But this story out of Kentucky has me wondering what I would do if I were one of the parents of this poor child. (h/t to the folks at Color of Change for turning me on to this story.)
"A 9-year-old autistic boy who misbehaved at school was stuffed into a duffel bag and the drawstring pulled tight, according to his mother, who said she found him wiggling inside as a teacher’s aide stood by.
The mother of fourth-grader Christopher Baker said her son called out to her when she walked up to him in the bag Dec. 14. The case has spurred an online petition calling for the firing of school employees responsible.
“He was treated like trash and thrown in the hallway,” Chris’ mother, Sandra Baker, said Thursday. She did not know how exactly how long he had been in the bag, but probably not more than 20 minutes.
Mercer County schools Interim Superintendent Dennis Davis said confidentiality laws forbid him from commenting.
“The employees of the Mercer County Public Schools are qualified professionals who treat students with respect and dignity while providing a safe and nurturing learning environment,” Davis said in a statement.
State education officials said they were investigating.
Chris is a student at Mercer County Intermediate School in Harrodsburg in central Kentucky. The day had barely begun when his family was called to the school because Chris was acting up. He is enrolled in a program for students with special needs.
Walking toward his classroom, Baker’s mother saw the gym bag. There was a small hole at the top, she said, and she heard a familiar voice.
“Momma, is that you?” Chris said, according to his mother.
A teacher’s aide was there, and Baker demanded that her son be released. At first, the aide struggled to undo the drawstring, but the boy was pulled out of the bag, which had some small balls inside and resembled a green Army duffel bag, Baker said.
“When I got him out of the bag, his poor little eyes were as big as half dollars and he was sweating,” Baker said. “I tried to talk to him and get his side of the reason they put him in there, and he said it was because he wouldn’t do his work.”
Baker said when school officials called the family to pick him up, they were told he was “jumping off the walls.” Days later, at a meeting with school officials, Baker said she was told the boy had smirked at the teacher when he was told to put down a basketball, then threw it across the room.
At a meeting with school district officials, the bag was described as a “therapy bag,” Baker said, though she wasn’t clear exactly what that meant. She said her son would sometimes be asked to roll over a bag filled with balls as a form of therapy, but she didn’t know her son was being placed in the bag. She said school officials told her it was not the first time they had put him in the bag.
So far, almost 700 people have signed a petition on the website change.org. Lydia Brown, an autistic 18-year-old Georgetown University freshman from Boston, said she started it after reading a story about Chris.
“That would not be wrong just for an autistic student. That would be wrong to do to anyone,” Brown said.
Advocates for the autistic were outraged.
Landon Bryce of San Jose, Calif., a former teacher who blogs about issues related to autism, said the school’s treatment of Chris was “careless and disrespectful.”'[Source]
"Therapy Bag"? WTF? I know we are talking about Kentucky here, but at some point certain folks in A-merry-ca will have to join the rest of us in the 21st century.
The real scary part of this story is that school officials seemed to be aware of this practice. If true, some of these folks should pay with their jobs.
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