Parents Consider Legal Action After Autistic Girl, 8, Arrested at School


Sarah Netter
ABC News
Wednesday, January 14, 2008

The mother of an 8-year-old autistic girl who was arrested after a scuffle with her teachers said it was horrifying to watch her daughter be led away in handcuffs from her northern Idaho elementary school.

Police in Bonner County, Idaho, charged the girl, Evelyn Towry, with battery after the arrest Friday at Kootenai Elementary School.

Even though prosecutors dismissed the case Tuesday, the family is considering legal action against the school. They say their daughter was physically restrained to the point of causing bruises and is now tormented by memories of the incident.

Spring Towry said she got to the school Friday just in time to see 54-pound Evelyn — who was diagnosed at age 5 with Asperger’s Syndrome, a high functioning form of autism — being walked to a police car with two officers at her side.

Full story here.


http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=6640478&page=1

We mainstream ALL kids and it puts a strain on the teachers who are normally ill-prepared to deal with every possible type of malfunction affecting child development.

Most psychologists have to specialize in child development and often specialize even further in certain developmental issues. Yet we ask our teachers to take every child regardless of developmental delays, physical handicaps and emotional traumas and teach them enough to pass a grade level.

And then someone wants to sue the school board. If we are going to allow the government to oversee education, then we could at least require certain starndards be met and if they cannot be met, then that government better be willing to provide alternative leaning environments. It seems reasonable that all, learning environments should be created for the purpose of developing minds to their potential. It is unfortunate that some minds lack potential but it is not the purpose of an educational system to babysit the profoundly unteachable.

While the girl in the article is not one of the profoundly unteachable, she apparently has limitations and like so many others would benefit so much more from a program designed and staffed by educators who best understand these kids needs.

This school system sucks - it needs to be destroyed and rebuilt, but not at Federal government expense - it should be the function of the state.

If the Federal govenment is so interested in HIGHER EDUCATION, they should use their piddlin' little Pell Grant program to PREPARE kids for college, not provide funding for "remedial" college courses, not required for a major, but required becase the kids cannot pass high school level testing at the college level.

so sad