Okay I’m not defending the teacher here except for the child’s right to be recognized and have their needs tended to. This also isn’t about “good” and “bad” teachers, but the education system. This is anecdotal, so take it for what it’s worth.
My wife, S, is an intervention specialist which is a teacher in a special ed classroom. I think she is a very good teacher, and after years in a underfunded inner city school, she now works in a very large well funded elementary school in a nice area with very involved and stable parents, by and large.
She has a student, L who is non verbal, most of her kids are and she has the most difficult special-ed classroom in her school. She works on a team with two other intervention specialists, one of which, B, was L’s teacher for two years previous. L has a muscular disability.
It’s S’s first year at this school so she is just starting to know the kids. What she is discovering is that these “very low” non verbal children, have basically received no prior schooling on subjects. Their learning plans have each of them marked very low, with the most basic goals. And granted, behavior is usually an issue with these kids who can’t communicate. They can lash out suddenly and scratch or bite a teacher or aide, drawing blood more often than not. So behavior will eat up a ton of bandwidth for any teacher. It took my wife months to get her kids to sit with her and do any work whatsoever. But once they started to do work for her so she could test their ability, she discovers that they are all quite advanced in various areas, despite basically never being taught. Kids with educational goals of being able to count to 5 can do multiplication and division for 2 and 3 digit numbers, ahead of their grade; kids who seem to have no concept of reading or conceptual language can spell and construct sentences or answer questions about a story, if it is shown to them in a way that they will interact with.
Back to L, he is another case just like this. Very difficult to work with at first, refused to be taught, lashes out violently when he gets frustrated, but now that he is used to her he will sit and work and also demonstrates advanced ability in multiple subjects.
However the last to years his previous teacher and the head of their team, B, by all accounts from teacher and aides did nothing with him for 2 years. He was basically laid on a mat in a closet, and ignored, everyday for 2 years. My wife says that for the most part he gets around in her class pretty darn well, so even the assumption that he’s mostly immobile was wrong.
Special ed teachers spend most of their time some weeks filling out complicated ed plans that are a state requirement, but frankly no one ever checks or even seems to know how to fill these things out. Everyone is just winging it. Bureaucracy is a stand in for education and the needs of the child. Imo my wife is an exceptional teacher who has time and time again achieved breakthroughs with some of her most difficult students. The lead on her team, with over a decade of experience in this job couldn’t even see past their own assumptions about the child, and never stopped to question them, and so the poor kid was neglected, uninjured thank God, for 2 years.
So if a pretty good teacher at a good school can fuck up that badly, how dangerous would it be for a inexperienced or disengaged teacher? To me this isn’t a problem that comes down to individual teachers but of the American education system as a whole, and it’s priorities. Spoiler alert, politics matter more than children.
Interesting read. Thanks for sharing. If you don’t mind me asking, does your wife experience burnout and if so, what kinds of strategies do you all employ to manage that burnout?
For anyone wondering, this is what those staff ignored for two hours (WARNING: this may well trigger you, it sure as fuck ruined my day): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx4in4UpdWE
This video is 43 seconds long. You hear that sound out of a little kid’s leg, followed by the screaming for two hours, and don’t immediately call the ambulance, you’re not a reasonable adult. You’re an inhuman monster. Anyone saying “well maybe they thought he was just acting out” is ignoring the basic facts of the case so they can be contrary on the Internet.
So let me get this straight:
You think the staff heard something like this, and therefore knew that there was a severe injury, but just ignored it for some reason? Maybe they hated the child or something?
Even though they would most definitely get in deep trouble for ignoring what is actually a life threatening injury after anyone found out?
Dude, you don’t know people. Or you’re being contrarian just to be stubborn.
Think of everyone that drives past an accident that just happened, or people leaving elderly to suffer bedsores in care homes, or any number of cases of neglect that happen daily. Now couple that with someone who is maybe a difficult person to deal with and you bet your ass their problems are going to be last on the list to be concerned with. There are facilities that have poor care knowing they could be sued or face legal issues, but it happens anyway.
Perhaps I don’t. Though I think each of your examples has systemic reasons that make it unique from this situation.
It’s a school, so there’s no capitalist profit incentive unlike a nursing home. These are not bystanders, but people with a specific responsibility towards this child, and again, no profit incentive.
In this case, the child has parents that will be expecting their kid back from school in one piece at the end of the day. There is no way in hell they could realistically get away with knowingly ignoring such a severe injury. Broken femurs, again, can kill you due to internal bleeding. Not the death of some elderly nursing home patient, the death of a child (who has parents) under your care in a place where children do not die very often.
I don’t see it as very likely.
In my experience, which is we could say is anecdotal, in industries like education and care where there is often cost cutting involved is that they tend to lose the teacher or carers that actually care through burnout and realising they’re powerless to actually make a difference.
This means that the people that do stick it out don’t really care and are merely doing it to get paid and they will do the bare minimum to get paid.
I worked as a carer for a short period of time and it ruined me. Whilst the happiest people there were the ones that would take the patients out for days out that the carer wanted to do, not what the patient might find interesting. They mocked me for taking kids to bus museums because they loved buses, as they would just take them to the cinema to watch something they themselves wanted to watch.
People suck.
A school is a system, and it can suffer from it’s own systemic issues. I don’t think it’s a good argument to point out systemic issues as a problem yet ignore the fact that schools, private or otherwise, can have the same.
The severity of the injury is fairly irrelevant in respect ro the staff because your argument assumes they are knowledgable enough to know, or willing enough to care to think about it, or even avoiding thinking about the potential severity to psychologically distance themselves from responsibility for the injury or being “the rat” that points it out and gets everyone in trouble.
There are a lot of factors that play into this scenario.
Agreed, mostly. My issue is with the assumption that the staff knowingly neglected a severe injury, which is what the other commenter was trying to imply for some reason. There’s just no way that ends well for them, in our country where people will chew out teachers for even giving a bad grade. The only way this strikes me as possible is the staff severely underestimating the child’s condition after a “slip and fall”.
They did not knowingly ignore a severe injury. They did knowingly ignore a possible injury for a kid that (we don’t know the specifics) had a non-normal mental condition that could communicate by screaming a lot over everything. It’s a really big assumption you rely on stating they knew the severity. Some kids with ASD will freak out over transitions, hyper obsess over strong feeling like anger over an injury, big or small. I’ve been around some kids like this and you just don’t know what you’re going to get. Again, these people, on the little info we have, seem to have a problem with this kid. That really sets the stage for them to ignore the kid over some screaming.
The comment I was replying to said the following:
For anyone wondering, this is what those staff ignored for two hours (WARNING: this may well trigger you, it sure as fuck ruined my day): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx4in4UpdWE
This video is 43 seconds long. You hear that sound out of a little kid’s leg, followed by the screaming for two hours, and don’t immediately call the ambulance, you’re not a reasonable adult. You’re an inhuman monster. Anyone saying “well maybe they thought he was just acting out” is ignoring the basic facts of the case so they can be contrary on the Internet.
This implies staff knowingly ignored a severe injury, which is what I find unlikely and wanted to get straight.
If they innocently thought the kid was just acting out and it turns out he broke his femur — than the staff should all have their femurs broken as a learning exercise so they don’t make that mistake again.
This is sooooooo fucked up
Also a sobering reminder that this society may not be the best place to bring new children into. I would be beyond irate if that had been my child.
ಠ_ಠ
if this happened to my kids i would be writing a manifesto
Make sure you thank the feds in the opening statement so it’s entirely believable
We still riding this train where we think they got the wrong dude?
I’ve got a pen you’d be welcome to borrow.
this is Texas brand cruelty
real men thrive on pain
This isn’t as black and white as it seems. People have pointed out that kids with special needs are different, and sometimes letting them cry it out us appropriate. But others have correctly pointed out, it is only appropriate when you have extremely high confidence about the nature of the crying. What all this points to is improperly trained staff. And probably not enough staff. These types of kids need consistent staff who get to know them well enough to tell the difference between hurt and disregulated. And this overall is a super hard job. Burnout is going to be common. I have yet to see a school have enough budget to provide staff for kids like this and handle burnout. It is extremely expensive for sure. So while the staff deserve a share of the blame, mainly for taking a job they aren’t suited for, our not quitting when they were burned out… we can also understand that in this society, people have to work. So we can’t expect people to quit when they can no longer do the job. The responsibility for getting them out of there has to fall on the employer. And they clearly had no process or methodology for doing that. So a large part of the blame goes to the employer. But their hands are similarly tied as they have been required by law to do something they are not funded to do. So the greatest blame goes to the government that put all of them in an impossible position.
In a statement to KTRK, Fort Bend Independent School District said: “Staff members involved in this incident are no longer employed by the district. We remain committed to creating a safe and secure learning environment for every student.”
Obviously they failed at creating anything remotely ‘safe and secure’.
I mean a few simple rules should suffice, like “if a child falls and shatters their leg, staff should immediately call the parents and the ambulance”.
In any non-trivially sized organization there will be some people who are “bad”. You can’t expect any organization to perfectly filter them out since you don’t know what people will do in all situations. Even having “rules” doesn’t mean they will be followed.
The district fired them - which is the correct and appropriate thing to do.
While I agree with you in a general sense, the fact this occured in an educational setting with children would seem to indicate staff should have a hightened sense of compassion and the needs of the kids, and therefore wouldn’t sit around eating lunch and giggling while a child writhes and screams in pain on the floor for 2 hours.
Yes - I accept that. I’m saying the administration is not necessarily at fault here as you implied (I assume that is the “they” you were referencing since it was the school district statement you replied to). And especially since they did the Right Thing once this came to light.
staff should immediately call […] the ambulance
Won’t somebody think of the parents who will have to foot the bill? /s
me seeing the url: SWVA NOOOO
after clicking the link: i’m mostly wondering why on here the url someone shared is local SWVA coverage of something that happened in Texas
The rational response is to shatter the femurs of all the teachers who were present and then deny them care for 2 hours. Otherwise how will they learn?
ITT: DINKS who think they know how to parent children.
Oh no, cringe
people are making excuses for the teachers.
Ah
This is staff not knowing the individual kid, and their unique behaviors very well. So they just follow standard protocols. This one is called Planned Ignoring. It’s effective when someone is looking for a reaction from staff. But if you don’t know the kid well enough, you’ll miss the subtle and individual signs that something real is going on. Learning those signs can only come with experiance with this individual kid.
Planned ignoring is used for problematic behavior. If a child cries, the first thing you have to assess is if they are hurt. Crying when you are hurt is NOT problematic behavior.
Ignoring a crying child without a simple health check that would have found a broken bone is willfully negligent at best and definitely not standard protocol.
While I agree, we also don’t know the history with this kid. It’s POSSIBLE that rolling on the floor screaming is a daily occurrence with him. We don’t actually know how severe his autism is.
That’s complete horseshit. Staff would have absolutely known he was nonverbal. The kid was crying for two hours. There’s nothing fucking subtle about any of this.
I have a non verbal child. There is no fucking protocol that says to leave a kid on the ground for two hours crying. What are you smoking?
This may be a suprise to a parent of a single non-verbal child. They aren’t all the same. Each has their own personality, behaviors, and subtle ways of communicating. Knowing they’re non-verbal tells you almost nothing about who they are. Some autistic kids will absolutely cry for hours over seemingly minor things. Giving them the time to get themselves under controll again is the appropriate thing to do, for those kids.
What is your reference point? Do you have multiple non verbal autistic children or are you referring to online articles?
I’m around many autistic kids just through association and am fully aware that not every autistic kid is the same. Kind of an asinine assumption you’ve made there.
Are you suggesting that this kid possibly lies down and cries in pain for two hours often enough for staff to ignore the child? I find that interesting considering that when the school called the parents they asked whether an ambulance should be called.
I spent a decade as direct care staff, working with -I don’t even know how many kids. At least a couple hundred.
And yes kids do that. It takes time with a specific kid to recognize the difference between them having a tantrum, a meltdown, or a legitimate emergency.
Having a non verbal child does not make you an expert in protocols.
Here’s actually an article on how it may not be an effective strategy for autistic children:
https://learnplaythrive.com/rethinking-planned-ignoring-for-kids-on-the-spectrum/
First off, fuck you. I never said I was an expert. What I do possess is knowledge based through my own experiences with ABA therapy and programs through public schools. I also regularly speak with my son’s speech therapist, his behavioral health service therapists, his teachers at public schools and the fact that I’m around kids with all kinds of autism just by association. There are countless others.
Thank you for minimizing my comment by sharing some “web links”. I appreciate that you are an expert at web surfing.
Your sources say absolutely nothing about a child lying down crying for two hours and leaving them there.
Sorry if I hit a nerve.
There is no fucking protocol that says
Sounds an awful lot like expertise of every protocol in every school to me. It’s not easy to know for sure that some random school in Virginia absolutely does not have any sort of planned ignoring protocol.
Yes, the articles deal with the abstract, they do not specifically lay out every instance of how planned ignoring actually plays out, or exactly how one should draw a line between planned ignoring and genuine neglect in a case like this.
There is no protocol that says to leave a child, nonverbal or otherwise, crying in pain for two hours. The length of time is extremely important context and takes it from “ooh what do I do” which is maybe the first fifteen minutes tops, to criminal neglect.
Sorry if I hit a nerve
Yeah you only implied this person doesn’t know how to take care of their own kids and that your armchair Internet experience is at least as valid as their lived experience 🙄
No, I did not imply this person does not know how to take care of their own child. I implied this person has no idea of what this specific school tells its staff regarding standard procedure, which I still stand by.
Sorry if I hit a nerve.
There is no fucking protocol that says Sounds an awful lot like expertise of every protocol in every school to me. It’s not easy to know for sure that some random school in Virginia absolutely does not have any sort of planned ignoring protocol.
It blows my mind that you do not see how saying “expertise in every protocol in every school” strongly implies that this knowledge is necessary to voice an informed opinion on the matter. I don’t need to know every protocol in existence everywhere to know you don’t leave a kid to cry on the floor for two hours. It’s the same as how I don’t have a pilot’s license, but if I see a plane in a tree, I know that someone fucked up. There is no defending this and I really don’t understand why you’re trying to.
The teachers were fired. They obviously broke protocol. Can’t just fire teachers without cause.
It sounds like you have no experience dealing with autistic kids or the multiple resources and staff you deal with regarding it. You keep referring to online articles as if they are related to school protocols for some reason. I don’t know why you do this, but here we are.
Well, I think it’s fairly obvious this passed the line between protocol and neglect, it’s also horrible optics for that specific school.
You’re right that I do not have an autistic child, but arguing using sources instead of personal anecdote is pretty common, and generally a good thing, not a bad thing.
I apologize for being short with you. I see these types of mistreatment towards kids on the spectrum often enough and it never stops triggering. When people send me online resource links to “educate” me as if I haven’t read hundreds of articles and resources already, it makes me a bit crabby.
did you just say someone who has a child with autism…doesn’t know their child? you ok?
If you know one child with autism, you know one child with autism. Like all individuals, they are incredibly varied and the range of things they will do to gain or avoid attention is vast.
Okay. Find me a human being who won’t scream for hours when you snap their femur.
The femur is the thickest and largest bone in the body. When it snaps, everyone around you knows. Every breath a scream.
Now, please defend ignoring a child screaming at the top of their lungs with every breath for two hours by saying something more about personalities and wanting attention.
I visit classrooms where children frequently scream with every breath for long periods of time. I also see children who plop to the floor many many times per day without “shattering a femur”. We don’t know if these behaviors were common for this child. We don’t know if the staff knew the child well enough to know if these were common behaviors for him. There is more to this story than the article presents and the use of the word shattered feels like clickbait language to me.
ETA- Special ed is almost always understaffed. In Texas right now we have a governor who is attacking public education by withholding funding in an attempt to get his school voucher bill passed. We are seeing a big increase in students with high needs at a time when everyone is underfunded. It’s creating an incredibly stressful environment and we are losing teachers and paraprofessionals daily. We have many classes being run on a shoestring staff with substitute help when we can get it. It sucks. It sucks to see your co-workers emotionally and physically abused. It sucks to see great teachers leave because they can’t take it anymore. It sucks to see kids who need more and to know that their chance of getting a trained qualified special ed teacher this year is slim. It sucks every single fucking day.
No, I did not say that.
You came damn close to it at least.
Having a non verbal child does not make you an expert in protocols.
No, not really. This persons expertise in autism, their child, etc has no bearing whatsoever in how that one specific school treats its students. These are two completely separate topics, and that person’s child has zero bearing on the discussion, since they are not a student at the Virginia school.
please never work in the school system.
The school district fired them immediately. So they were paraprofessionals is my guess. I don’t know if ignorance is really the explanation though, this was in a classroom, unless they were all subing I don’t know how they’d not know the kid in the middle of the school year.
I can’t tell you the number of children i see who lie on the floor crying without a broken leg. These students can be very very difficult and their school plan is usually ignore the negative behaviors and feed the appropriate behaviors. People think autism is the quirky introvert and don’t understand the range of it. Not defending staff - they should have checked on him - but they were likely paras who were doing what they were trained to do. Also, who ‘shatters’ their femur from a fall? Something’s not right with this article.
So you literally defend the staff for not checking on him by saying that ignoring a child wailing in agony for 2 hrs and 15 minutes is the normal process for autism in schools, then you defend them some more by saying “somethings not right” that someone broke a bone from a fall?
Fuck entirely off.
That’s why you should always nudge the child a couple times with your foot to see if anything changes (pitch or volume of screaming, more or less tears, an extra joint in a limb where it didn’t have one before).
/s
