To restrain him, parents would have sued and the teacher's job would be in jeopardy.

Call the police and let them deal with it.

What specifically leads you to prophecize what the child's parents would do?

Thinking is so much more convenient when we arrive at a conclusion without relevant evidence to support it. I commend your reading of tea-leaves and entrails... rationalism at its very finest.

And no one needs to go to work to get hit. It's fucking bullshit.

But arresting a 7-year-old child with a behavior disorder and hauling him off in handcuffs is not an appropriate solution.

Sorry. I don't see why this is so outrageous. Let the courts handle it.

did the school respond appropriately to his previous outbursts (this is the second time the police were called), so it is pretty clear that this was not out of the blue.

He is a child with a disability and the school is required to accommodate it - not ignore it (i.e. refuse to address it appropriately with an individualized plan) until it is outrageous enough that someone in charge decided to call the police.

It's like Trump taunting North Korea and then deciding to drop a nuclear bomb because their latest missile test was outrageous - and diplomacy is too much of a bother.

The kid needs intervention and meds. The school cannot provide. Let the courts and CPS handle it.

You are correct the child needs intervention - arresting a 7-year old child with a behavioral disability is not an appropriate intervention. The school is mandated (under federal and likely state law, as well) to provide him with an education that addresses his unique needs in the least restrictive setting possible.

That means starting at the beginning, planning an appropriate intervention/educational plan, implementing it, tweaking it (if necessary).

They don't just get to lob a nuclear missile at the kid and say he was too hard to deal with.

It obviously didn't work. Can we please quit pretending that the school just flew off the handle here? They didn't. They have tried other things. ITS NOT WORKING.

The kid has bigger issues than the school can provide. Now the courts can deal with it.

They view it as a vacation from school. Kids witg behavior problems at that age need to be given a set of clear expectations and short-term consequences. If that doesn't work, they need to go into special ed classrooms. School can force it if it's a matter of danger to other kids or teachers.

It is not the same as designing an appropriate accommodation for a disability, as they are obligated by law to do.

Untill I heard his stories I would never think calling the police would be appropriate.

My friend had a student that came to school to "rob some bitches" -- he was throwing girls down and feeling them up.

He was physically violent with teachers and his mother absolutely refused to come to school. The staff was literally out of things they could do.

My buddy knew (not sure how) the mother was a prostitute. The kid was repeating some really crazy stuff he saw or heard at home.

My friend is the nicest sweetest guy you could ever meet. The guy gets nothing but praise from his parents. I see post all the time on his Facebook page from parents of students he had 20 years ago thanking him for his positive influence,

This kid was a nightmare. He still talks about him

replicating the abusive behavior he sees at home? Children who are abused often repeat the cycle, males more frequently become abusers; females more frequently seek abusive partners. Hauling an elementary school child off in handcuffs doesn't have a chance to break that cycle.

I'd buy social services, but not the police. And, again, my question is whether the intervention started immediately - or if they waited until the problem was so severe that the options were far more limited.

I taught in one of roughest schools in our major metropolitan area for more than a decade - I'm not just talking off the top of my head.

Teachers in classrooms for emotionally disturbed kids are trained in restraint, and that's probably where this kid belonged. But it's more likely the school refused proper placement than the parents want their kid to hit a teacher.

paraprofessional if just one more child is added to the classroom for children with behavior problems.

I hope this family gets the help it needs, including appropriate diagnosis and IEP.

Because PLENTY will not allow their children to be placed in Special Education classes.

And on edit

Even if they didn't, kids have to be by law in some states, in a regular classroom for certain hours each day.

Yes, children have to be taught in the least restrictive environment, so long as they are not so disruptive as to significantly impair the education of other children.

I am not aware of any hours-based state or federal requirement for "mainstreaming." In fact it would be antithetical to the requirements that each school district address the unique needs of each disabled child

Do your own research

I'm pretty well versed in disability law - having been a public school teacher, having a child with a disability, and I am currently a lawyer.

I am not aware of any hours-based requirements and - as I said - creating such a requirement would be antithetical to the essence of disability law, which requires each person with a disability to be individually accommodated.

The law encourages it, but kids who can't be mainstreamed, aren't required to be. That's why there probably aren't any severely mentally handicapped kids in any classroom you are likely to see.

Some parents do refuse special ed, but special ed is expensive and more often the school doesn't want to pay. And for.low income parents, it's usually a disaster because they can't afford advocates to fight the school or pay for services on their own.

The kid was already suspended for ten days this year. The school knew they had a problem and did not address it.

Are you saying "why should there be a range of responses between accepting violence and cuffing a 7-year-old"?

That's assault.

Troubled children lashing out when they need help can look like a lot of things. Accepting the perspective of the carceral state prevents lots of people from getting the help they need, especially those in underserved populations.

for that kid in the future.

There are better methods to help kids with behavioral disabilities other than sending them into the criminal justice system. Can't schools better spend money on counselors and staff training instead of campus police in dealing with misbehavior?

Talk therapy is vastly over rated.

Medication and behavior modifications are far more effective. The courts can see that the kid gets it. The school cannot.

Schools are.

Behavior Improvement Plans are made by school psychologists or special ed teachers all the time.

Schools can, and do, effectively cope with children that have mental health and behavior difficulties. Parents don't, or are unable, to always do the right things to help their kids, but a good school will have systems in place to help, not only for the student, but the parent as well. Special ed teachers are well trained on handling difficult students, and schools here have many professionals resources available, like psychologists and physicians, and social services, to assist students and parents get the help, support and programs they need, before the police ever need to get involved.

It would not affect his future as a police record.

What the hell can the police do except make the situation worse?

Authoritarian bullshit, that's what this is.

Thanks to Republicans.

or he would not have hit her. You get better behavior with honey -- how about something like "sweetie, please don't play with your food & start a conversation with the child" rather than "come with me you are leaving the room."

I'm neither a teacher nor a parent, but I DO know that arresting a 7 year old is disgusting, no matter the reason.

n/t

WTF is going on?

had to read the article to even parse that sentence correctly!

Involuntarily.

i can see both sides on this one.

obviously any violence is unacceptable and some action needs to be taken.

but surely there's a middle ground somewhere...?

when he was 7 or 8 because he didn't believe the teacher knew anything about music.

Maybe if DJ Trump had been arrested at the time of the assault . . . . .

Jes' sayin'

WTF is up with that state?

Yeah lady, your precious brat couldn't ever be in trouble so it's much better to point the finger at the "disproportionate and outrageous response" instead of looking in the mirror, right?

Get an autism screening for him, if nothing else... He got suspended for two weeks in November for a tantrum (must have been one hell of a tantrum) so this is strike two.

she is absolutely right that arresting him was wrong.

if that teacher had no other resources to ensure her safety besides calling for the cops, then the whole system needs a check

No. Just no.

Arrest is not an appropriate response to a 7-year-old child with a behavioral disorder. Period.

Teachers do not have to accept student violence. BUT the solution, especially with a special needs child, does not involve arresting the child and hauling him away in handcuffs.

Start with behavioral specialists.

This was not the first time this child was behaving inappropriately. (This was almost certainly far more than the 2nd incident - since it was the second incident severe enough to call the police.)

After the first incident the school, the parents, whatever specialists are available (school-based, or community based) should have met to create a game plan. What do we do when this happens again. Does the classroom structure need to change (his behavioral disorder may be serious enough that he need to spend part or all of his day in a smaller/distraction free environment with a teacher who is trained in responding to behavior disorders). whether or not the classroom situation needs to change, an agreed upon response plan needs to be created (what works when he acts out at home? Is that a response a teacher can implement? Is any sort of physical restraint appropriate/helpful? Can a call mechanism be implemented to immediately summon help if the behavior disrupts the classroom or threatens others).

That's just a start and, again, it should have been initiated at the first instance - not the second time that it was severe enough to call the police.

so that he could be taken for psychiatric evaluation (Baker Act) - he was not arrested.
I would not want to transport a child who had already hit the teacher, without restraints - it was not a straight jacket. He could injure himself and others if he continued to act up in the vehicle.

What professional should transport a child who is injuring others? Who has authority to handle such situations? Should there be a special job established to respond to such situations in the future? What job currently exists to restrain a child who has already shown he will assault?

This country houses its mentally ill adults on the street. The children have some opportunities for help but this parent's response shows she is not taking responsibility. You better believe if that boy went home and told his mother that a teacher had restrained him in class, there would be hell to pay by the teacher.

Yes - there are big holes that society is loathe to pay for so the only tools available are used.

Note - childhood neurological diseases and disorders are on the rise with no prospect of declining.

You better believe if that boy went home and told his mother that a teacher had restrained him in class, there would be hell to pay by the teacher.

The parents are suing the school AND the police department. The psychiatric hospital examined him for a few hours and found nothing. Psychiatric hospitals only evaluate for immediate problems and hold people until they are relatively stable, they recommend you followup with a doctor but the hospitals don't make you do it.

So what should the school do next time? Call the FBI?

Childhood neurological diseases are NOT on the rise. Detection and classification has improved. The wierdo or idiot you knew back in elementary school probably had undiagnosed autism. Now we catch those kids and can help them.

The school needs to enter the 21st century.

are indeed on the rise, including cancers. I suggest you look into the work of Philip Landrigan MD, et. al. It is not all due to increased detection.

Assault is something that needs to be dealt with immediately. NO ONE - teachers or students should be subjected to assault. When a student who has already assaulted someone needs to be transported they need to be restrained for their protection as well as the others in the car.

This kid obviously has deep issues that need to be addressed before he can be placed back into a classroom with others. That calls for family cooperation as well as medical and mental health treatment.

The 21st century includes more challenges to the developing fetus with the most critical occurring in the first 90 days.

that appear to be rising. But the Dept. of Ed. requires that special ed categories be tracked. Prior to about 1990, autism was not tracked at all and there was no category for ADHD. After about 1990, ADHD was officially classified under Other Health Impairment (OHI). Look at the chart below with particular emphasis on changes since 2000 (where there is the most data). Total special ed cases barely changed, but as autism and OHI (i.e ADHD), went up, learning disabilities, intellectual disabilities and emotional disabilities all went down. But nobody seems to celebrate that we have so many fewer kids with those other problems. That's because they are still there, they just switched categories.

https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=64

way to measure societal effects but research has shown how certain exposures alter the brain during the first two years of life. Effects would include cancer of the brain, autism, ADD, ADHD, behavioral problems, and loss of IQ. it will be interesting to track special ed classes in Flint, Michigan. The question would be - will they alter their regular classes to accommodate the many kids injured by the lead in their water, in other words, will they be accurate in their assessments?
I tend to go with actual research and it shows problems our country that no one is willing to correct.

Believe it or not, many parents freak out at the idea of ASD, ADD, ADHD, or ODD and actively avoid those labels. Those labels usually come with help though.

My oldest daughter has ADHD, ASD, and SPD. She has had some tantrums at school ans she's always removed from the classroom and sent to the medical room. I would die a little inside if I knew she had become violent with a teacher or her EA. I don't think their piddly salary should include the benefit of of physical violence from a student.

The child needs a full evaluation and the parents need to get on board with whatever changes or strategies are involved. That's another piece of the puzzle. Often parents of kids with any of the above refuse to put the strategies into place given to them bvy behavioural interventionists.

and some here thinks that's OK?

the kid assaulted the teacher so how should he be transported? Put him in the backseat of a car where he could assault the driver? where he could injure himself, or cause an accident by disrupting the driver?
Maybe the Baker Act should not exist and the other students and teacher should just have to put up with being punched or whatever else kids want to do.

the outrage here is not that the kid was cuffed - it is that there is no clear way to deal with aggressive/dangerous children that will not result in lawsuits.

I wonder what the other kids were thinking when they saw the boy punching the teacher - were they scared? did they feel insecure? will they become afraid to go to school? are there some that think it would be Ok to do it themselves?

Not a criminal. Small children, especially those with developmental disabilities, do not have a lot of self control.

Were the other kids scared? No doubt. Is that a reason to haul a young child out in cuffs? No.

seems to require the child be transported to evaluation. A child who has already assaulted the teacher cannot be trusted to sit in the back seat of a car and not throw a tantrum that could result in injury to the child or others in the car.
So the kid is unrestrained, unbuckles his seatbelt, and he does injure himself or the driver or causes a car accident - now what?

Talk to FL families of dementia patients about it. I have.

Where were the trained adults in the school?

Forget it, I just cannot believe what I read on this site at times. Let's lock up 7 year olds!

a 7 year old. They restrained a 7 year old to be transported for evaluation, where they did the evaluation and then released him.
The problem may be the Baker Act but it sounds like this was handled the way the law says.
I do not fault the police for protecting the child and themselves. Since this involved transportation of the child, care had to be taken.

I will bet that there is not one employee in the school who is authorized to restrain an aggressive child who has assaulted, without facing a lawsuit. Maybe that should be fixed.

Child protective services needs to have their own version of the police, people who are willing to take on the hitting kicking screaming biting seven year olds, and worse sometimes, their parents.

I got hit a few times teaching, and it wasn't by little kids, it was by awful near-adult and adult-sized kids. I'm not so sure regular police involvement improves the outcomes of those sorts of altercations either.

This story reminds of a good decision by the Texas Supreme Court on the law of satire. The Texas supreme court got it right here. The Dallas Observer article was based on similar facts and I am glad that the Texas supreme court upheld the First Amendment http://www.myplainview.com/news/article/Texas-Supreme-Court-finds-for-Dallas-Observer-in-8939386.php