Posted on 11/28/2012 6:49:37 PM PST by Jack Hydrazine
OLYMPIA, Wash. – An Olympia mom wants to learn why her 10-year-old son was placed in a padded room at his elementary school last Friday.
Melissa Gum's son attends Garfield Elementary, where she acknowledges he's been to the principal's office before.
The school says he was sent to the principal's office Friday for being disruptive in class.
But Gum said he’s never been sent to a room the district refers to as "the quiet room," which is described as the size of an office with gym mats padding the walls.
It gets worse, according to Gum. She said the principal forgot about her son after the end of school and she was frantically trying to find him.
The school district said the room was set up a few years ago for students with special needs. But Gum said her son is a typical 10-year-old with no diagnosed behavioral or developmental issues.
The district said the boy was acting out, but other resource rooms were unavailable, so the principal opted to place him in the quiet room. They also said the boy was released two minutes after the bell rang at the end of the school day on Friday.
In related news...
‘Isolation box:’ Abuse or therapy for Longview school kids? (with video)
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/181195571.html
28NOV2012
LONGVIEW, Wash. — Longview Public Schools administrators call it an “isolation booth” and photos of it are creating a Facebook firestorm.
Some parents say they’re worried kids are being abused when they’re locked inside it at school.
The isolation booth has been at Mint Valley Elementary School for the past four years. That’s because the school hosts a special education program for disabled students with behavioral issues. The booth is used to calm down some of the students when they’re at risk of hurting themselves or others.
Just hours after they were posted, photos of the isolation booth were shared on Facebook about 100 times.
The pictures show that from the outside, the booth is located in a storage area and has two peepholes at different heights. Inside, students can sit on the floor of the small padded room, and the ceiling has air holes for ventilation.
The original Facebook poster, Ana Bate, a Longview mother, criticized its use as abusive, arguing children are locked in for crying or tapping on their desks.
Comments echoed by other Facebook posters like Darren Pirtle asked “seriously ... have the police been notified that this is being used??”
Marcy Brinkerhoff-Hogg wrote, “that is terrible and should NEVER be used regardless if the child is out of control or not.”
And Jena Raelyn Brown suggested, writing in all capital letters: “if a parent did that at home they would get put in jail!!!”
Bate, whose 10-year-old son is not in the special education program, told KATU News late Tuesday night that her son told her he saw several kids go in the box.
In one instance, a female aide came up behind a boy, picked him up off the floor and dropped him into the isolation box, she said. He landed on the floor and cried the entire time. In another instance a boy, who was placed inside the box for lifting up a desk, became violent while he was inside.
“My question for the school district is how is that therapeutic if not directly opposite from this supposed reinforcement they’d like everybody to believe it to be?” she said. “If they are being paid to lock people up, get extra education and work in mental health or psychiatric units, not with children that have minds that need to be explored, need to be expanded, that need to feel safe.”
But the district does not think it is abusive.
“People have their own opinions without having a lot of the information about it. I would not classify it as abusive,” said Sandy Catt, director of communications for Longview Public Schools.
Catt said the isolation booth is designed as therapy for children needing to calm down.
Of the 6,500 students in the Longview School District, only eight or nine are allowed to go inside, and that’s because the school has permission from their parents.
“It is concerning to us that there may not be a complete understanding of the situation,” Catt said.
She said some of the eight or nine kids voluntarily go inside the booth for a break from stimulation. She added when the door is locked a school staff member is outside, monitoring what happens.
Catt said the school district had never received a complaint about the isolation booth until Tuesday, and still, none of those complaints has come from parents whose students went inside.
And for those parents who object, their students would never be placed inside because the district requires parent permission. Bate told KATU News she questions parents who agree to let their kids go inside the box.
They just happened to have a padded room available did they?
The kid spent ONE HOUR in a small room with the door open, and his mother is ready to file suit because her bratty but “impressionable” boy was “traumatized.” Bet you there has been no dad in this picture for a good long while.
This could get interesting
I live near to that school.
That neighborhood is Moscow Center in the middle of a very liberal town.
These kids would become very violent, foul mouthed, and uncontrollable. My wife got kicked, hit and swore at constantly. The guy aid would put the violent kids in the padded cell, where they would scream and yell, and kick the door.
6 weeks of hell for my wife. They were all from single family situations - They all will become violent criminals and end up in jail. There is no hope for them.
How many will they kill, injure or violate(or vote for Obama)?
Probably now it's for some teacher or administrator's special needs (wink-wink). Too many low-life abusers in the system.
Cool Hand Luke placemarker.
One paddle board and permission to use it would straighten out the whole mess.
These kids aren’t stupidm they know teachers and principles arent allowed to hit themor touch them.
When i went to school the teacher would padle your butt, when you got home it got paddled again. NO ONE needed a padded room.
WA Ping
What are we coming to ...and when did schools start building "padded rooms"?
School lockdowns and padded rooms make schools sound more like prison all the time.
Who says sending your child to government school isn’t abuse?
would people at a private school put up with this? this is hate, these are children
I’d be lifting that principal by the throat off the ground. Fact.
No, they expel such students and send them back to public school.
Public schools are left with the ones the private schools and charter schools find too challenging.
Yep. A lot of folks (including some Freepers) think children are all just sweet little darling angels and never deserve a harsh word. Fact is, some of them need a good blistering or two.
THANK YOU !! Soon as Norm Day is over in California, they kick those little monsters out and send them back to us. Another batch comes right before standardized testing, to raise their scores (and lower ours, though I know that's not their intent.)
There is hope for them, the Lord Jesus Christ. He can change the most hardened, violent kid if they give their life to him. This is Nicky Cruz’s story:
There is a new kind of behavior disorder, the opposite of ADHD. The kid gets over stimulated, his brain overwhelmed. Instead of a break in the synapse that needs to be jumped by the impulse, there are too many impulses jumping the synapse at the same time. If there is a misdiagnosis and medication like ritalin is prescribed, the kid just flips out.
I think that I saw this happen with a kid in my son’s class. He wasn’t permitted to attend school full time because they said that he couldn’t handle it. One time in grade school, he flipped out, ran out side and climbed the BB backstop and the school had to call the fire company to come and get him down.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.