Restraint can dispirit and hurt special-ed students

Greg Toppo:

Toni Price was at work that afternoon in 2002 when she got the call from her foster son Cedric's eighth-grade teacher: Paramedics were at his middle school in Killeen, Texas. Cedric wasn't breathing.
When Price arrived at school, there he was, lying on the floor. "I'm thinking he's just laying there because he didn't want to get in trouble," she says, fighting back tears.

Actually, Cedric was dead.

A 14-year-old special-education student who'd arrived at the school with a history of abuse and neglect, Cedric had been taken from his home five years earlier with his siblings.

He'd just been smothered by his teacher, police said, after she placed him in a "therapeutic floor hold" to keep him from struggling during a disagreement over lunch.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at May 19, 2009 11:24 AM
Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas