The felony assault, etc is a long-term problem, and will take years to solve.
You have a much more urgent and immediate problem: to separate the aide from you child.
Even for an adult, it is traumatic to have to face an assailant in person.(think of sexual harassment cases in the workplace)
But for a child , it must be terrifying.
Even without pressing charges, you should be able to get the aide fired today.
Show the video to the school principal, along with an official signed statement by the police detective recommending charges.
Any reasonable manager would immediately fire the employee, (or at least transfer him FAR away from your child.)
(Even if the principal wants to protect the aide, he cant take the risk. He will want to protect his own career.
If a second incident happens with police intervention, not just the aide, but also the principal himself will face charges.)
Your main concern isn’t whether the aide will get jail time or get barred from working in the future.
Your job is to protect your child. Today.
Make sure your kid never sees that aide again.
You are your son’s advocate. There is no room for playing nice when adults assault your child. It is neglectful not to pursue this.
I’ve had to press charges twice in my 13 year old daughter’s life. First time she was kicked by another student so hard it bruised her pubic bone. The teacher saw it happen, did not report it, and ignored my daughter’s cries for hours. When I picked her up from school she immediately broke down, I saw the swelling bruise and took her to the ER. The ER called the police and charges had to be pressed against the student. I was more interested in charging the school and the teacher.
The second time she was raped. I don’t want to talk about that, but I went through the process and it was ugly and we lost, but at least I fought.
I teach children of this age. It doesn’t matter the gender, education, experience, and whatever else. It doesn’t matter if they are qualified to handle special needs children or not. The child is six. An adult who is around children need better tools than assault even if the child were to have said something terribly bad.
Throwing in a death threat is an absurd argument. Except for extreme circumstances six-year-old children do not kill others. Even if the child were to have said something like that, the solution in not beating the kid up. The fact that a grown individual’s response to a child rose to the level of a felony means that there is something terribly wrong.
Assaulting a child will get the police involved and anyone in 2018 who doesn’t understand that should not be around children. Period.
watch the dang video already and make your own judgement. You know your son better than anyone else, and you need to see what happened.
proceed from there. I expect you’ll move from academic to practical really quickly once you see it.
Autism is a giant spectrum. Your son is verbal, which is a huge advantage in learning how he can cope with the world. He’s an extrovert, so work with this as a strength, although it will probably be a longer journey than any of us imagine. Did I mention that autism is a giant spectrum? Your son is on it, needs the support an IEP will provide (thankfully you have a friend that can help guide you on that).
Have you looked into services for your son such as ABA therapy? There are school services, make sure you get signed up for State services (waiting list can be years depending on the State), and check if your insurance will pay for ABA or other services. There are also foundations that cater to kids on the spectrum (we are involved with outdoors for all, who are teaching my 13 year old how to ski!), and may be eligible for State or private aid. Autism for All is a good resource if you’re getting started.
BTW, welcome to the boards. Sorry this is what it took to get you to become active. Autism is a club none of us wanted to join, but is filled with good people and a lot of special kids like yours!
The aide is a woman. The detective described her as “not petite”. Transportation is outsourced - she is not an employee of the school district. She has been placed on leave until the investigation is completed. We made sure that she would not be on his bus when he came home. All of the kids on the bus are Special Needs, so she should have been provided training and had knowledge on the challenges that she would have to deal with.
The incident happened in the morning. His day was just starting and was in a good mood before that.
There was audio in the video. We will be watching it tonight. The only content of the audio that I know of is that he said that she was hurting him. The detective said that he did not provoke her and that he just playing like kids that age do. He has been physically and verbally abusive to staff, but that doesn’t appear to be the case in this instance.
I found out that the detective is in charge of a task force that provides support for Special Needs individuals. I have no complaints thus far on how the police or the school has handled it.
Our goal is not revenge or punishment. She has shown that she should not be working with kids and we will pursue this to ensure that she doesn’t. We would like our son to get back on the track that he was before this incident. He has had his IEP for a year and we were very happy with the progress that he had made. The school has been very supportive and has provided him with all of the resources he needs.
My 11 year old daughter has significant behavioural issues as well and we have been dealing with psychiatrists, therapists, social workers, IEPs, EAs, and the school board for over 8 years, so if I’m ever able to answer any questions or offer any advice (or even just some empathy) please let me know.
He’s lucky to have you guys – you are obviously mindful, loving, supportive parents who are working hard (believe me, I know how hard) to make things work. Don’t ever forget how wonderful you are.
Setting aside all the fluff and sparkle … we still have a criminal act, and a felony no less … I would be co-operative with the police and sign the complaint whether I watched the video or not … this is a very serious crime, if true then the aide should spend the next year in prison … no less … an adult beating up a child … whether you feel sorry for the perpetrator or not is immaterial, We the People do not allow this in our civilization … please co-operate with the police and DA’s office, you’ll be doing everybody’s kids a big favor …
Yet one more reason to pursue this to the fullest: Your son knows what the aide did. If the aide goes unpunished, then your son will learn that The System is out to get him, and can do so with impunity. If the aide is punished, then your son will learn that The System works, and is looking out for him, and will try to protect him.
Which of those two possibilities do you think will have better effects on his subsequent behavior?
Now my blood is boiling. It was more violent than I was anticipating. It wasn’t a matter of him being restrained against the window. His head was slammed against it.
He was not misbehaving at all. She invaded his personal space and instigated everything. This woman is 350 pounds easily. He was in the seat in front of her leaning over to see some other kids and she moved into his seat for some reason. She smushed him. That is why he “shoved” her. He didn’t say anything disrespectful.
The detective seems like a bulldog. She was pissed off. She is going to talk to the states attorney tonight about the charges. She said the only remorse the aide showed was that she would lose her job.
I feel like I’m in the twilight zone. How could you have even considered not viewing the video, much less have taken days to do so? WTH?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
I’m sorry this has happened to you and your family (and especially to your son), but I’m glad that the detective is pursuing it with appropriate fervor.
For those asking why we wouldn’t want to watch the video- from the descriptions we were told it definitely was battery. Are you sadists? That was perhaps the most difficult thing I have ever had to view. It didn’t change our position or direction. I’m sure it will haunt my memory every day for the rest of my life.
You either have no grasp of the situation, or you are deliberately provoking people who do understand the reality of what happened expressly to get a response from them. Which is it?
@PackerMan - well done for watching the video. It sounds appalling. Have some virtual hugs/high fives/other user-appropriate expressions of support. And I hope it helps you support your son even better with processing having this happen to him
@jtur88 - step away from the keyboard. Seriously. Absolutely nothing that you have said in this thread is an appropriate thing to say to a parent whose child - ANY child -
has been beaten up on the bus. There are times in your life for shutting your trap, and this is one of them.