4 Hours in a School Closet
June 7, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Last fall, 12-year-old Jonathan Hayden, who has autism, was locked in a school closet for 4 hours by a teacher. The details are at the June 6th WMCTV.com (Tennessee) and they are not pretty.
Two other cases that I have written about here come to mind: the timeout box used in Olympia, Washington, and the elevator closet used for a timeout in Long Island, New York.
This isn’t teaching—-not for autistic students; not for any students.
So the family in Utah with 6 autisitc kids gets their kids taken away by the state for an offhand comment regarding their house being so messy that they felt like burning it down and starting all over again, while we have a kid locked in a closet for 4 hours by a teacher and nothing happens
That is abuse, pure and simple. What is astonishing is that the teacher knew that the boy could tell his parents and still did it. I cringe to think about the classrooms without a verbal child or conscientious staff member. I come across this “if you don’t like it, go elsewhere” attitude all too often, especially in the education of the more “challenged” autistic population. That we should all be grateful to have anything provided for “these kids” since it wasn’t too long ago that they were stuck at home or in institutions. I don’t think we get outraged enough.
Time to get started getting outraged……
I can’t even comment coherently right now I’m so angry.