Lawsuit questions treatment of autistic student

A 14-year-old student in October 2013 was against the wall with a green mat pushed against his chest, neck, arms and legs, according to a teacher involved in a legal dispute over the incident.
“And we heard this—I’d describe it as a—bloody murder scream. It was like someone was being electrocuted or something,” said Roger Brown, then a special education teacher with a class in the neighboring room at Rancho San Justo Middle School.
That’s how it happened according to Brown—who said he heard screaming, saw how aides had “pinned” the student to the wall with a mat and alerted the principal of the incident. Brown eventually resigned and later retired early over the issue.
Brown alleged the 14-year-old nonverbal, autistic, special education student—referred to with initials only in documents filed at the San Benito County Courthouse—was restrained inappropriately with a mat Oct. 23, 2013.
At the end of last month, the student’s guardian, Rosalinda Leyva, sued the Hollister School District for negligent supervision and infliction of emotional distress and is asking for an undisclosed sum of more than $25,000.
The lawsuit follows a complaint filed by the advocacy group Disability Rights California on the student’s behalf in early February alleging district employees restrained the boy in an inappropriate manner, denied state-mandated physical education time and restricted him from time with classmates.
The district’s written response to the complaint says staff did not “pin” the student against a wall Oct. 23, but did usher him into his cubicle and use the exercise mat to “protect him from himself, to protect staff and to calm him down.” It further alleges Brown was not trained in Crisis Prevention Institute or Case Method of Instruction and “may not have understood what was going on”-though Brown says the district gave him CPI training.
“People can file those kind of things, but the district certainly does not accept that any abuse would occur to a student,” said Hollister School District Superintendent Gary McIntire, who noted school employees are mandated reporters required by state law to report signs of child abuse.
Brown, though, argues the student was isolated from peers in ways he hadn’t been in previous years when he was under the supervision of a different teacher. The student spent most of his days away from his assigned classroom; missed lunches, physical education and snack time with peers; and was sometimes ushered into a narrow, three-sided space called a “pod” with eight- and five-foot-tall walls where aides held up a mat to form the fourth side of the box. Brown last week filed a complaint with the San Benito County Grand Jury asking them to look into the issue.
“He was never with peers-ever-and there’s a couple dozen people who can verify that,” Brown said. “I’m just the one who spoke up.”
McIntire could not speak to specifics of the case due to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, a federal law that requires schools to receive written permission from parents or eligible students before releasing information about them, he said.
He did speak generally to the district’s special education policies, which allow employees to use a mat or blanket to apply pressure that could calm students with certain disabilities, including autism, if it is part of the child’s “Individualized Education Plan.” These plans outline the annual accommodations and goals for students receiving special education services at a public school.
“If that’s a calming technique, I could see that written in an IEP,” McIntire said. “But when it comes to rolling students into a mat for punitive reasons, that’s simply unheard of.”
Lawsuit documents allege aides went too far with their use of the mat, restraining B.J.’s arms and legs in a manner prohibited by state law. Brown agrees the mat was used inappropriately.
“As far as restraining goes, it is totally against the law to restrain all four extremities,” he said. “Restraining definitely happens in school in special education. Not to that extent.”
McIntire declined to comment on whether aides appropriately followed the student’s behavior plan, but made the general statement that he knew of no ongoing procedural violations in the district.
“Do people err? Absolutely. I can’t imagine there’s a case of anybody who doesn’t make a mistake,” McIntire said. “But if there’s routine failures, I’m unaware of any of those existing in the district.”
Brown worries the incident may have been exacerbated by the fact that the student’s family spoke Spanish, which made communication between the parent and the district employees more difficult.
“If it had been another student-some white Caucasian student that had English-speaking parents-I don’t think they’d have gotten away with this,” Brown said.
McIntire did not speak specifically about this situation but noted the district hires bilingual staff when possible and employs translators. In cases where the family does not have a preferred translator, the district will provide one, he said.
“If a parent requires assistance, we will provide translation services,” he said. “I can’t see that would be an impediment in our district.”
Brown issued a letter of resignation in March but finished last school year with his students, he said. He later chose to retire because interviewing in neighboring districts would mean bringing up the incident.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen with this,” Brown said. “I just know I don’t want to drop it.”