Teacher Arrested for Shoving Autistic Kid

http://www.houmatoday.com/article/2...1211&title=Assumption_Parish_teacher_arrested
:furious:

THIBODAUX -- Assumption Parish school officials have not decided whether a teacher, arrested for shoving an autistic student face first to the floor after he refused to change clothes for a gym class, will continue to work for them.
Jimmy Harrison Jr., a first-year teacher and coach at Pierre Part Elementary School, was charged with one count of simply battery last week in connection with the May 2 incident. The 11-year-old student Harrison allegedly shoved was not injured, police officials said.
"It was enough of a shove from behind to knock him down face first and cause him to hit his face and lose his glasses," Assumption Sheriff Mike Waguespack said, describing the incident, which was taped by school surveillance cameras.
Harrison, 29, 171 La. 1003, Belle Rose, has since bonded out of the Assumption Parish jail. His bond amount was not immediately available.
Assumption schools’ Superintendent Earl "Tibby" Martinez said Tuesday his office has not yet made a decision on Harrison’s job status.
"It was investigated by my staff after it was reported," Martinez said. "I can’t go into what came up. That would be going into personnel issues.
"Mr. Harrison is still working," Martinez added. "He and I talked yesterday and will talk in the near future."
Martinez declined to discuss the nature of their previous conversation.
Two teacher aides and five students witnessed the alleged May 2 incident, Martinez said. The superintendent added the special needs student was in a regular physical education class when the incident occurred. The school also offers an adaptive physical education class, though some special needs students participate in regular classes.
The investigation took three weeks, Waguespack said, because the child had to be interviewed at a child advocacy center in Thibodaux and witnesses had to be interviewed.
"We were a little slow to investigate because we had to work around students’ and teachers’ schedules," Waguespack said. "We wanted to make sure we covered all of our bases because this is such a sensitive situation

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I'm beginning to feel our little ones just aren't safe at school anymore!!

What is wrong with these teachers? Have they lost their mind?
(BTW-Where is Assumption?)

philamena said:

What is wrong with these teachers? Have they lost their mind?

(BTW-Where is Assumption?)

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Apparently they have philamena!!!! How do we trust our children at school anymore...It's very scary!
BTW...Assumption Parish is Thibodaux..

hey there czechmate!
Isn't it scary that at least 3 cases of teachers abusing students has come out in the past 2 days?

I've noticed there has been a lot of abuse and indignities hurled at kids with autism. This needs to be investigated and Stopped!

Personally I believe the chidren have been experiencing abuse for a long time.

Beyond Belief said:

Personally I believe the chidren have been experiencing abuse for a long time.

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Oh yes, you are right, but I'm getting the feeling some people are getting more blatant about it.

czechmate7 said:

http://www.houmatoday.com/article/2...1211&title=Assumption_Parish_teacher_arrested
:furious:


I'm beginning to feel our little ones just aren't safe at school anymore!!

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This isn't the norm.

Paladin, do you have facts to base your last statement on?

We don't know truly what the norm is, frankly.

Taximom said:

Paladin, do you have facts to base your last statement on?

We don't know truly what the norm is, frankly.

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No, it's called common sense.

Two or three kids get pushed down or humiliated in school, therefore none of our children our safe in school? Where is the logic behind that assessment?

The fact that this man got caught and that there were witnesses shows me that the system works. One bad apple just got caught and hopefully he'll be tossed.

As parents we tend to rationalize, mostly to save our peace of mind.

We are obligated by law, culture and parental duty to educate our kids. For the vast majority this means sending them off to school.

We rationalize that statistically our schools are safe, the teachers are competent and everything is okay. This is human nature and there is nothing wrong with it. The old adage "It won't happen here" helps assauge our guilt at exposing our children to the outside world.

However when events happen that shake our rationalizations, everything becomes questionable. Shootings at schools, pedophile teachers, bullying, drugs and abusive teachers. All of these make us doubt our decision and question our judgement.

All we can do is remain vigilent. Listen to your children and go with your gut feelings. If something seems wrong, ask the awkward questions and get the answers you need. Prayer helps too.

XcomSquaddie said:

As parents we tend to rationalize, mostly to save our peace of mind.

We are obligated by law, culture and parental duty to educate our kids. For the vast majority this means sending them off to school.

We rationalize that statistically our schools are safe, the teachers are competent and everything is okay. This is human nature and there is nothing wrong with it. The old adage "It won't happen here" helps assauge our guilt at exposing our children to the outside world.

However when events happen that shake our rationalizations, everything becomes questionable. Shootings at schools, pedophile teachers, bullying, drugs and abusive teachers. All of these make us doubt our decision and question our judgement.

All we can do is remain vigilent. Listen to your children and go with your gut feelings. If something seems wrong, ask the awkward questions and get the answers you need. Prayer helps too.

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:clap:Excellent post...

Paladin...the statement I made wasn't meant to be taken as literal as what you preceived... I understand these are isolated instances...But as Xcom so perfectly explained, when several events come to light in such a short time, your reationalization of everything you once considered "won't happen here" become questionable.."well, maybe it could happen here"....should we be completely naive to think this can't happen to our own kids? We have totally failed them if we do!! It is our responsiblity to make sure our kids are safe.

Paladin said:

No, it's called common sense.

Two or three kids get pushed down or humiliated in school, therefore none of our children our safe in school? Where is the logic behind that assessment?

The fact that this man got caught and that there were witnesses shows me that the system works. One bad apple just got caught and hopefully he'll be tossed.

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And that's wonderful that the system works when these folks get caught; but you have to wonder after the 1, 2, 3 that got caught....how many more don't get caught?? And where are they?

czechmate7 said:

But you have to wonder after the 1, 2, 3 that got caught....how many more don't get caught?? And where are they?

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Yep. How many indeed?

I think it's as under-reported as rape is. I think it happens more than we will ever know to all kids, special-needs or not. I'm not paranoid about it or keeping them out of school, but I will definitely keep my eyes and ears MORE open.

The media reports a story, it gets a lot of attention, they go looking for more stories in the same vein. That's why these things seem to happen in clusters.

The thing to always remember is that this is 3, out of what - a million school children? Probably more. There are bad schools, bad teachers, etc., and parents always should listen to their children. But I think most are very good, some are mediocre, some just work for the paycheck, and only a very few are bad. Just my experience, what I've seen with the wide range of teachers I've known or had experience with via my sisters children and other relatives.

2006 census - 299 million people, 24.6% under 18, 6.8% under 5. So a lot more than a million school children. 53 million school children.

Regardless of what's in the media, when we started talking here about these cases a lot of WS members had similar experiences. Maybe not as drastic, but the stories are there.

Paladin said:

No, it's called common sense.

Two or three kids get pushed down or humiliated in school, therefore none of our children our safe in school? Where is the logic behind that assessment?

The fact that this man got caught and that there were witnesses shows me that the system works. One bad apple just got caught and hopefully he'll be tossed.

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There are many parents that did not go to the news or their story just didnt make the news. Unfortunally this happens everyday in our schools.

And those stories are one out of many teachers the kid had that are good - most of those who have stories of bad teachers also have stories of wonderful teachers. Yes, there are problems - but I think it's important to keep perspective. In school, you have 12-13 teachers at the least (more actually for high school and junior high most places), when one of them is bad, it's bad - but it still means there were 11 or more good ones for that one bad one. And plenty of us have no such stories to tell.

Of course, none should be bad - but again, it's human beings running the schools - we can't expect perfection. All we can expect is that when there is a problem, it's worked on, and hopefully worked out.

Everyday in our schools, there's something a teacher does wrong - among the 53 million kids - I'd agree that's a certainty. But same goes for any other group - everyday, a parent does something wrong. Everyday a cop does something wrong. Everyday a priest does something wrong - everyday in any group large enough to mean anything, someone in that group fails. It's not a reason to decide that the whole group is bad, that schools are horrible, that natural parents shouldn't be allowed to raise kids, that the police are entirely corrupt and should never be trusted, that the Catholic church should be destroyed, etc.

There are bad teachers out there, and I'll be doing all I can to make sure that if and when my daughter gets one, I look at the whole story, and if it's a bad teacher, that I get my child out of there and work to get the bad teacher fired. But I feel there's sometimes a tendency to see 3 stories and decide that it applies to all, or to most, or even to many - when we're seeing 3 stories that come from 53 million children in the schools, across all of America. The Internet means that we hear the worst of everything that happens all around our country and the world - and I think that destroys perspective a little. We used to see our own town, community, school, and hear about what was local. Now we see our own town, community, school, hear about the good that happens locally, but hear about the bad from the entire world. And that feels like suddenly everything is awful, because you hear about the good only that is local and where you know someone, but about the bad from everywhere - but the reality is that we're getting a very unbalanced view.

Details said:

The media reports a story, it gets a lot of attention, they go looking for more stories in the same vein. That's why these things seem to happen in clusters.

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I disagree. These days any incident is capable of gaining international attention. If any one of these three incidents had happened, they would have generated the same outcry. It's not a cluster, it's simply that people have the means to report their own news.

With the internet, cellphones and other modern conveniences any incident in any of our lives can be broadcast internationally within minutes of it happening.

Right now, the people are generating the stories and the news media are following. Google the Alex Barton case. The vast majority of the hits are bloggers and forums. While it may have been a local case at first, there was no chance it would remain that.

What if next time the student has a cellphone in his pocket? The incident can be recorded, maybe even with video, and within minutes it could be broadcast on the 'Net.

How much effort does it take to email a clip to your local news? or CNN? or the BBC? With cut-n-paste links a five year old child could do it.

What about YouTube?

My point is this. These events have been happening. With today's technology they will be exposed more and more often.