JRC: Abusive Institution Hires Abusive People

Two men who worked at the Judge Rotenberg Center in MA have been charged with repeated abuse of one of their clients. Some graphic details follow. Notice how the suspects use "he was dangerous" to justify their abuse. From MassLive, my emphasis.

Police say video surveillance footage from the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center (JRC) shows two employees beating and spitting on one of the school's students, according to The Patriot Ledger.

Police arrested Mohamed Tarawally, 36, of Boston and Claude Guerrier, 24, of Brockton and charged them with multiple accounts of assault and battery on a disabled person. Tarawally also faces a dangerous weapon charge for repeatedly whipping the student with his belt.

The men are accused of attacking and threatening a student with disabilities at various times in October and November, the Ledger reported.

Authorities were alerted to the trouble at the facility after the company that monitors the center's surveillance footage tipped off JRC staff, who then called Randolph police.

Police said both men admitted to the assaults, saying they didn't intend to cause pain but were worried that the student, who has a tendency to lash out, could hurt them.

However, Randolph police wrote in their report that the footage does not seem to show the two men acting out of fear or self-defense, the Ledger reported.

The JRC, as a site, is dedicated to the use of pain to control the behavior of disabled children. It's notorious for deploying electric shocks. It should be shut down. Here's an essay by Shain Neumeier on the center.

How is this legal?" This is one of the first questions people ask when they hear about what happens at the Judge Rotenberg Center, a residential school for disabled children and adults just south of Boston. For decades, JRC has worked off a treatment model of reward and punishment — punishing its clients severely when they misbehave. In particular, JRC is the only program of any kind in the United States to use electric shock as a form of behavior modification.

This form of punishment is very different from electroconvulsive therapy, which is used to treat depression; it’s much more like the use of a shock collar in training a dog. JRC aides use two different types of remote control devices to shock students on their arms, legs and torso in response to dangerous or potentially dangerous behavior. The weaker of the two is 15 times more powerful than an actual dog training collar, and has been described as feeling like being attacked by a swarm of wasps. The devices have been known to cause first-degree burns and to occasionally malfunction, shocking someone other than the intended target or activating completely unintentionally.

The public first saw what JRC’s shock treatment looks like in 2012, when a video of it was released as part of a lawsuit against the facility. The video shows 18-year-old Andre McCollins, an autistic black man, screaming and begging as JRC staff shocked him repeatedly while he was in restraints. The first shock was punishment for refusing to take off his jacket when he came into the room. Every shock after that was for screaming and tensing up in response to being shocked.

There have been no peer-reviewed studies that show that this is an effective way of creating lasting behavioral change. Even JRC’s own research suggests that shock results in only temporary improvements in behavior more often than not, so “treatment may be required … on a long-term basis.”

Shut it down.

Minneapolis Hires Superintendent Who Oversaw Systematic Abuse of Disabled Children

Explosive new report of abuse from the Massachusetts Disability Law Center. UPDATE: You can see the whole report here.

1. The Cult of Compliance (from Boston Globe):

The investigation uncovered a school culture in which aggressive discipline of students had become ingrained, Eichner said. Many students suffered injuries, including scratches and bruises, and one student was given a hospital exam for a bump on the head...

One 67-pound student was restrained 50 times, including about a dozen times when the pupil was held prone on the floor, according to Eichner and the report. The child complained to a parent of being unable to breathe, and that some of the restraints had been painful, the center said.

“Prone restraints can lead to serious injuries or even death,” Eichner said. Some restraints lasted for longer than 20 minutes, the investigation found.

Children were thrown to the floor for not moving, pulled out of chairs for refusing to get up, tackled to the ground, and restrained for refusing to change into a uniform, investigators were told.

2. Accountability

It's unclear to me what's happened to the people who did these terrible things. The Superintendent has been fired. More on him in a second.

Update: The people at the DLC tell me that the principal was fired and some staff were reassigned. That's about it.

3. Intersectionality - Race and Disability

Eichner, of the Disability Law Center, said a combination of factors appears to have led to the abuse.
“Holyoke is an underserved district, obviously,” he said. “We think there wasn’t enough resources and not enough training, and this population is predominantly students of color. You combine that with students with emotional issues, and without adequate resources and training it becomes a power fight between the teachers and students.”

4. Welcome to Minneapolis!

The allegations surfaced during the tenure of former Holyoke superintendent Sergio Paez, who lost his job after Massachusetts education officials voted in April to place the district under state control.
On Monday, the Minneapolis school board voted to appoint Paez as that city’s next school superintendent. Members of the board did not respond to requests from the Globe to comment on whether the allegations would affect his hiring.

You can contact the Minneapolis School Board here.

UPDATE: Sergio Paez has denied all allegations. The School Board is investigating. Get involved!

More details from the full report (updated 3:30 CST 12/10)

5. A child locked in a closet!!

The most egregious seclusion reported was that on at least three occasions, a teacher put children in a locked closet and turned out the lights.When we interviewed the teacher in question about these incidents, she denied it, stating that another student had locked the door. However, her version is not supported by the record. When discussing this practice with the administration, we were told that the teacher is still employed at the school, but her job responsibilities have changed and she no longer has any direct contact with students.

Note - the teacher wasn't fired.

6. School to Prison Pipeline starts here

One teacher stated that "[a] lack of training and tools to address behaviors is hurting students." In Ms. Hirsch's letter she describes this negative culture and provides an example of public shaming of a student when a teacher asked the whole class to write down another students "bad behavior." We also heard that the school will routinely call the police to resolve issues when children are in crisis and in need of mental health supports. One teacher stated that he wanted to call the local mental health crisis
team but the administration called the police instead. This pattern perpetuates the cycle of children transitioning from a schoolhouse to jailhouse instead of receiving appropriate disability related services.