When the wrists are too small for cuffs, use cable ties
St. Petersburg 5-year-old cuffed after school outburst
Updated 25 April 2005: Tantrum and arrest were caught on video. Details at bottom of post.
I have a serious problem with cops handcuffing little kids. It’s a great way to terrify and traumatize a kid. It works really well at instilling hatred and fear of police too. What it doesn’t do is anything at all constructive. If a trained police officer cannot restrain a small child without handcuffs then that person should not be a police officer.
A 5 year-old student at Fairmount Park Elementary School in the Pinellas County School System acted up in class. Her teacher took away her jelly beans as punishment and the little girl had a tantrum. The police were called.
The students were counting jelly beans as part of a math exercise at Fairmount Park Elementary School when the little girl began acting silly. That’s when her teacher took away her jelly beans, outraging the child.
Minutes later, the 40-pound girl was in the back of a police cruiser, under arrest for battery. Her hands were bound with plastic ties, her ankles in handcuffs.
Calling the cops was an obvious mistake. Not only because it is becoming increasingly obvious that you never want a Florida cop to interact with a child but because the school system has its own private police force. Since the campus police deal with children all of the time they presumably know better than to put riot cuffs on kindergartners.
Under the district’s code of student conduct, students are to be suspended for 10 days and recommended for expulsion for unprovoked attacks, even if they don’t result in serious injury. But district spokesman Ron Stone said that rule wouldn’t apply to kindergartners.
She’s been appropriately disciplined under the circumstances,” he said.
While I’m glad that they wait until kids are at least six years old before recommending expulsions, I have to take exception with the “appropriately disciplined” remark. Not only was there nothing appropriate about this, it wasn’t discipline by a long shot. This was child abuse, plain and simple.
The girl’s mother is withdrawing her from the school and is consulting an attorney.
Contact information:
Principal Angelean Bing
Superintendent Dr. Clayton Wilcox
(Tip credit to Bumper, Diana Day and Mark)
Update 25 April 2005
Police Handcuff 5-Year-Old After Tantrum
Teacher Christina Ottersbach was recording a videotape of the classroom when the altercation with her 5 year-old student happened. The video itself may be found at WizBang.
The footage starts in Ottersbach’s classroom, where assistant principal Nicole Dibenedetto and teacher Patti Tsaousis were trying to calm the girl down and get her to clean up a mess that she had made.
…
Eventually, the girl did start cleaning up the mess, but then she refused to leave the room. Only when Dibenedetto and Tsaousis asked her to make a choice before they counted to five did she finally leave with them.
…
The tape cuts to Dibenedetto’s office, which has been trashed, apparently by the girl. She is seen ripping papers off the wall and refusing Dibenedetto’s requests that she stay seated in a chair.
The girl then swung at Dibenedetto and climbed on a table twice. Three police officers arrived shortly thereafter.
“Do you remember me?” one of them asks the girl. “I’m the one who told your mom I’d put handcuffs on you.”
The officers immediately pull the girl from the chair and handcuff her behind her back. The tape cuts off just seconds later, after the little girl has started screaming.
It seems obvious that Dibenedetto wanted a video record of the girl’s actions as she brought the camera into her office to continue taping. I wonder why she didn’t record the office being trashed. Considering the speed that the recording was halted when the scene turned sympathetic to the child my guess is that the footage of the office being trashed was similarly harsh on the officials.
(Tip credit to Christine Scheller, Amy and Kenneth Brody)
Just got done blogging on this, and was going to send you a tim. There need to be multiple firings, since they clearly don’t have professionals trained to work with children at that school.
http://precinct333.blogspot.com/2005/03/police-arrest-5-year-old-for-school.html
I dunno…the account I read of the situation was noticeably different:
Check this link (sorry, no HTML)
http://news.tbo.com/news/MGBFR3AVF6E.html
Granted, the handcuffs were a bit much, but teachers nowadays can be sued for anything; also, sounds like the girl was a brat of the highest order and her mom a person with…quite questionable parenting skills.
Why are 5 year olds doing a math exercise with jelly beans? Wouldn’t you expect 5 year olds to misbehaved if you gave them jelly beans an put them in little groups. I’m certain I could get any 5 year do do something stupid, in roomful of kids I could turn up more than one kicking screaming brat. I doubt the parents do this, and now their being investigated for child abuse.
I think group education and peer training is inappropriate for most 5 year olds. Adding jelly beans to a ‘method’ that is already inappropriate and using powerful aggressive authority to attack the entire family is disgusting. Even if I thought this kid had a problem, I think it points to a system that is not child friendly.
This sounds like more than a run of the mill temper tantrum. Okay so there is no such thing as a run of the mill temper tantrum but even still this sounds extream. shes a 4′5″ 60 lb kindergrdner, wow big girl, at that size she was definetly a threat to the other students, but not to an adult. Parents should have been called before the police and the child should have been kept seperate from other students untill the parents arive. Obviously this behavior needs to be condemed and its root should be found, Not that I am saying it is the parents fault, but she could be having some kind of issues at home.
Still the police and school should be ashamed of themselved and heads should role for it. (not literaly)well may be litleraly depending on the cause of such extream tantrums
I volunteered in an art class with a very large child, it was first grade and she looked like she was 12. The girls sitting with her hounded her constantly and the teacher didn’t bat an eye. I was sitting at the table and observed she seldom made eye contact or responded to her tormentors. She finally did move her desk next to the teachers much to her tormentor’s delight. I spoke with the art teacher after class, she was annoyed to be burdened with this child… not her job. I can’t imagine how she could have behaved any more appropriately. I certainly received no direction on what I could have done to help.
This is a Title I school, they receive additional funding for the disadvantaged. Many of these schools are half-empty because the district must keep the racial balance, even if it means stressing the community with difficult schedules and distant schools. So while they have adult programs to teach parents about the food pyramid, the kids are fighting over jelly beans.
I would have no problem with telling a 5 year old they weren’t ready for all day school if I knew they had someplace to go. This child could be labeled for life, even though the family is likely to be among those who are more stress for resource. Terrorizing her and her family will only force them out of area, but maybe that’s the intention. I think she would do better in a class where she wasn’t forced to interact as much. I’ll bet she’s teased a lot about her size.
This story is a total disgrace, to the Education System. The Police Department, should be hanging their heads in shame.
You say this happened in America!! Due to the fact, a Teacher, could be sued.
There is no excuse for this type of ignorance, in America.
I will be sending this and several others that have occured recently, to the Secretary of Education. I am also going to send a letter to the Safety-violence Committee.
We should not be handcuffing 5 year olds. If you think this is wrong, I suggest you join me.
I would not make a judgement on this without more detailed information. My wife taught in a school where there was a problem with a kindergarten student. He became very violent at times and started throwing things like chairs that endangered the other students. The teachers were restricted from “touching” or restraining the students probably due to law suits from parents, so they had little choice in what they could do. They also did not have the facilities where they could hold the child where he could not injure himself or others.
In general I think these events indicate that someone is not doing the job and making the decisions they are being paid for. But hearing from the teachers side as well as getting all of the facts leads me to temper my opinion at times.
The article says she’s 40 pounds.
If I behaved like that in kindergarten, the results would be swift and sure: Mrs. J would have paddled my behind. Ironic, isn’t it? Corporal punishment is now largely viewed as child abuse, but it’s quite okay to restrain 5 year olds with handcuffs. Incredible.
This article has more details:
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/03/18/Tampabay/In_schools__violence_.shtml
It appears the girl is really more like 3 feet 6 inches. She does seem to have been very disruptive, but calling the police still seems wrong.
Currently Google News shows 157 articles about this. Some are as far away as India.
Everyone will be left helpless from this event. We accuse the parents of abuse, the teachers of incompetence and authority of brutality. All authority in this child’s life are lost because everyone is discredited.
Broken windows in the legal system itself
Weller essentially told Terri Schiavo, “You had better say you want to live or they will kill you. Just say you want to live.” Schiavo responded with a drawn out, “IIIIII,” then screamed out “waaaaaaaa” so loudly that a…
Okay so now we have Different sizes of the child depending on the article, whats going on with that.
Someone needs to tell these overreacting union lemmings that the solution to an out-of-control child at school is to call the parents to pick her up and take her home, NOT call the police!
And don’t tell me the parents aren’t available to get her and stay home with her and teach her how to act appropriately. There is NO excuse for not putting your child FIRST and raising her properly, no matter what your social/financial status. No excuses!
One thing to keep in mind - many police departments have a policy of handcuffing ANYONE in custody for liability reasons. Yes, a police officer can easily restrain a 40lb. child BUT, he can’t keep her restrained all the time with his hands. He has to drive the police car, fill out paperwork, talk on the radio, etc. If an officer takes his attention away from an unrestrained person in custody, and they damage property, harm others, OR harm themselves, the police department is responsible. Maybe the police weren’t needed, maybe they shouldn’t have taken her in custody, but once they do take someone in custody, they have to maintain CONSTANT control
Cindy, I agree with you actually. One issue I have with all the professionals around here is they claim a child will not mature socially unless they are forced into social programs. I think they actually do much better when they have more time with a caring adult. As a society we have to encourage parents to do the job they need to do. Parents loose the opportunity to go back to work, and lots of legal option because schools and professions insist on funding a programs that don’t work. I knew someone who claimed their child failed homeschool kindergarden so they wouldn’t be forced to enroll them when they were too immature.
“Okay so now we have Different sizes of the child depending on the article, whats going on with that.”
- Travis
What’s going on with that is that the police report said she was 20 lbs. heavier and a foot taller than she actually is.
Thats it from now on I want “Offical” weigh ins done no more than the two days before the match-erah offense. Failure to do so will result in cancelation of the event.
We need to bring the paddle back into the school system before it is too late for this country. I have been working in the VA school system for 3 years and what you see with this little girl is becoming the norm. The student learn very early that the adults cannot do anything to punish them. The real problem in this case is the parent. Until parents step up and spank their braty children things will get worse. Why does everyone think all these children are going into schools with guns.
I WORKED IN A PRESCHOOL AND THIS HAPPENED ALL THE TIME..I WAS BITTEN,HIT WITH A CHAIR, HIT WITH A BRICK AND I WAS TOLD TO DEAL WITH IT..AFTER ALL I WAS A PROFESSIONAL GETTING $8 AN HOUR…I QUIT….AND I WAS 60 YEARS OLD….ENOUGH IS ENOUGH…AND THE PARENTS WHAT PARENTS??? NEVER A FATHER JUST A SINGLE MOTHER WITH PROBLEMS…WHO HOPED WE WOULD SOLVE THIS BEHAVIOR…WHAT I SAW ON THE VIDEO IS A NIGHTMARE…AND I AM SURE THIS WAS NOT THE FIRST TIME THIS HAPPENED…
Sounds to me like many of those posting opinions against restraining the child with handcuffs need to spend a few days, no maybe just a few hours in a classroom with non-cooperative students. What are teachers to do? They are expected to educate 100% of their students (No child left behind, even this little beauty!) yet are given classrooms of 30-35 students. On top of that, there are usually a large amount of students with some sort of special needs such as ADD, ADHD, various forms of autism, downs syndrome, cerebral palsy, learning disabilities, varied degrees of emotional impairments and other conditions not diagnosed. Again, I remind you they ALL have to become perfect geniuses according to President Bush or the teacher has failed. Many times there is little or no cooperation from home as might be the case here. Look at how many poeple need “Nanny 911″ because they can’t control their children AT HOME! But yet teachers should be able to control them at school WITHOUT physically touching or restraining. ALL of this is done while the teacher is being paid tens of thousands of dollars less than almost any other professional with similar high educational requirements.
We have not even considered the other students, a fact I find disturbing. Why should the well behaved students lose out on educational time because someone is having a tantrum. Why should they have to feel traumatized and possibly not want to go to school because of a ranting little girl with no self-control? I understand she is only 5 years-old but neither of my children would have even thought of doing that when they were five.
Finally, what real harm has been done? Physical harm? No. She may have a little skin irritation due to the restraining but it’s nothing like the paddle marks we received. Emotional harm? I think she already had some emotional issues. Maybe, just maybe, she learned a lesson. Wow! Now there’s a novel idea! Let’s teach our children about “natural consequences!” When we don’t follow the rules and get violent the police come and we can get taken away in handcuffs! Or maybe we should continue the tradition of giving in to them or rewarding them for inappropriate behavior!
Dear all,
Or should i say; poor all?
this is another example of how overdone and exagurated the american society is nowadays!
handcuffing a 5-year old girl might never be justified. three policemen are not enough to take control of this kid? it might be a policy of the police, handcuffing anybody who might cause danger but they if these people have a littlebit of brains inside their heads they will understand that she will never be able to attack three policemen. anyway, to call the police to take a kid in custody because of bad behavior is already too much. take this kid to a room where she cannot do any harm to anything, call the mother and wait till the parent comes to the school. I find it really sick to take so many action for something so small. nevertheless, this kid behaved really bad and it is clear that she doesnt know any limit of how to behave herself.
American society last decades has been built out of fear and gunpower! I am sure newschannels love the one who recorded this tape. they excist looking for these kinds of videos. Behind this tragic accident is a world of individualism and lonelyness where people are confrontated with the newest �products� of American Life. It is sad your president only has eye for oil and military influence in the rest of the world and is not solving real problems in his own country like poverty, people without insurance, growing diference between rich and poor and natural environment, thinking that they will listen by fearing them with extreme actions. What happened (handcuffing a little kid)is a product of this filosify.
Jan from Chile
Ever hear of a child taking a gun to school? Maybe she’ll do that next semester. The school officials did call the mother. Why she didn’t show up, the media didn’t say.
Blame attorneys! Teachers are afraid to handle/touch kids for fear of being sued.
This has nothing to do with a little child against adults. It’s about the attorneys behind the child waiting for something to happen so they can take you to court. It’ll happen … just watch.
According to MSN, this was the second incident with this child and her mother was called but was unable to leave her job.
Again we have a situation where the traditional way of handling children (i.e. spanking, standing in a corner, etc.) who act up has been stopped because it is considered “cruel and/or embarrassing” and what is left to deal with the situation except the way we punish adults for their bad behaviors!!!! No, a 5 year old should not be handcuffed by police. Talk about embarrassing, cruel and unusual! I saw the tape! She should have gotten an old-fashioned spanking!!!! Ooos! There I said it. Kids that age do not have the same reasonaing skills as adults. You can talk yourself blue in the face with an angry kid that age. They are NOT listening because they cannot understand your reasoning. Yes, I know the “child experts” are going to have a field day with what I said! But as a teacher who works with kids everyday, I feel too much time is wasted dealing with bad behaviors in ineffective ways. A good swat goes a long way in making a “connection”. Do NOT fire those school officials. Give them a paddle and the o.k. to use it! Believe me when I say that more kids have been injured and killed in schools since the paddle was taken out!!!!!!
I am the parent of 4 children, unfortunately, not 4 angels. My children had a principal who would call parents on their jobs if the situation warrented it. In the mean time he also had a paddle displayed in his office, to be used if necessary.
I find the story on the 5 year old who was hand cuffed most disturbing. There are probably a lot of people involved who are to blame for this horrible act, including the parents.
I also learned that it is necessary for parents to “listen” to what their children have to say when they come home from school about the day’s activities. I have seen both sides of the spectrum. When I was a child (many years ago) I saw a teacher slap a child so hard it knocked her down. That type of behavior was bad then and would be unacceptable now. On the other hand one of my children came home and said the teacher had shook her and the teacher was male. I met with the teacher and he told me why he shook her, had I been around I would have shook her myself. My child did admit to her wrong doing and there was no need for further discussion with the teacher on that matter. She was told she and her teacher had a job to do and it couldn’t be done with her taking up his time to disipline her. The most important thing is the line of communication between children, parents, teachers and the administration. One thing for sure is that not all teachers are good teachers and sometimes it’s necessary for children to change teachers. Teachers are also human. And, sometimes there is a chemistry between the student and the teacher that is not good for either of them. We have to admit that; and when that happens the two should be seperated. The teacher is not always right.
You had to think, looking at the video short of the child being handcuffed, that there was no excuse for that. On the other hand, our society has become so litigous that there was no “right” way out.
To watch from a distance while the child destroyed a room, endangered herself or others was not the answer. The story I read was the other students were removed from the room as a precaution. The teacher could only follow her around and make sure she didn’t hurt herslf in mid-tantrum. I’m sure that if there was no video tape running, showing that the staff was only preventing injury, there would be all kinds of abuse charges flying the next day implying what they did or didn’t do to prevent the end result.
The school officials said this morning in interviews that the mother was called, advised of her child’s behavior, but didn’t come - reason unknown. They also said that the campus security was called, but they didn’t respond. Again - reason unknown. They were dismissing the school, according to the interviewee, but then if it was the end of the school day, who was supposed to come get this child?
Then the part I found most interesting: according to the article on abcnews.com, when someone was heard to say that the police had arrived, the child suddenly found inner peace, sat down quietly and waited. The police entered the room and one was recorded asking the girl if she remembered her mother being told that if she misbehaved like this again, she would get handcuffed.
Sounds like the child has been this disruptive before, the police, this officer in particular, had responded before and made the threat to cuff her if she was this bad again.
There was a time when if this was said to you as a kid, and you had a tantrum anyway, you could expect that not only would you get cuffed to scare some sense of cause and effect into you, when you got home your ma would spank you and when dad got home, you’d be grounded too.
Anyway, point is, there are untold parts of this story, that need to be filled in. Where were the campus security, why didn’t mom turn up, who was supposed to pick her up, and how many times have the cops had to come deal with this?
No doubt, the footage has shock value - a little kid screaming while being restrained - but you can get that same reaction from a tantrum-prone 5 yo. just by telling them they can’t have candy in the checkout aisle.
Dee, I understand we didn’t get here in one day that doesn’t mean this is good. There was a time when kids could wait until 7 before starting their ABC’s and had very restricted social time before then. So yes, children may have behaved better and spanking may have been ok; but parents never spanked away this kind of tantrum. Things just didn’t get that far.
The school environment was different too, very little social time and very supervised at this age. Social skills and leadership was not important, sitting at your desk was. I think that would have been fine if the hours were age-appropriate.
Attacking parents is not very persuasive. Have you ever attended the parenting classes or watch videos aimed at teaching discipline. They never advocate doing any more than this teacher did. When kids don’t march to a prescribed order it is a terrible strain on our social structure these days.
There was no way out for the educators. If they had physically restrained her and held her arms down or physically held her down, parents would have screamed. If they had let her climb all over the furniture and she had fallen off the furniture and hit her head, the parents would have screamed. The child was clearly a danger to herself and others. What was the appropriate way to restrain this out of control child?
Call the parents to pick her up. Maybe this kid needs to be homeschooled for a while. I also suspect that teaching young kids in groups causes a lot of trouble. Parents should have some real alternatives in teaching styles. Parents freak because all these problems suddenly dissapear when an aide is used to get the child the help they need. It an expensive solution that creates a watchdog and puts the parents in the position of advocating for a child with a lawyer.
And how good would a mother who can’t come pick up her child actually be at homeschooling? When my boys were younger I put the fear of God in them that they better behave — everywhere. I never had to spank them very much, but there was punishment. And I’m glad to say it’s worked well. Every teacher my sons have had over the years have told me how well behaved my boys were. They’re not angels and I wouldn’t want them to be, but they know right from wrong and respect authority. Parents are the first teachers of their children, and if they can’t be bothered, then the schools will have an uphill battle. I think it may very well be time to legislate sane corporal punishment back into the schools.
This was on the Today Show this morning. There’s video on NBC’s website. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7609741/
One article reports, the tape “shows assistant principal Nicole Dibenedetto trying repeatedly to calm down the girl.”
I’m sorry to say, but it didn’t show that! Instead, it showed a very inexperienced assistant principal repeatedly saying the same words, “that is not acceptable behavior”, and “no, you can’t do that.” OK, that’s fine to say once or twice, maybe three times, but it just becomes a repetitive mantra after that, and clearly had no effect on the child. The child just tuned out — I know, I would have too! In fact, saying you can’t do that is almost begging a defying response, especially to someone in a tantrum.
I agree with others - a nice paddling may have gotten the child’s attention. But, barring that, anyone with competence and experience with such misbehavior would try different coping strategies, not just keep repeating the same one! Never once did she ask, “why are you doing this?” Or, “do you like doing this? What’s so good about taking all the paper off the wall?” or the very diabolical “Can I help you take more paper off the wall with you?!” In my multiple experiences in dealing with such children, I have discovered that such an empathetic response does wonders to making the child introspective, and change the course of her behavior.
Is this principal so poorly trained? Or simply (and I’ll play the race card here!) so out-of-touch with a ethnically diverse student body that she simply has never experienced such a defiant child?!
And how good would a mother who can’t come pick up her child actually be at homeschooling? When my boys were younger I put the fear of God in them that they better behave — everywhere.
I wonder how long it would take a parent to come to the same conclusion if they actually had the time. Society needs to support and encourage parents to take that step. Many will need time off of work and some may even be force to welfare to accomplish that. The expectation that both parents can be wage-earners and daycare will raise the kids isn’t realistic.
has anyone even seen the whole video it is about 30 mintues long? From the parts I have seen the child was a danger to herself andother children with the throw on things out of the cubbies or am i the only one that saw that part? And yes they did call the mother and she said she could not leave work until 3:15 and it was 2:00 when they called her. And I want to know why the police called on her the time before this.
What did she do that time? Maybe hurt another child? They were recorfing this class for a reason. Sounds like this has been a year long problem.I feel sorry for the next teacher that gets since this child has been told by her mom that she can hit teachers and throw a fit to get her way. I do hope whatever Judge gets this case slaps this mother with a fine and send her to parenting classes. She should not get a single dollar for not doing her job as a parent. Children need and want limits and they look to their parents for those limits. When the parent does not stick to the limits that set then the child will become confusses and act out. And for all the people that keep saying that the teacher should have handle this better i would just love to see you handle this child. After a year of trying most likely every legal method at what would you lose your cool. We saw just was a snap shot of this. We don’t know the whole story.
I’m sorry, as an old fashioned old fart, I must say that when I was in school, the average classroom was 32-35 students. We didn’t have this problem, because the principle had a 3 foot long 1″ X 8″ board, with a handle and 3/4″ holes drilled in the broad section. This prevented any slowing up of the swing due to wind resistance. Sure, it was humiliating. And it hurt like hell. HOWEVER, only a fool risked a second trip…. And not only did I survive MY one and only trip, I really believe it did me no harm.
Sad to say, but calling the police has become a norm for public schools as a response to out of control or even out of the norm behaviors in school. The tape was an embarressment to the schools and the police. Most schools do have the option to train their teachers in some form of de-escalation techniques with age appropriate physical holds/restraints if necessary. The problem that I have encountered is that the administration silently forbids the staff from following through with therapeutic holds due to fears of litigation, etc. The schools tend to deal with incidents as an emergency when it is a well known fact that these “incidents” are becoming more and more common.
As for the police, our local cops in Loudoun County, VA outside of Wash,DC have no training in dealing specifically with children. They are trained to match “force to force.” Priceless, eh? They are taught to do this…my 10 yr old who is diagnosed bipolar was held down and shackled by 6 officers. They have no obligation per their codes to check on the physical safety of the child’s limbs, etc. In a hospital, children under the age of 12 are not placed in mechanical restraints due to the vast literature revealing how dangerous this is for children. The cuffs certainly are no more safe than the soft restraints of a hospital…there are strict guidelines to moniter patients in restraints. Children in closed, contained rooms to calm down are never left alone.
Why should the police not have guidelines to protect children as well? Why have we become a nation of dodgers of law suits? Children deserve and demand our protection even if it means facing our own fears! Why are we so quick to assume blame to the parent? If this child is known to be emotionally challenged, what has been done to support her? Certainly, provoking her and challenging her with choices when she is enraged were completely inappropriate!
Pamela, what I need to understand is why you would leave your child in the midst of this conflict. If you child is already fragile and abuse is so rampant, how can you protect a child.
This prevented any slowing up of the swing due to wind resistance. Sure, it was humiliating. And it hurt like hell. HOWEVER, only a fool risked a second trip….
Dave, as I recall we prefered a few seconds of pain to a long lecture.
I really need these guys to convince me they aren’t complete morons before I give them a board. I think parents should be given the choice of picking up their child or living with school discipline.
School could reduce the amount of stupidity by introducing some other time-tested realities. Like little children’s desks placed in row. Encouraging children who are too immature to take direction to wait until they are 6 or 7 to begin school. Make aides an assistant to the teacher and not the student. Place the teacher in charge of deciding how a child fits best in their classroom and let the teacher report problems with a child (not other children). Small children need close adult supervision in the classroom, lunchroom, playground and bathroom. Then we probably wouldn’t need the ATF running out to discipline 5 year olds.
I suspect there would still be a lot of problems (there always were). I just don’t think you can make people teach a child they don’t want and don’t like.
Any school administrator unable to deal with a disturbed 5 year old should be fired and prosecuted for her lack of judgment. The police should be disciplined and sent to a training course on common sense. The child and her mother should be moved to a more enlightened school district at the expense of the district.
“Suffer the little children.”
Any school administrator unable to deal with a disturbed 5 year old should be fired and prosecuted for her lack of judgment. The police should be disciplined and sent to a training course on common sense. The child and her mother should be moved to a more enlightened school district at the expense of the district.
“Suffer the little children.”
@ Liz - Lets blame the attorneys, again - that’s it, they are the root cause of all the evils spoken about in this thread.
I assume with your vast legal knowledge you could pick and choose which suits might be meritorious? Come on, tell me…. I’m waiting. Ok, no schools ever get sued - I guess that means that that school in Columbus, OH where the learning impaired girl was sexaully assaulted and the administrators did nothing (well nothing except to try and keep the police out of it) is off the hook? It’s not the girl’s fault. It’s not the mother’s fault. It’s not the teacher’s fault. It’s the legal system’s fault - more specifically, it’s all those damned lawyers. I am sure that 5 y/o was thinking lawsuit lawsuit lawsuit as she went on her tantrum.
Here’s a better idea - go crawl back under your rock. I really don’t mean to denigrate anyone on this board but when you spew that bile at me - I am an attorney - you will get it right back.
Why hasn’t anyone wondered what the girl was thinking! I know that going to public school can drive you crazy!! You just wanna be your own person! You want respect! That’s what I think this started as, but it didn’t end there. Look at the body language of the teacher! She’s HUGE and MEAN and PUSHY!!(to a little kid) She was only having a temper tantrum, but when the teachers started physicly controling her by pushing her shoulder she turned away,or she hit. They escalated it with more physicality. She must have been terrified!!!!
You hear the teacher tell her she’s dissapointed, you hear the teacher tell her she MUST clean up her mess. She MUST do what the teacher says. But the one thing you don’t hear, is “Why?” What are you mad about? Why did you throw the papers? Were you scared of the teacher? Those should have been the questions asked. To those teachers that side with the teacher simply because she is a teacher I ask,
Would you call the police on this girl?
jelly bean+ class of kids+ hard to handle child= bad news. i am a teacher of little ones 4-5 and all of the teachers i have ever worked with know it is a bad idea to give a child a bunch of candy. you can’t expect a child not to eat the sweets.
sounds like bad teaching skills and bad leason planning (might not be the teacher’s choice)
bad school
oh i forgot to say…Katie (the person that commented above me) is right, teachers should ask questions about how the child feels about the situation. the teacher should have given her some space to calm down and not tried to force her to clean up right then. fucking teachers man.
i bet more vacation time would help and more training sessons.
Our whole education systems is drowning. We have to give our teachers more authority to discipline our children. Some kids are over the top. If you have a 20 lb or a 200 lb people, with the right situation, they can be a danger to everyone near them. They need to learn that they cannot do as they please and it goes unpunished. I think the police did the exact right thing…being hand cuffed did not hurt anyone - it may have left an emotional bruise but that’s it. Get over it…if you can’t control your kids, do not expect the teachers to.