6th grader says he was forced to mow school lawn

Today’s discouraging news comes from Portland Oregon. Anita Kissée reports:

A local sixth-grader with special needs was pulled out of class and reportedly forced to mow the school lawn as a punishment.

Alice Ott Middle School student, 11-year-old Kyron Sloan, has ADD, Asperger’s and maybe a medical condition, which doctors are still trying to figure out, causing him to sleep.

Sloan’s mother, Kristi Sloan-Ceron, said her son’s counselor decided his punishment for falling asleep in class should be to mow the lawn. But the counselor never asked her first.

Read more on KOMO News.

As I have often cautioned, “Behavior Modification” is often misused in schools.  I’d love to have a conversation with the counselor as to what made her think this was reasonably calculated to be successful and why she thought it was appropriate – and ethical.

This is really unacceptable.

5-year-old with ADHD handcuffed, charged with battery on officer

All too often, I read something in the news that upsets me with all of my hats on – as a psychologist, a mother, and a disability rights advocate – like the item I posted earlier about using vinegar-soaked cotton balls in the mouths of autistic children or my coverage on this blog of the use of aversives and the  controversial Judge Rotenberg Center.  Other stories that are particularly upsetting to me are those involving the arrest of young children. I’ve posted some of those incidents in the past on this blog, and  in August, I read of another case where Toronto police handcuffed an autistic 9-year-old.  Then this week, I saw a news report from California by Dave Manoucheri of KCRA News involving a 5-year-old with ADHD that was very disturbing:

Earlier this year, a Stockton student was handcuffed with zip ties on his hands and feet, forced to go to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation and was charged with battery on a police officer. That student was 5 years old.

Michael Davis is diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or ADHD. His mother says it has led to fights at school. But when the school district said it had a plan to change Michael’s behavior, his mother says things went wrong.

“Michael is energetic,” Thelma Gray said. “He is one big ball of energy.”

Gray calls Michael a comedian. She says his biggest problem is his ADHD stops him from thinking before he acts or speaks.

“He’s very loving,” Gray said. “He’s a good kid and he’s not the discipline problem that he was made out to be.”

Those discipline problems include fights with other students, even throwing a chair.

Gray says the school, Rio Calaveras Elementary of Stockton, wanted to change that behavior by having Michael meet with a school police officer.

“He could come out and talk to Michael and the kids are normally scared straight,” said Gray, describing how she says the school district proposed the meeting.

But the meeting didn’t go as planned.

You can read more of the news story on KCRA. In this case, the U.S. Department of Education reportedly did investigate and the news station obtained the report under Freedom of Information. I’m not sure why the department released the report and didn’t invoke FERPA like the district did, but the news station summarizes the report:

The report states that the Stockton Unified School District “delayed an evaluation of the student {Michael} which denied the student a fair and public education.”

They added that the school didn’t offer behavioral services to Michael or his mother, because “it would cost the district money.”

The report goes on to say that, whether or not funds are available through state or federal grants, the school district had an obligation to have Michael evaluated, which it failed to do.

The comments under the news story are also upsetting as the lack of understanding expressed by some people reminds me of how much ignorance still exists about ADHD.

But commenters aside, this case represents a total failure on the part of the school district, the building administration, and the state.

What the heck were the school personnel thinking if they thought a 5 year-old with ADHD could be “scared straight?” That they would even consider this approach demonstrates to me that they do not understand ADHD at all.

Would you want these people educating your child? I wouldn’t. This child might have (or may have?) been seriously psychologically harmed by their inappropriate handling.

I have often noted that schools fail to use research-validated or best practices in handling students with neurological challenges.  This is a case in point.  Have the school personnel received adequate training in how to educate students with ADHD (or other neurological disorders, for that matter)?  Are budgetary concerns an excuse for mishandling a student?

I am not a lawyer, but I hope that the family sues the district.  And I hope that as part of any settlement, the district is required to undergo training in best practices for educating students with neurological disorders – and is audited for compliance with I.D.E.A.

In various places around this country, parents have banded together to call for a halt to handcuffing young children. If you have not been involved in such advocacy efforts, you might want to look into what goes on in your area or state lest this happen to your child.

My kids are safe because they are out of school.  Are your children safe?

Carousel image credit: © Richard Nelson | Dreamstime.com

Stop the Abuse! National Autism Association Says Vinegar-Soaked Cotton Balls In Disabled Students’ Mouths Underscores Need For ‘Aversives’ Ban

The following press release was issued by the National Autism Association in September. I encourage all parents and legislators to read it:

Monday night, in an effort to demonstrate inhumane practices known as “aversives” happening in special-ed classrooms across the county, school district officials in Texas were asked to insert vinegar-soaked cotton balls into their mouths. The request came from advocate and NAA board member Leslie Phillips following multiple reports from local parents who say their children attending Exley Elementary school in Katy were force-fed cotton balls soaked with vinegar as a form of discipline. “There were no takers to the request,” said Phillips.

According to parents, Exley students, some of whom are nonverbal, were sometimes forced to get on a classroom treadmill, ostensibly there for exercise breaks and forced to go faster or longer than they wanted. In addition, cotton balls saturated with vinegar were placed into their mouths to control behavior. Parents say they were told certain “procedures” had been used on their children without their knowledge or consent, and the district would address the issue. Exley Elementary School Principal Imelda Medrano used only vague references, saying, “a treadmill was used” and “vinegar was introduced.”

Parents Carol and Bill Rutar said they were dumbfounded to learn these strategies were not illegal. ”If I were to attempt to force an adult to do something like this, I would be arrested and charged with assault and battery. Further, if this happened to a student in a general education setting, there would be public outrage. It’s precisely the type of bullying behavior between students that is the focus of national attention and expressly prohibited,” said Carol Rutar.

Parents still await information from the investigation, conducted by the district’s own police department who has confirmed the matter has been handed over to the District Attorney.

Aversive interventions tantamount to child abuse are being used in many schools across the country. “Withholding food and water, lemon spray to the eyes, force feeding, sensory exploitation, shaving cream to the mouth, peppers to the mouth – these are just some of the assaults that have been used on schoolchildren as a failed means to control behavior,” says Lori McIlwain, executive director of NAA. “Positive behavioral interventions have been proven successful, there is no excuse for aversives in our schools.”

Phillips, who spoke with a Texas Education Agency official about the case, was told that while Texas is one of few states that regulates seclusion and restraint in public schools, “… there is no law that says aversive interventions are or are not legal in Texas.”

The advocate hopes school principals nationwide will take positive action. ”My message to principals is this: if aversive interventions are happening in your schools, you should act to stop it. Positive support training is needed, and law or no law, aversives are abusive and dehumanizing. They should be banned in your school.”

For more information, please visit nationalautism.org and autismsafety.org.

Contact:
Leslie Phillips (Katy, TX) 281-573-2793
Lori McIlwain (Cary, NC) 919-741-1646

SOURCE National Autism Association

Zero Tolerance Policies in Schools: Abject Failure

As a follow-up to a  blog entry on zero tolerance policies, I thought I would post the abstracts of some research and commentaries on the effectiveness (or lack thereof, to be more accurate) of such policies:

A Retrospective Study of School Safety Conditions in High Schools Using the Virginia Threat Assessment Guidelines Versus Alternative Approaches
Dewey Cornell, Peter Sheras, Anne Gregory, and Xitao Fan
School Psychology Quarterly 2009, Vol. 24, No. 2, 119–129

Threat assessment has been widely recommended as a violence prevention approach forschools, but there are few empirical studies of its use. This nonexperimental study of 280 Virginia public high schools compared 95 high schools using the Virginia threat assessment guidelines (Cornell & Sheras, 2006), 131 following other (i.e., locally developed) threatassessment procedures, and 54 not using a threat assessment approach. A survey of 9th grade students in each school obtained measures of student victimization, willingness to seek help for bullying and threats of violence, and perceptions of the school climate ascaring and supportive. Students in schools using the Virginia threat assessment guidelines reported less bullying, greater willingness to seek help, and more positive perceptions of the school climate than students in either of the other 2 groups of schools. In addition, schools using the Virginia guidelines had fewer long-term suspensions than schools using other threat assessment approaches. These group differences could not be attributed to school size, minority composition or socioeconomic status of the student body, neighborhood violent crime, or the extent of security measures in the schools. Implications for threat assessment practice and research are discussed.

In the Eyes of the Beholder: Urban Student Perceptions of Zero Tolerance Policy
Laura McNeal and Christopher Dunbar, Jr
Urban Education 2010; 45; 293

The law originally drafted by Congress focused on truly dangerous and criminal behavior by a student(s), such as gun possession, on school property. Whereas, zero tolerance policies are school district policies that require predetermined consequences for specific violations (Sughrue, 2003). The policies were designed to punish those who engaged in egregious acts that potentially put themselves and others at risk of harm or danger (Dunbar & Villarruel, 2002; Villaruel & Dunbar, 2006). However, many states, including Michigan, extended these laws to include weapons such as daggers, dirks, stilettos, knives with blades more than 3 inches, pocketknives opened by a mechanical device, iron bars, or brass knuckles (Advancement Project and Civil Rights Project, 2000; Dunbar & Villarruel, 2002). In addition, zero tolerance policies have been extended to include more types of punishable behavior that have ranged from possession of drugs that include Midol and Aspirin to possession of toy guns, insubordination, and disruption (Schwartz & Rieser, 2001). Although many of these items pose little or no threat to school safety, students throughout the country have been expelled for having one of these items in their possession (Dunbar & Villarruel, 2002, 2004; Henault, 2001; Sughrue, 2003; Villaruel & Dunbar, 2006).

[...]

Much has been written about children who have been adversely impacted by zero tolerance policy. Infractions ranging from possession of aspirin to possession of toy guns have led to school suspensions or expulsions of students (Dunbar & Villarruel, 2002, 2004; Henault, 2001; Sughrue, 2003; Villaruel & Dunbar, 2006). Yet there is paucity of literature on zero tolerance policy from the voices for whom the policy was designed to keep safe—that is, children who behave appropriately. A doctoral dissertation study titled “School-Wide Discipline in Urban High Schools” was conducted in an effort to provide insight on school staff and students’ perceptions of violence prevention strategies, including zero tolerance policies. In this study, the data revealed significant differences between security guards and urban students’ perceptions regarding zero tolerance policy in relation to fairness, impact on school safety, and overall utility (Thornburg, 2001). Hence, the findings in this study highlighted the need to conduct additional research on the impact and effectiveness of zero tolerance policy by soliciting the reactions and responses of urban school students. Therefore, the focus of this article is to provide a vehicle for the voices of inner-city students on their sense of safety in schools and the effectiveness of zero tolerance policy.

[...]

Zero tolerance policy was designed to promote students’ sense of safety, but as indicated by the findings in this study students still feel unsafe in their school environment more than 10 years after the policy’s initiation. Thus, it appears that in practice zero tolerance policy has not produced the substantive impact intended. The findings in this study illuminate the need for changes in the implementation of zero tolerance to transition it into a more robust policy that achieves its legislative intent.

Ten Years after Columbine: the tragedy of youth deepens
Henry A. Giroux
Policy Futures in Education
Volume 7 Number 3 2009

The city of Chicago, which has a large black student population, implemented a take-no-prisoners approach in its use of zero tolerance policies and the racially skewed consequences are visible in grim statistics which reveal that ‘every day, on average, more than 266 suspensions are doled out during the school year’. Moreover, the number of expulsions has ‘mushroomed from 32 in 1995 to 3000 in the school year 2003-2004’ [17], most affecting poor black youth.

Zero Tolerance Policies and the Public Schools: When Suspension Is No Longer Effective
Evenson, Amber; Justinger, Brooklyn; Pelischek, Elizabeth; Schulz, Sarah
Communique, v37 n5 p1, 6-7 Feb 2009

The emphasis in school discipline has shifted from a prevention and correction model to a reactive and punitive model in recent years. This major shift has occurred in response to fears among legislators and the public who are under the impression that school violence has increased. As a result, crisis response teams have been created and a zero tolerance approach to discipline has been adopted by many school districts. Zero tolerance can be defined as school-wide or district-wide policies that mandate typically harsh consequences or punishments such as suspensions and expulsions for a wide range of rule violations. The original intention of zero tolerance policies was to ensure appropriate consequences for serious and illegal behaviors. However, these policies have been implemented too broadly and too often for minor incidents, resulting in negative outcomes and demonstrating little benefit for students, schools, or the surrounding community. The current implementation practices of zero tolerance policies have led to indiscriminate suspensions for all infractions, which disproportionately affects minority students and those with disabilities. Therefore, school districts need to adopt a prevention/correction model to discipline instead of the current reactive/punitive model to remediate this troubling situation.

Denver Public Schools’ Restorative Justice Program: Suggested Changes for Enhancement and Expansion
Jenna Currin Whittington
University of Denver University College
Capstone Project
http://ectd.du.edu/source/uploads/21963248.pdf

A zero-tolerance discipline policy posits that removing the disruptive students from the classroom will improve the classroom environment and potentially discourage other students from such behavior (Skiba et al. 2008). Results show that the opposite is actually true in schools with zerotolerance policies. Those schools with higher suspension rates have a lower rating of acceptable school climate (Skiba et al. 2008). Many also have a less satisfactory school discipline structure and spend a large amount of time on disciplinary issues (Skiba et al. 2008). As Macready (2009) explains, an authority figure will enforce a punishment that is based on impersonal judgment of the action. Through this type of discipline system, students learn to be fearful of the consequences and no time is taken to create a learning experience or repair the harm done (Macready 2009; Suvall 2009).

While the zero-tolerance discipline policies are supposed to deter students from such misbehavior, studies show it increases the rate of future misbehavior among those students who have been suspended (Skiba et al. 2008).

Are zero tolerance policies effective in the schools? An evidentiary review and recommendations.
Skiba, Russell, Cecil R. Reynolds, Sandra Graham, Peter Sheras, Jane Close Conoley, and Enedina Garcia-Vazquez
American Psychologist 2008, 63, no. 9 (December): 852-862.

Article based on APA Task Force report from 2006 at http://www.jdaihelpdesk.org/Docs/Documents/1%20BINDER%20Tab%207%20Zero%20Tolerance.pdf

An important new resource on OCD in school

Parents and educators looking for information on Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and its impact on school functioning, do check out this new book by Dr. Gail B. Adams: Students with OCD: A Handbook for School Personnel.  Dr. Adams draws upon her decades of professional experience and provides a comprehensive yet down-to-earth presentation of this important topic.

For other resources on OCD, see the OCD Resources page of my companion blog, ChallengingKids.com

Next Page »