Abuse and an expensive fight about autism in Atlanta (schools, mental, child)

[nana053]

An expensive fight over a boy with autism *| ajc.com

I think that recording the classroom was probably a good thing although the school obviously doesn't believe that.

I do think the parents ought to have looked into private schools to begin with, but that is no excuse for the teachers who abused him.

[neddy]

Sounds to me that the schools are way behind the times and the teachers also need to be better educated about certain subjects. I expect the same type of education for my NT kid as I do for my special needs. In some areas of the country private schools are not the answer and they are very very costly for special needs and then if you go private you don't always have the law to help you as you do in public school. Its a hard choice to make no matter what the income of the family.

[lawl_rawr]

I'm sorry to say it but it doesn't surprise me. I know school districts vary, as well as schools that share the same district. What we went through in a suburb in southern ATL was a nightmare of details I won't go into. The containment classroom was ran like a boot camp, you had to raise your hand to pick up a pencil if you dropped it. They treated special needs children like they treated the behavioral problem kids that no one wanted to deal with. Two years we were there, I thought the first year problems were just the elementary school and middle school would be better. Then when problems were worse in middle school, I realized it was them from the get go.

Now that we've moved, he's doing MUCH MUCH better. Back to the happy child he was before we moved to GA, he has friends again and his grades are back to the A's and B's they were before. He's back to loving school as he always did before we moved to ATL. I can't put a finger on it, but I wouldn't recommend anything there. I'm sorry I just can't. When your child is in a mental hospital for wanting to kill himself, something is seriously wrong. As for this story it truly breaks my heart.

[Aconite]

Good lord. I wish I were surprised as well as appalled. I'm familiar with the tactics the school system used in their lawsuit; ours has a history of doing the same.