I’m speaking from the view of a former special education teacher. In no way does my message here make any excuse for the violence that occurred. But I hope I can provide some context from personal experience on why it happened.
The school system that this parent depended on to provide FAPE, LRE and follow the IEP in place under the IDEA laws, failed her and her son.
The schools have been short staffed for years and haven’t had adequate interventions or supports in place to help kids with Autism who have aggressive outbursts. I’ve been attacked a few times and thankfully never needed medical attention but I understand the behaviors and why they occur.
These kids get pushed through the system and parents try to advocate and are promised that the IEP is being followed when in reality it isn’t able to be followed due to staffing shortages for the professionals and therapy methods it takes to help these aggressive kids learn replacement behaviors that help them function properly in society.
Another example of the school to prison pipeline, but now they are targeting youth with Autism. I don’t think this teen should get away without any consequences but instead of prison he needs to be in a full time residential program that will give him the support and therapy that the school system provides probably neglected.
I’m not blaming the teachers either, she experienced assault that almost took her life. It’s the superintendents and people within the district and department of education that sit back with their fancy $600K salaries while teachers make peanuts and stripped of their right to provide proper consequences or tools of intervention to prevent these kids from getting that violent.
This is sad for everyone involved. But not for the big wigs sitting behind their designer office desks, having catered meals everyday using our tax dollars that are supposed to go to staffing teachers and therapists for our public schools and instead it goes to paying the lease of the superintendents Mercedes Benz.
Follow the funding and you will see the truth! Now both a new teacher and young man with Autism are ruined from it.
One last thing, typically students with aggressive behaviors, they are assigned a para educator trained in behavioral strategies and physical restraints that won’t harm the student but stop them from hurting themselves or others. Looks like in the video there is no para or if there was then they were not doing their job.
But then again the school district will hire a para educator who texts in their phone all day instead of helping the student. In this case this kid needed a body guard. Or the teacher needed a body guard if she had teens in her class the size of linebackers with Autism and aggressive behaviors.
I’ll stop ranting now. This whole situation makes me sick. Thank you to X for fostering a platform where I can exercise my freedom of speech because if I had posted this on Meta, I’d be put in social media jail.