that "the key to effective educational programs for children with disabilities is collaboration -as equals- by parents and educators." I always remind myself, no matter how many IEP meetings we've been through, how many books and studies we've read, how many conferences and lectures we've attended, how many parents we've been in touch with about; no matter how set in my memory acronyms like "FAPE and "LRE" have become, I still need to refresh my knowledge. Being an equal part of our son's education means that we have to be, as we are, actively and thoroughly involved in his learning.
In light of this, I've been reflecting on a statement from a July 12th article in the Denver Post about special education in Colorado, which "ranks 51st in a field that includes the District of Columbia for its contribution to special education." The Special Education Program at the Legal Center for People With Disabilities and Older People found that, in the Aurora Public School District,
.....staffers [were] doing what they thought was right — as far as they knew [my emphasis].
How often is it that special education teachers and staff honestly think they are doing the right thing, but they really aren't according to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act?
The Denver Post notes the rise in students with disabilities in general and with autism in particular in Colorado schools, as well as the fact that funding to school districts has not risen to match the needs of students. The recent report on restraint and aversives in public schools in the US is noted. Colorado does have rules restricting the use of restraints (it is one of seven states that do) but does not have such regulations for the use of seclusion and isolation. Do teachers know this? Are strategies devised and approved by parents so that, if (and when) a student with disabilities might become very upset, teachers and staff know in advance what is legal and safe to do?
It's a challenge enough, it seems, for teachers and staff to be able to adequately communicate about what is going on in the classroom. But how many conflicts, how much confusion, could be avoided with better adherence too and knowledge of the law by school districts?
It's only because of a law---IDEA---that my son and many children are able to be in school at all, and are able to get the education they need in order to lead the full, productive, good lives that is their civil right. And because of the ongoing issue of communication for Charlie and individuals like him, and the constant potential for miscommunication and of his rights and safety not being respected, invoke IDEA we must, year in and year out. Education takes no vacation.
Monday Autism News Potpourri
Published July 13, 2009 @ 09:49AM PT
Updates:
1. Fight Club
In bad news for the residents, the actual fight club videos are currently not being allowed as evidence in the trial. This decision is currently under appeal. The defense is asserting that the cell phone with the videos was stolen and illegally accessed by police; the prosecution is asserting that the cell phone was in fact abandoned in a public place (the story as it originally broke btw makes this assertion). The trial will continue regardless of the outcome of the cell phone appeal, however the video is, obviously, a very strong piece of evidence for the defense.
2. Psycho Donuts
On July 25 - 26, a representative each from Psycho Donuts and a mental health organization will discuss the issue of stigma on TV. Some of the donuts are described in the post, and yeah, they are pretty offensive,
"Should my friend, who suffered major head trauma after a drunken driver hit him two weeks ago, enjoy the doughnut M.H.T., for massive head trauma - a doughnut with an X for each eye, a frown and a smudge of red frosting on the side of the frosted face?" writes Stapleton [a staff writer for Palm Beach Post]. "I am not laughing."
Um. Yeah. Me neither.
Broadcast details: Channel 2 KTVU Saturday July 25 at 6:30 a.m.; KICU TV36 on Sunday July 26 at 9 a.m.; Comcast on Demand the week after July 26.
Actions:
1. Matthew Shepard Act
Very soon, as early as this Wednesday, July 15, the Senate will vote on the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act. This act has already passed in the House. Now is the time to get loud and get personal--call or fax your Senators and urge them to support this very important piece of public health and safety legislation.
2. Judge Sotomayor
For anyone who is in a position to do so and is so inclined, a letter of support of Sotomayor to be signed by disability organizations is available. If interested, here is more information and the text of the letter with some signatures.
Safety and the Abuse of Trust
Published July 11, 2009 @ 04:42PM PT
Safety---along with sensory processing and communication---was the third of "the top three areas people [on the autism spectrum who are now adults] wished they'd received help with as children" noted by parent and professional Chantal Sicile-Kira in her book Autism Life Skills: From Communication to Safety to Self-Esteem and More---10 Essential Abilities Every Child Needs and Deserves to Learn. A news story from the July 10th Peninsula Clarion reminds me of why safety may be the third area mentioned, but it's as important as the other two.
The Peninsula Clarion reports that a former church youth leader, 47-year-old Richard J. Wagner, has been sentenced to 13 years with 8 years suspended, plus three months hard jail time for sexually abusing a 12-year-old boy between November 2007 and April 2008, and for possession of child pornography. The boy is on the autism spectrum.
As a person with autism, the boy "longed for a friend ... someone he could trust," said his mother in a statement to the court.
She said she and her husband would have preferred Wagner remain in jail for 10 years, at which time her son would have entered into adulthood.
Kenai Superior Court Judge Carl Bauman also stated that
"Where you had a position of authority in the church, this comes in the classic definition of hypocrite."
And all the more with a child "longing for a friend."
