Handle With Care has developed an Early Childhood Manual for Pre-school and Early Elementary School Children. If you are a HWC agency caring for this age-group, we are emailing all of our current school contacts a copy of this Manual for distribution.
If you have any comments or technical questions, contact us at (845) 255-4031 or [email protected]
In March 2011 Judge Richard Caputo (Adam C. v. Scranton School District, 2011 WL 996171 (M.D. PA 2011)), ruled that the Schools knew that fights were not at all uncommon, that “kids were always getting hurt” that “there were fights every day” and “police were frequently called to the school.”
The court also found that despite the frequency of fights, many of the staff were not trained in behavior management techniques or how to intervene in disputes.
Further the Court found that Plaintiff-student was involved in approximately twenty fights with other children. That in April 2005 Adam was involved in a series of verbal exchanges with another student who had a history of behavior problems. The verbal confrontation escalated to threats and ultimately physical blows. The other child punched Adam, and both students then exchanged blows.
Following the fight, Adam’s mother was called to pick him up. She noticed that one side of his face was swollen, and she took him to the emergency room. Adam suffered an aneurism, headaches, eye damage and a decrease in cognitive functioning as a result of this fight.
In a summary judgment order, the Court ruled/found as follows:
Thus Schools have a Duty to Train Staff In Breaking Up Fights and Defusing Student’s Aggression when the school is on notice that there are students at the school with aggression, emotional and behavioral issues.
A Harrisburg mother says educators didn’t PROTECT her son, who has Tourette’s syndrome.
The mother of a middle school student has filed a federal lawsuit against the Harrisburg School District, alleging that its educators failed to protect him from bullying and assaults by other students.
The complaint accuses the district of negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress by allowing other students to taunt, push and strike him.
The suit also accuses the district of disclosing the boy’s confidential personal information and education records to the general public without his consent.
Because the boy and his alleged tormenters are juveniles, The Register-Guard is not publishing their names.
Harrisburg Superintendent Brian Wolf declined comment on the suit, saying district officials do not discuss pending litigation publicly.
The suit alleges that classmates began bullying the boy in 2007, when he was a fourth-grader at Harrisburg Elementary School.
It says he was taunted with derogatory terms for homosexuals and offensive hand gestures. It says the district failed to address “escalating incidents” of such bullying over the years, creating a “hostile and toxic education environment” for the boy.
It alleges that other students hit, punched and spit on him; jumped on him, causing him to cut his head; and shoved him into a wall, breaking his thumb.
It says the boy repeatedly complained to teachers. It charges that at least one teacher responded by accusing him of lying. It says others admonished his alleged attackers, or punished both him and them with in-school suspensions. But the district failed to stop the other students’ actions, the suit alleges, and the boy stopped seeking teachers’ help.
The boy’s mother also complained to school officials and reported the broken thumb to the Linn County Sheriff’s Office, the suit charges, but the behavior still was “not addressed” at school.
After two months of “near-daily incidents of name-calling and harassment, all with the same anti-homosexual theme,” the boy in 2009 began begging to stay home from school, the suit says. His parents pulled him from school, it contends, after he began experiencing “diarrhea, stomach pains, anxiety, fear of adults, aggression toward his younger sisters, and general distrust of people.”
The harassment and physical attacks continued when the boy attended seventh grade at Harrisburg Middle School during the 2010-11 school year, the suit alleges. It charges that a teacher failed to intervene when another student grabbed and “dry humped” the boy in a locker room.
The suit says Oregon teachers and administrators are required to know federal laws prohibiting discrimination, including “student-on-student perceived gender discrimination.”
Yet, “as a result of the (Harrisburg) district’s unofficial policies, customs or practices,” the boy was “harassed, bullied, disciplined and punished by his fellow students” with behavior that was “condoned, tolerated and intentionally encouraged by the district,” the suit says.
Moral of the Story: There are consequences for failing to take action.
After a student reportedly attacked Michael Homitz’s daughter during lunch at Avon Grove High School, leaving her with a concussion, Homitz home-schooled his daughter and has publicly criticized school administrators for allegedly failing to protect her.
The Feb. 23 assault was recorded by a student in the lunchroom and posted on the Internet.
Recent child suicides with connections to both in-school and electronic tormenting and a growth in the scope and nature of bullying prompted the Daily Local News to take a closer look at the issue in Chester County.
After the fight, Homitz withdrew his daughter from school and began teaching her at home because he felt school officials could no longer ensure her safety.
“No child is safe in that school if they’re not going to do anything about it. I wouldn’t feel safe as a teacher.”
Homitz said he repeatedly reported the bullying to school administrators on multiple occasions and warned it would eventually become physical. He believes administrators failed to take action to prevent the Feb. 23 incident.
To add insult to injury, Homitz said that instead of being expelled the attacker reportedly received a 10-day suspension and then returned to school. “The school didn’t do anything about it. The same thing is happening here and every school across the country.”
The comments to this article are interesting.
The Omaha Public School district is recommending that McMillan Magnet Center teacher Patrick Kocsis be terminated.
Kocsis faces misdemeanor child neglect charges. He is accused of letting two boys “slap it out” to resolve their differences.
The 39-year-old teacher has been removed from the school pending an investigation into the case.
If the school board approves the administration’s recommendation, Kocsis could lose his job when the board meets on Sept. 7.
Police said the incident was caught on school surveillance. Both the students were also punished.
7th Circuit ruled that A special education teacher cannot sue her school district in Federal Court for injuries suffered while trying to block an autistic child from hitting her with a chair.
W.K. began second grade at White Eagle Elementary in 2005. Diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, the 7-year-old had a history of verbal outbursts and violent assaults and was determined to be eligible for special education services. In one month alone in 2007, teachers reported 34 outbursts and 36 physical outbursts. During this time, he averaged almost three “incidents” per day.
W.K.’s violent actions were so common at “teachers stopped documenting each such occurrence,” according to the court. “No one could be sure exactly when W.K. would have an outburst, or what would trigger it, creating a precarious environment for all who were around him.”
But his parents, wanting to keep W.K. enrolled in school with neighborhood friends, resisted recommendations to transfer the boy to a therapeutic day school.
Paula Jackson, the plaintiff, pushed for a transfer at multiple meetings during W.K.’s third- and fourth-grade years, and she unsuccessfully asked Principal Ronald Zeman to assign W.K. to a different support teacher. Despite the frequent outbursts and violence, White Eagle outlined an individualized educational plan that included giving W.K. a private “office” to work in at times during the day. Then in March 2008, while W.K. was in fourth grade, Principal Zeman asked Jackson to check on W.K. in the one-on-one office after the child had just calmed down from an outburst in which he threw objects around the room and at his teaching assistant. Jackson said she found W.K. in a rage. When W.K. swung a chair a Jackson, she struggled to protect herself, fell backward and hit her head and neck on the white board. The teacher was taken to the hospital while W.K. was suspended and transferred to an alternative school. Jackson filed suit, alleging that the district had violated her constitutional rights by knowingly placing her in danger. A federal judge dismissed the case, and the 7th Circuit affirmed on Thursday, finding that the school warded off a constitutional violation by taking so many meetings, evaluations and actions with regard to W.K. “As the unique facts of this case stand, although the defendants’ actions may well have been short-sighted, flawed, negligent, and tortious, they do not satisfy the standard for finding a constitutional violation,” Judge Ann Claire Williams wrote for the three-judge panel. “We do not lightly reach the conclusion that the defendants’ conduct does not shock the conscience.”
“Educational professionals who take on the extraordinary task of teaching children in public schools, including those who choose to teach children with disabilities, should not also be expected to endure frequent and unpredictable acts of violence,” Williams added. “We emphasize that at no time is it necessary for a student to inflict serious bodily harm on a teacher before a school is justified in deciding that a general education classroom is not the appropriate forum for a certain disabled student.”
Thus while the court held that the facts of the case at issue did not rise to the level of a constitutional tort, the Court did leave the door open for suit in State Court.
A report released today by the Council of State Governments Justice Center and the Public Research Institute of Texas A&M University, found that police not teachers were routinely put in charge of disciplining students.
Calling the findings disturbing, Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson and state Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whitmire said they intend to investigate solutions to the problem.
“The report tells us that more than 1 in 7 Texas middle and high school students have been involved with the juvenile justice system,” said Jefferson, who said he intends to convene a panel to study the findings.
“We should ask whether teachers and principals, rather than police officers and judges, are best suited to discipline kids who commit minor infractions.”
“I’ve also got to question why school police departments are handling a lot of these things like crimes, and why we’re not letting school officials take care of discipline,” Whitmire said. “If we want our kids to do better in school and reduce their involvement in the juvenile justice system, we in the Legislature need to continue looking into how teachers can be better supported and how the school discipline system can be improved.”
“We see so many kids getting removed from the classroom for disciplinary reasons, often repeatedly, demonstrating that we’re not getting the desired changes in behavior,” Thompson said.
The report, the first of its kind for Texas students, examined in-school suspensions, out-of-school suspensions and placement of students in specialty programs called the Disciplinary Alternative Education Program and the Juvenile Justice Alternative Education Program.
As to Senator Whitmire’s Question: Why Are School Police Departments Handling Petty Crimes, Not Teachers?
The Answer: is because legislative and agency policies have restricted teacher involvement and ability to maintain a structured environment to such an extent that the only option left to teachers is to call the police.
Schools are so afraid of advocates, lobbyists and bad press that teachers are opting out of maintaining a structured learning environment and are simply calling for law enforcement. This is bad for the teacher, the school and the student.
The Louisiana Developmental Disabilities Council, LaTEACH, and thousands of parents across Louisiana are very appreciative of Senator Jack Donahue’s efforts in championing Senate Bill 59 (Act 328 of 2011).
In July, 2011, Governor Jindal signed Act 328 to regulate the use of restraint and seclusion for students with disabilities in schools. Parents said their highest priority was for schools to notify them whenever their child is restrained or secluded. Many parents testified that they discovered their child was being restrained by someone speaking off the record out in the community or by walking into their child’s classroom or bus and realizing the common practice of strapping their child into a chair. Act 328 requires school systems to notify parents whenever their child is restrained or placed in seclusion.
In passing Act 328, Louisiana joins 28 other states with policies governing the use of restraint or seclusion in schools and provides Louisiana students with some of the same protections already afforded people in hospitals, nursing homes, community and group homes, mental health facilities, even prisons.
Next steps will involve the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) creating rules to align with provisions in Act 328. The bill requires the governing authority of each public elementary and secondary school to adopt written guidelines and procedures regarding the appropriate use of restrains and seclusion. These guidelines shall include:
Handle With Care provides training that meets Louisiana’s requirements on restraint and seclusion.
HWC provides training to schools across the country and Louisiana in behavior management, behavioral supports and least restrictive intervention training through our basic and “train-the-trainer” Instructor Certification Program.
See HWC’s schedule for training in Louisiana. We also provide on-site training.
For additional information about HWC training contact us at [email protected] or Joy at (845) 255-4031.
STEPHENSON v. CITY OF NEW YORK
Both teachers and school safety officers are being investigated for standing by and not lifting a finger to stop a bloody brawl in the Bronx.
The fight video, taken at Eximius Preparatory Academy, only lasts a minute. But for any parent who sees their child getting kicked, punched and bitten, the chaos that one minute video feels like a lifetime.
“After I seen the video, I was really destroyed,” the victim’s mother, Tjuana Thomas said. “How could they? I could understand if it was a one on one, but it’s like so many kids just pounding away.”
In the video, Thomas’ daughter is seen standing top on a school cafeteria table when another student leaps up and starts pounding on the 15-year-old sophomore.
They both fall to the floor, and that’s when four more girls jump in, kicking and punching.
“One of the boys at my school tried to pull me off of her,” the girl said. “He tried to stop the fight, but she still had my hair.”
Thomas did not want her daughter to be identified. The teen says she’s been bullied by a group of girls since she transferred to the school four months ago.
She says this fight started because she confronted another student who was bullying her by throwing water on her, and then she was surrounded by a group of girls.
“I got on the table because they were coming around me,” she said. “So they won’t hit me.”
One classmate came to her defense, only to catch the most vicious brunt of the beating. That girl tried to hide under a table, but she was savagely dragged out and kicked and punched in the face.
“I feel happy that she helped me,” Thomas’ daughter said. “But I feel bad that they all jumped on her.”
The controversy is heightened by the video, which shows two NYPD school safety officers walk into the room as the fight starts. But they are not seen at any time trying to break it up.
NYPD officials say school safety agents are supposed to intervene during fights and have the power to make arrests. They’re looking into why this may not have happened.
Three girls were arrested on misdemeanor assault, riot and disorderly conduct charges.
Thomas’ daughter was suspended for five days, but says she will not return to the school.
The Department of Education says that the students are being disciplined and that the matter is being investigated.
Thomas’ daughter says that she didn’t report the bullying because she was afraid.
NYC has a policy of not allowing school staff and teachers to intervene even though this is clearly countrary to the right to defend oneself and another. Lucky for the girl, the cafeteria staff saved the girl from further being beaten.
