How Can Abuse of Special-Needs Students in School Be Prevented?

The media has been full of stories of children with special needs being abused in schools, by teachers, aides, or other students. Each story is more disturbing than the last, with distraught parents threatening lawsuits and criminal charges. How is it that a place parents trust, where they send their child in good faith, hoping to get them the help they need, can turn into a place of abuse and cruelty?

Mother Kills Self, Autistic Son, In Despair Over Debt, School Placement

What a terribly tragic story--our hearts go out to their family.


KENSINGTON, Md. -- Ben Barnhard finally had reason to be optimistic this summer: The 13-year-old shed more than 100 pounds at a rigorous weight-loss academy, a proud achievement for a boy who had endured classmates’ taunts about his obesity and who had sought solace in the quiet of his bedroom, with his pet black cat and the intricate origami designs he created.

But one month before school was to start for the special-needs teen, his mother, psychiatrist Margaret Jensvold, shot him in the head, then killed herself. Officers found their bodies on Aug. 2 in the bedrooms of their home in Kensington, Md., an upper-middle class Washington suburb. They also found a note.

“School — can’t deal with school system,” the letter began, Jensvold’s sister, Susan Slaughter, told The Associated Press.

And later: “Debt is bleeding me. Strangled by debt.”

Feds Cite D.C., Others for Special Ed Woes

For five years running, the District of Columbia has failed to uphold parts of the federal law that governs the education of students with disabilities, according to the federal Department of Education's ratings of the district and other states and territories.
In particular, the district can't seem to get a handle on evaluating and re-evaluating students identified as having disabilities, a problem that is more than a decade old.
(The findings about each state are delayed by a year, so the most recent ratings of whether states are upholding the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act reflect the 2009-10 school year.)

NYC May Be Paying for Special-Education Kindergartners' Tuition to Private Schools

NEW YORK, N.Y. -- The Department of Education missed a June 15 deadline to find spots for thousands of kindergartners with disabilities - and now the city could be liable for their tuition in private schools, officials acknowledged.
The holdup is also causing panic for families who are still waiting to hear where their kids are going to kindergarten next year.
"We're still in limbo," said Maria Farano of Staten Island, who still doesn't know where her daughter, who has autism, will attend kindergarten in the fall.

Son's Multiple Diagnoses Pose Challenges

Three years ago, Topeka resident Courtney Davis was completing Kansas Army National Guard basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., when she received a message from her husband, James, that their 7-year-old son Luke was in trouble at school.
Luke, who has autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, bipolar disorder and Tourette's syndrome, had been prescribed new medication. Davis said an adverse reaction to the drugs caused her son to experience a "psychotic break," during which he assaulted more than a dozen people at Shaner Elementary and ended up beating his body against a concrete wall at the school.
Through the assistance of the American Red Cross, Davis was on a bus within an hour and heading to Topeka to tend to her son, who had been expelled from the school.
"The teacher said she couldn't handle his fidgeting, noises, throwing things," Davis said, adding that she understood the teacher's frustrations. "She had 30 other students in the classroom and Luke. She had no paraprofessional."