The Autism News

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The David B. Crabiel Aquatic and Fitness Center is on the 28-acre campus of the recently opened Center for Lifelong Learning in Sayreville.

Campus includes accessible playground, aquatic center

By Jennifer Booton | Suburban

SAYREVILLE — A newly opened school for children with autism may be one of the most energy-efficient schools in the country.

The Center for Lifelong Learning, an 89,000-square-foot special education school on Cheesequake Road, can serve up to 175 students, ages 3 to 21, from five counties. It was chartered through the Piscataway-based Middlesex Regional Educational Services Commission (MRESC), which has dedicated five schools over the past 13 years, according to Middlesex County Freeholder Director Stephen J. Dalina.

“This school will be a special place for students,” Dr. Patrick Piegari, executive superintendent of schools for Middlesex County, said during a recent grand-opening celebration. “Anything is possible.”

The facility, designed by USA Architects, is one of the first public school buildings in the state to be built according to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards, and could become the first to be certified LEED Platinum. This is due largely to its all-natural building materials and its use of green power.

About 94 percent of the materials used to build the facility are recyclable, and all the materials were purchased within a 500-mile radius, many of which were harvested specifically for the project, according to MRESC Superintendent Mark Finkelstein. There are also geothermal wells under the building that catch nearly 75 percent of the rainfall to be recycled and reused.

Finkelstein said the school may be ranked by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as one of the top energy-efficient schools in the country, although the applications for both the state and national rankings are still being processed.

The school opened for the 2009-10 school year with 136 students, but the number has shot up to 153 in the weeks since. Although the school targets students with autism, its 24 classrooms also serve children with related disorders including multiply disabled and preschool disabled. It offers specialized instruction based on the principles of applied behavior analysis and/or verbal behavior for students with autism or behaviors related to autism.

“With the right learning tools, we can help every child learn,” said Dale G. Caldwell, president of the MRESC board of directors. “The best learning comes from the small things.”

The center is split into four communi- ties, each of which includes a main meeting room, art and music class areas, and six classrooms. Each classroom has its own bathroom, sink and closet. The school also contains a media center; physical, occupational and speech therapy rooms; several specialized classrooms; an adaptive physical education gymnasium; an integral garden; a community center, and the David B. Crabiel Aquatic and Fitness Center.

“As you can see, it takes a village to raise a child,” Debra Nappi, principal of the Center for Lifelong Learning, said, referring to the school’s large staff. “Their level of dedication is incredible. What they do every day is amazing.”

“Our end is to give the best life and best future possible for all kids,” Nappi said. “We don’t look at what they can’t do, we look at what they can do. And all of us are up to the task.”

The school, which cost $28 million to construct and was funded through the Middlesex County Improvement Authority, also has a playground that is accessible for children with disabilities and open to community members. The Old Bridge-Sayreville Rotary Club provided $100,000 in funding for the playground.

The MRESC dedicated the school and the Aquatic and Fitness Center during the Oct. 23 ceremony. Representatives from the Sayreville Borough Council and Board of Education, county freeholders, state officials, MRESC members and staff from the center itself were on hand. Finkelstein served as master of ceremonies.

“This county would be better off if we had more people working for others rather than for themselves,” Caldwell said at the ceremony. “This [school] went right because people worked together for the common good.”

The Aquatic and Fitness Center, which includes an Olympic-size pool and a walkin pool, was named for the late Freeholder Director David B. Crabiel in honor of his “long-lasting support to the community and support for children of Middlesex County,” according to Finkelstein.

“It was the least we could do in his memory,” he said.

Representing the family at the ceremony was Crabiel’s daughter, Paulette Wahler.

“My father loved helping people and was especially proud of the county’s dedication to its residents,” she said.

Source: http://suburban.gmnews.com/news/2009/1105/schools/007.html

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The Autism News | English

By PAMELA COTANT | State Journal

Dan Habib envisions a day when including students with disabilities in traditional classrooms will be as ordinary as seeing rooms full of students of all races.

To that end, the award-winning filmmaker from New Hampshire is visiting schools to show “Including Samuel,” which documents the inclusion of his son, who has cerebral palsy, in the classroom and in other areas of life.

Habib visited La Follette High School last week and showed the film to about 600 students visiting from the Madison School District’s 11 middle schools and then later to about 200 high school students.

“People are not limited by their disability. They are limited by their environment,” Habib told the middle school students after the film.

Habib believes that a key to his fourth-grade son’s success is that he’s making friends who he otherwise wouldn’t if he wasn’t included in traditional classrooms. It’s also important that the nine-year-old is seen for more than someone with a disability and in the film, his classmates talk about how he likes baseball and the color yellow.

Payal Patel, a Sherman Middle School student with cerebral palsy who likes playing on the computer and talking with friends, said after the screening that the film could help kids. She also liked seeing what Samuel was able to do.

Other students said “Including Samuel” made them think about how they can interact with other students who have disabilities.

“People with disabilities can fit in just like everyone else,” said Calvin Jensen from Jefferson Middle School.

Teresa Baymon, a Black Hawk Middle School student who said last year she defended a friend with autism who was being picked on, said the film reinforced the idea of respecting everyone.

“Including Samuel” will be broadcast nationwide on public television stations this fall and the film’s sponsors are leading efforts to have young people around the world hold viewing parties and take action for inclusion.

“We will get there when families without disabilities are advocating for this,” Habib said of inclusion.

Source: http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/education/local_schools/article_aca50076-ab9c-11de-94f2-001cc4c002e0.html

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Family’s attorney says school system broke state law

By CHRIS GRAHAM | The Daily Herald

School officials say state law was followed in isolating a 9-year-old in a closet-like space called a seclusion room at Columbia’s Joseph Brown Elementary.

The district said an investigation found no evidence to support allegations by an attorney that the boy was stripped to his underwear and locked in the room.

Michelle Parks, whose son suffers from Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder and Oppositional Defiant Disorder, said she found the 9-year-old stripped down to his underwear and locked in the small space Brown School officials call a seclusion room.

Kevin Latta, Parks’ attorney, says seclusion rooms are legal, but the way school officials used the space violated parts of a law passed by the Tennessee General Assembly last year.

Pictures provided by Latta show the interior of a small cinderblock room with a concrete floor, no chairs and a door with a single window and no handle. Parks said when she picked up her son there was a cloth draped over the window from the outside.

In a written statement issued Tuesday by school spokeswoman Sharon Kinnard, she said “at no time are students locked in this room” and said “there is absolutely no evidence to indicate that any student has been asked to remove his/her clothing.”

State law outlines how these seclusion rooms should be used, but Sherry Wilds, an attorney for the Disability Law and Advocacy Center of Tennessee, said teachers are often ill-equipped to deal with unruly children and fail to follow the guidelines.

“You have to think about it this way: Is it OK to lock your own child in a closet?” she said.

There are numerous reports of children in school districts across the country being locked in closets for several hours. In a few cases, children were confined to these rooms without supervision for so long they urinated on themselves.

THE LAW

On Friday, an emergency injunction was issued by Maury County Judge Jim Hamilton temporarily banning the use of the seclusion room until a court proceeding is held in Chancery Court.

“We’re looking forward to the board’s cooperation in answering a myriad of questions concerning the use of the seclusion room at Joseph Brown Elementary School,” Latta said, “and efforts for compliance made toward the statutes that govern the use of such rooms.”

According to the Special Education Isolation and Restraint Modernization and Positive Behavioral Supports Act, which was made effective January 1, seclusion rooms are supposed to be used on an emergency basis. The law states the use of “isolation or physical holding restraint as a means of coercion, punishment, convenience or retaliation on any student receiving special education services … is prohibited.”

The law also states an isolation room should not be used for time-outs, but Latta says school officials did not adhere to these provisions.

Four notices sent home to Parks detail other times her son was sent to what school officials sometimes called a “time-out room.” In two instances reported on Jan. 9, the student had to be physically taken to the time-out room after “banging his head on his desk” and “kicking and yelling at the staff.” On that day, he spent a total of 78 minutes in the time-out room, 44 of which were after he was “physically taken to (the) time-out room.” One notice also states the boy had redness on his arm from being physically restrained.

Other stipulations in the law require the door to the room used for time-out not to be locked or that it not accomplish the intent of locking a student in a room. The law also states “school personnel remain in the physical presence of any restrained student.”

Parks said after initially finding her son, she went back to the school to inspect the room and closed the door behind her. She said she could not open it from the inside.

After talking to her son, Parks said he told her on one occasion he was in the room long enough to fall asleep.

The last note that was sent home to Parks on Sept. 15 stated her son was sent to the seclusion room multiple times after “continued verbal abuse of students and the teacher” and “kicking the teacher.” He was suspended from school for two days.

Parks said school officials told her that her son’s clothing was removed for his own protection, though they did not give specific reasons.

The mother said before seeing the room, school officials told her it was used to calm unruly students. But after being inside the room her son was left in many times, Parks said it had quite the opposite effect.

“I thought, ‘That’s not a calming atmosphere,’” she said.

Parks said her son saw a psychologist Tuesday to receive counseling.

“He’s just glad he doesn’t have to go back there right now,” she said.

Messages left Tuesday for Brown Elementary Principal Tina Weatherford and special education teacher Tasha Walker were not returned. Messages left Monday and Tuesday for Director of Schools Eddie Hickman were not returned.

Walker’s personnel file shows she received her master’s degree in the field of emotional disturbance and specific learning disabilities from Florida State University and has had several years of teaching experience.

ATTORNEY:

CHANGE NEEDED

Mandatory special education training was required of teachers in the first draft of the bill before it was changed by state legislators, said Wilds, the Disability Law Advocacy Center attorney.

“I think it had a lot to do with the fiscal note that would have been attached,” she said on why the requirement was left out.

Special needs children are given an Individualized Education Program and typically are assigned goals and objectives relating to their behavior, Wilds said. According to a 17-page plan given to Parks’ son, there is no mention of using a time-out or seclusion room to correct the boy’s conduct.

In many instances, Wilds said seclusion rooms have been used inappropriately. She said instead of using the rooms, schools need to hire more psychologists and counselors to help problem children.

“Schools should be a place where you go to learn. We’re not warehousing children in mental health institutions anymore — and that’s good — but we need to fill in the gap to have good support staff in the school setting,” she said.

WIDESPREAD USE

There have been several documented cases of seclusion rooms being used around the nation, some even resulting in death.

According to a report published by the National Disability Rights Network in January, a study of California schools using seclusion and restraint found the practices can leave children emotionally traumatized.

“Individuals who have been restrained and secluded describe these events as punitive and aversive, leaving lingering psychological scars,” the report reads. “… seclusion may evoke feelings of guilt, humiliation, embarrassment, hopelessness, powerlessness, fear and panic.”

The report also listed several cases of abuse associated with restraint and seclusion based on investigations:

* In 2004, 13-year-old Jonathan King hanged himself while a seclusion cell at a school in Murrayville, Ga; using a cord the teacher supplied him with to hold up his pants. The boy suffered from ADHD and depression.

* In Arkansas, a developmentally disabled 9-year-old girl was suspended from school after she refused to enter a small wooden box in the corner of the classroom.

* Children in Colorado were placed in time-out rooms and not allowed to use the restroom. Students unable to “hold” themselves were forced to sit in their own urine.

* In 2007, disability advocacy officials received a report teachers at Sumner Elementary School were putting students in plywood seclusion boxes.

Ultimately, 12 schools in the Sumner County School District were found to be using the boxes.

The National Disability Rights Network report recommended President Barack Obama ban the use of seclusion in schools.

Source: http://www.columbiadailyherald.com/articles/2009/09/23/top_stories/01seclusion.txt

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The Autism News | English

By The Toronto Stars

There are more autistic children on a waiting list to get government-funded therapy than there are children actually receiving the one-on-one help.

The latest provincial government statistics show 1,306 children are getting intensive behavioural intervention (IBI), while 1,513 are waiting for it. Another 389 kids are waiting to be assessed so they can qualify for therapy – and earn a spot on the waiting list.

Little surprise, then, that NDP Leader Andrea Horwath attacked the provincial government last week for doing too little for autistic children. “This is an area we know is suffering greatly from lack of government resources,” she said.

But given that provincial funding for autism has gone from zero a decade ago to $158 million today, more money does not seem to be the only answer.

Children’s Minister Deb Matthews does not try to diminish the horror of lengthy wait lists, which force parents to watch their children fall further behind or take on enormous debt to pay for IBI out of their own pockets. “It is simply not okay,” she says. But Matthews maintains a solution has been found.

Some 80 per cent of the kids receiving IBI are 6 or older, and, with the right supports, could be in school. That would open up spaces for the younger kids on the wait list to receive IBI.

By early next year, all school boards will have the training and staff needed to work with parents and IBI therapists to create individual plans that would allow autistic kids to learn in school. This option has long been available for kids with other special needs.

Parents, understandably, remain wary.

Many Ontario schools have not welcomed autistic children – or their therapists. For parents trying to get proper support for their autistic children within schools, it has been akin to running into “a brick wall.”

Everyone agrees that integration of autistic children with their peers is the best option, where possible. So it is welcome that Ontario finally appears to be making progress in that direction.

Taline Sagharian is one parent who says she is “optimistic” that wait lists can be reduced by transitioning kids into school, but she and other autism advocates still have significant issues with the government’s plans.

They have concerns, for example, over the benchmarks to determine when to transition kids from IBI to school; they question the quality of autism therapy training that school staff are getting; and they remain adamant that a child’s IBI therapist should be able to go to regular class with him or her.

Another complicating factor is that parents often try to hang on to IBI, which now has no age cut-off. That’s because, in Sagharian’s words, “life after IBI has been termed the void.”

For the school transition plan to work, the government will have to convince parents that is no longer the case.

Source: http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/661247

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By CBS NEWS

(CBS)  A new federal study, released exclusively to CBS News, reveals hundreds of cases of abuse of students at the hands of school officials — and even deaths.

The report, done by the Government Accountability Office, finds incidents of abuse of restraints and seclusion, among other forms of mistreatment, in public and private schools alike, all across the country, says CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes.

A congressional panel has scheduled a hearing about the findings for Tuesday, and child advocates are calling for better laws to protect students.

Students such as Cedric Napoleon and Paige Gaydos.

Paige’s mother, Ann Gaydos, is slated to testify Tuesday at the hearing to be held by the House Education and Labor Committee about the abuse Paige allegedly suffered on multiple occasions in school in Cupertino, Calif. when Paige, who has Asperger Syndrome, was seven. She’s now 15 and the family has moved to Monument, Colo.

Cedric’s foster mother had no idea the Killeen, Texas eighth grader’s teacher was physically restraining him when he acted up. Until, Cordes says, the day it led to Cedric’s death.

“She took him down and sat on him,” a tearful Toni Price told Cordes, “and straddled him. And uh… the autopsy report said that they had never seen anything like that except in a car crash, because she crushed his chest.”

The GAO probe finds hundreds of cases of alleged abuse and death in schools over the past 20 years, Cordes says — everything from carpet burns from being dragged to a seclusion room, to bruises from being pinned to the ground. Many of the victims were, like Cedric, children with disabilities.

“Seclusion and restraint should only be used in an emergency situation,” says Deborah Ziegler of the Council for Exceptional Children.

And the tactics are used more often than parents might think, Cordes points out. In the 2007-2008 school year alone, the Texas public school system reported 18,741 cases of children being restrained.

Laws vary from state-to-state, Cordes, says, and about half the states have no laws at all.

Ann Gaydos, with Paige sitting at her side, told Early Show co-anchor Julie Chen about the restraint and other physical abuse she says her daughter suffered culminating, Gaydos said, with a teacher taking Paige into an empty classroom, lifting her by her wrists and an ankle and slamming Paige headfirst into the ground. Paige was, Gaydos said, “quite seriously hurt” with very bad bruises on her shoulder and head, and with skin forced off a shoulder.

Gaydos says she’ll tell Congress Tuesday she wants “far better oversight of school districts, perhaps some third-party oversight. The districts can’t police themselves. I hope for stricter laws regarding these restraints, and better whistleblower protections. The whistleblower (in Paige’s case) was driven out of the district.”

Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/05/19/earlyshow/living/parenting/main5024611.shtml

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