This story caught on tape a portion of what families have told me their children have experienced at school. It doesn't happen everywhere, but what this boy experienced does happen, and even worst for some children. Maybe we need to follow this dads direction and plant recorders to expose the bullying teachers.
Donna
Dad
plants bug on autistic son to confirm school mistreatment
By Leigh Remizowski, CNN
updated 7:36 PM EDT,
Wed April 25, 2012
Click here to hear the recording and watch the video. http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/25/us/new-jersey-autism-bullying/?hpt=us_c2
(CNN) -- A New Jersey man has launched a website to
publicize what he calls "a culture of bullying" by teachers in his
son's Cherry Hill classroom after sending the boy -- who has been diagnosed
with autism -- to school with a covert recording device.
Stuart Chaifetz said he placed
the recorder in the pocket of his 10-year-old son, Akian, in an attempt to find
out why staffers at Horace Mann Elementary School had reported that the boy had
been acting out and hitting his teachers.
What surfaced was more than six
hours of recordings of what he says are teachers and aides apparently talking
about alcohol and sex in front of the class, punctuated by yelling at his son
to "shut your mouth."
Chaifetz posted the recording
online Monday, which has since led to disciplinary actions, including the
removal of at least one teacher, school officials said.
At one point, an adult female
voice can be heard saying in the recording, "I had a bottle of wine with
my girlfriend last night." The second female voice asks if she spent the
morning "heaving."
"Oh my God, so bad,"
the first woman responds. "The wine won."
Chaifetz said he reached out to
school officials to report the alleged actions of the teacher and her aides.
"The school district was as
horrified as I was," he said.
In an online statement, Cherry
Hill Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Maureen Reusche said that the district
investigated the recordings and "responded swiftly and
appropriately."
"I want to assure our
parents that the individuals who are heard on the recording raising their
voices and inappropriately addressing children no longer work in the district
and have not since shortly after we received the copy of the recording,"
she said.
Chaifetz -- who said he didn't
think the disciplinary action went far enough -- posted a video on YouTube of
himself denouncing the incident, interspersed with the recordings. He also
launched a website called "No More Teacher/Bullies," with additional
audio clips of the incident.
He said his son can be heard
screaming and crying in the recording.
Chaifetz said an earlier meeting
with school officials about his son's behavior prompted the decision to place
the recording device in the boy's pocket. He wasn't getting answers as to why
Akian had been acting out, so he decided to bug the boy, he said.
It was unlike his son to
misbehave and hit his teachers, Chaifetz said, though he had difficulty getting
answers from Akian because he struggles with speaking.
"He wasn't able to come home
and say, 'Dad, they called me a name today.'"
Chaifetz says he wants an apology
from the teachers and claims one of them apparently has been transferred to a
local high school in the same district. CNN cannot independently confirm that
claim.
School officials said they would
not comment on personnel issues.
I observe every day that some adults who work around the disabled students feel free to trash-talk because many of the students are non-verbal. If only these adults could observe the impact their stupidity is having on their students! The unrelenting gossip and nastiness agitates the kids and when they melt-down, the loud-mouths are clueless. We need better vetting of adults who work with special needs children. Period. And maybe video cameras in every classroom.
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