Fears, More Fears and Too Many Mistakes
March 22, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Children who wander away and are not able to find their way home, and who cannot tell someone who they or their parents are. This is a fear of parents of autistic children: Last Wednesday, 13-year-old Celeste Robinson, who is autistic, was missing for some 13 hours from her home in East Texas, the Typer Morning Telegram reports. She was found the next morning about 400 yards from her house, curled up and crying.
And then this from Buffalo, New York: According to WIVB, back in November of last year, Discovery School teacher Charlene Harris claimed that she witnessed an aide sexually abused a 5-year-old autistic boy in a school bathroom. Harris reported what she had seen to the school principal and the aide was moved to another classroom in the district for two weeks—-after which the school district gave clearance for the aide to return to the classroom with the alleged victim. The aide remain in the classroom from early December until mid-February when:
the teacher realized nothing was being done..and called Child Protective Services..around February 23rd. CPS notified the child’s parents of the incident.
Buffalo police were only notified of the allegations at the end of February; after an investigation, they went to the school on March 7th and removed the aide. Ralph Hernandez, the head of the Buffalo Teacher’s Union, is now calling for the resignation of Superintendent James Williams over the handling of a sexual abuse allegation in the Buffalo School District. The district’s Human Resources director, Joy Trotter, was fired as a result of the case.
What is really bothering me about all of this is that the autistic child’s parents were only notified of the alleged abuse—which happened in November—-in February. Superintendent Williams is reported as saying “‘”Mistakes were made, but you don’t make a second mistake’”—-but it looks like there’s already been second, third, fourth, and many, many more mistakes.
…Superintendent Williams is reported as saying “‘”Mistakes were made, but you don’t make a second mistake’”—-…
You see, he wasn’t referring to the parents not being notified. He was referring to getting egg on his own face from having this blow up.
He’s saying that next time he’ll be more careful to cover things up better.
Joe
This is a parent’s worst nightmare. Sexual abuse should be punished to the full extent of the law!
I am grateful that I have a verbal child. However, abuse comes in all types, and variations. Scary business.
Years ago, an aide pushed our son against a garbage container…it was reported to me by another aide, and I requested that he be removed. He then left the system. He never returned to the system the following year.
When I was a little kid I thought things adults did seemed screwy because I was a little kid and when I grew up that it would all make sense.
Wrong.
Schools/school systems/school administrators covering their butts in these situations and offering serious sounding explanations of not-doing-the-right-thing is just wrong, but unfortunately it is something that I have gotten used to hearing about.
From WIVB:
Very troubling is that the parents of the child were not notified until 4 months after a teacher had reported the abuse.
I hope he is labeled as a sex offender and on the registry. So it seems that this aide was not aware that he was being observed. Just imagine if it was another student that noticed and then told. That aide would still be in the classroom to this day.