School personnel always say to parents "why don't you trust us !" Well a prime example of why parents do not trust schools occurred in Baltimore, when a child with special needs eloped from school and went missing for days. The school did not even have the sense or the decency to call the parents. The parents had requested an aide to be with child because of prior elopement episodes, but were refused.
Will the school personnel be brought up on charges of child endangerment ? Not likely in my direct experience with a case I handled several years ago, where a client-child eloped from school and nearly died in a nearby river. The local State's attorney and Attorney General did not have the backbone to take a stand against school personnel. Until school personnel are made to understand that they have real and meaningful responsibility for student's safety, not to mention an appropriate education, callous and even cruel disregard of parents and students will continue without any real consequence.
What will it take for schools to realize the extent of their responsibility? It will take the parents bringing lawsuits against school systems and refusing to settle them. Parents must insist on taking the case to court, so that schools can't insist on any kind of confidentiality agreement. It will take the parents speaking out to the media, over and over.
Our children will be safer when the school systems have enough money to adequately train and adequately compensate one on one aides for kids with disabilities. Special ed. bus drivers and bus monitor/aides must also be trained and paid properly. All of these people receive among the lowest payscales (and least training?) of all school personnel.
Posted by: Sue Keller | April 14, 2007 at 11:28 AM
I agree with all that is said. It's a tough situation when schools have so much responsibility placed upon them, taking children's lives into their hands. Many times, schools and special education teams have many things stacked against them and with all that they do, public education funds are limited. Aids and other classified staff are underpaid, overworked and carry much more responsibility than they probably realize until something like this tragic event happens. It requires proper hiring and training of dedicated and caring staff to ensure that students needs are put before ANYTHING else and many of these staff members don't realize their importance. I wish they received more education and training to work with kids, especially when working with students with disabilities.
Posted by: Lacey Diekmann | May 02, 2007 at 08:11 PM
My 13 yr old son was allegedly sexually assualted by 2 boys. when the licensed childcare provider, been allowing him to leave her facility. She was never charged with child endangerment or neglect. Who will fight for our children.
Posted by: Leila Johnson | May 09, 2007 at 09:33 PM
Our daughter was placed behind a locked classroom door with the window covered!! We were denied access unless we gave 24 hours notice. We found a medical student in the classroom (alone) with her and found out that evaluations and examinations were done on these disabled (all nonverbal, immobile) children without parental knowledge or consent. Sick!! Currently in litigation.
Posted by: J. Horen | July 07, 2007 at 07:57 AM
What will it take for schools to realize the extent of their responsibility? It will take the parents bringing lawsuits against school systems and refusing to settle them. Parents must insist on taking the case to court, so that schools can't insist on any kind of confidentiality agreement. It will take the parents speaking out to the media, over and over.
Sadly, this is true. When our young daughter was abused by a teacher at Cupertino Union School District, she was failed by the district, the school board, CPS (who have no jurisdiction over public school teachers in CA,) and the police (they told us they usually don't prosecute teachers for physical abuse unless the injuries are at the level of broken bones because they "believe the board and district will sort it out." Hah!) So we were left with a lawsuit. The administrators don't pay for their own legal defense (we tax-payers take care of that for them,) and we wouldn't accept a confidentiality clause, so they fought the case all the way through trial, where they inevitably lost. Their defense, such as it was, careened between denying objective facts to efforts to trivialize the damages to confused lying to repugnant attempts to blame the victim and her family. The jurors found the defendants to be callous, arrogant, and blatantly dishonest. Most of the worst offenders resigned (with their pensions intact, of course) and the district was placed under judicial oversight for two years, so we feel somewhat successful in making at least a little dent in an unhealthy culture. Unfortunately, lawsuits are the only way to provide some measure of accountability for callous and recalcitrant school districts. Parents who go through the process make the world a little safer for all of our children. It's just unfortunate that we, as tax payers, have to pay for the defense of people who hurt our children and have to subsidize their lawyers' efforts to defend and thereby promote an abusive culture.
Ed. I applaud your courage and tenancity.
Posted by: Ann Gaydos | June 01, 2008 at 08:45 AM