Education Law

Lack of Appropriate Interventions and Training Lead to Tragic Results

By Charles Fox

In the news today are two  stories that spotlight the need for better and more comprehensive services for students and training for staff. In one case a special education student with autism was shot 5 times and killed by the on-campus officer after the student stabbed him with a knife. The article does not present all of the facts of the case but it raises issues as to how well did the police officer understand the student: how he processed verbal directions, his motivations and his mind-set. There is no doubt a larger context to this story than the article reveals.

Would  better  police training  have resulted in a  different  non-lethal  outcome. The NAACP commented:

"'There are many dedicated law enforcement officials who serve selflessly every day but may need better training on how to handle confrontations safely,'the NAACP stated. "The unfortunate incident in South Carolina underscores the urgency of implementing national standards on the use of force, training and monitoring practices so that law enforcement officers do not cause the unnecessary loss of life.'"

For that matter if the student perhaps had a better transition plan he might have had a better understanding of how to interact with the police. I am speculating, since I have not seen his records but so many students' transition plans and IEPs do not address issues regarding proper conduct with police and fire personnel and other "community helpers."

A student in Texas with severe mental health needs stabbed and killed his special education teacher. The teacher had expressed concerns about the student's potential for violence. He was considered too ill for "reform school" and apparently had not received proper treatment while in juvenile detention for earlier problems:

"He was often placed in isolation while being held in a Texas Youth Commission facility and was sent to a state mental hospital. He was diagnosed schizophrenic and psychotic and transferred to the state's most acute mental health facility for juvenile offenders. Last July, the agency declared him too disturbed for reform school. The commission sent him home to his mother without parole or treatment plans, according to records the family released to the newspaper."

I have represented a few students who sound similar to this student. In these cases it took concerted and near heroic efforts by the parents to have the district recognize the severity of the students needs. I have been at a total loss why some school districts stubbornly refuse to acknowledge and address severe mental illness.

In an otherwise bleak round of news, is a NYT's story of a former criminal defense attorney, who worked for 20 years on death row, became a teacher in a tough school. He observed that "he saw learning disabilities ?in nearly every case? on death row." He is trying to work upstream in the system as it "' is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.'? With more teachers like him we could have fewer fatal tragedies.

When we will fail our students it is not a "mere academic" failure. It has real life consequences for the student and others. Transition plans and staff training are not technical issues to be covered in a proforma way in the last 2 minutes of an IEP meeting.  It is time we step back and thoughtfully look at all of this violence and address it with policies that are more reasoned than zero-tolerance. Lets start with putting effort and dollars into mental health, and raising awareness of warning signs that students are in trouble. Also lets recognize how many students who struggle with reading drop out and bear deep emotional scars that do not go away later in life.

Full post as published by Special Education Law Blog on October 19, 2009 (boomark / email).