Teacher shot at Newport News elementary school

[Anonymous]

Who decided the parent didn't need to be sitting next to this kid on that day? Hope that administrator who approved his attendace without them goes to jail TOO. Seriously. Kid never belonged there in the first place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher:

I’ve never heard the term “acute disability.” That’s some shady lawyer wording to avoid implicating the son as like PERMANENTLY disabled . There is no IDEA category that contains the language of “acute disability”

Kids with disabilities needing parental supervision at school should not be in a Gen Ed setting

Interesting he never brought the totally secured gun while his parents had to be in the room with him

Acute disability is a real thing. It’s a mental health disorder that has the potential to be treated. Google it. Just because you aren’t familiar doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

I imagine that not too many of us have ever seen a child that young who is that severely mentally ill. I’m sure the parents, school and health care providers were really struggling to figure out how to help him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it common to have a plan under which parents must attend with their kid? I've never heard of this.

I have never encountered this in more than 20 years of education.

As a special ed lawyer I've seen schools ask for it occasionally, never as an official IEP requirement but something unofficial. We tend to push back on it (if a kid needs that level of support we're generally fighting for them to be placed in a different setting), but it's not unheard of.

[Anonymous]

It’s criminal that this kid had such access to a firearm. Criminal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher:

I’ve never heard the term “acute disability.” That’s some shady lawyer wording to avoid implicating the son as like PERMANENTLY disabled . There is no IDEA category that contains the language of “acute disability”

Kids with disabilities needing parental supervision at school should not be in a Gen Ed setting

Interesting he never brought the totally secured gun while his parents had to be in the room with him

Acute disability is a real thing. It’s a mental health disorder that has the potential to be treated. Google it. Just because you aren’t familiar doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

I imagine that not too many of us have ever seen a child that young who is that severely mentally ill. I’m sure the parents, school and health care providers were really struggling to figure out how to help him.

In their struggles, the lack of judgment to have a firearm in the house is just mind boggling.

If these parents (and apparently the grandparents, not sure why they mentioned the grandparents in the statement but whatever) had to accompany the child at school and the first week they didn’t was the week the shooting occurred, that would mean at least one of the parents or grandparents WAS at school with the child the week before when he brought in the bullets. Yet with their acutely disable 6 yr old, who brought bullets into school under their watch, still had access to a loaded gun. The sheer lack of judgment and volume of negligence cannot be negated by any “we are victims too so please pray for us” statement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it common to have a plan under which parents must attend with their kid? I've never heard of this.

I have never encountered this in more than 20 years of education.

As a special ed lawyer I've seen schools ask for it occasionally, never as an official IEP requirement but something unofficial. We tend to push back on it (if a kid needs that level of support we're generally fighting for them to be placed in a different setting), but it's not unheard of.

So most likely he needed to be in a specialized classroom and his parents were fighting that placement.

[Anonymous]

Acute disability is a real thing. It’s a mental health disorder that has the potential to be treated. Google it. Just because you aren’t familiar doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

It is a descriptive term, not a diagnosis per se. It indicates the disability without naming it, like saying someone is out sick with an acute illness vs they have a kidney infection.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Acute disability is a real thing. It’s a mental health disorder that has the potential to be treated. Google it. Just because you aren’t familiar doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

It is a descriptive term, not a diagnosis per se. It indicates the disability without naming it, like saying someone is out sick with an acute illness vs they have a kidney infection.

PP here. I agree. And I wonder if the term was used because of the difficulty of diagnosing a six year old. Again, it’s really rare to see such serious mental illness in a child so young.

[Anonymous]

A home with an “acutely disabled” aka severely mentally health disabled 6 yr old that requires a parental aide at school seems like the perfect place to keep a loaded gun.

How did the kid know where the gun was?

How did the kid know how to “insecure” the gun?

How did the kid know how to load the gun?

How did the kid know how to use the gun?

It’s like how Adam Lanza’s mother kept guns in the house. WTAF?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is it common to have a plan under which parents must attend with their kid? I've never heard of this.

No. The school was severely out of compliance with disability laws if it required a parent to attend. If a student requires 1:1 support, the school must provide an aide. The parents may very well be at fault for allowing their 6 year old access to a firearm but they are not at fault for not accompanying their son to school that day. That's on the school. Lots of blame to go around here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it common to have a plan under which parents must attend with their kid? I've never heard of this.

I have never encountered this in more than 20 years of education.

As a special ed lawyer I've seen schools ask for it occasionally, never as an official IEP requirement but something unofficial. We tend to push back on it (if a kid needs that level of support we're generally fighting for them to be placed in a different setting), but it's not unheard of.

So most likely he needed to be in a specialized classroom and his parents were fighting that placement.

Not necessarily. There are plenty of kids in general education classrooms with one to one aides. This tells me that the school knew the kid needed a one to one but was shirking its responsibility to provide it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher:

I’ve never heard the term “acute disability.” That’s some shady lawyer wording to avoid implicating the son as like PERMANENTLY disabled . There is no IDEA category that contains the language of “acute disability”

Kids with disabilities needing parental supervision at school should not be in a Gen Ed setting

Interesting he never brought the totally secured gun while his parents had to be in the room with him

Acute disability is a real thing. It’s a mental health disorder that has the potential to be treated. Google it. Just because you aren’t familiar doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

I imagine that not too many of us have ever seen a child that young who is that severely mentally ill. I’m sure the parents, school and health care providers were really struggling to figure out how to help him.

What I mean is I have never seen it in an education setting. IDEA does not have a category for “acute disability” for an IEP. A child with a disability so severe they need a 1:1 aide as a parent attending would somehow have to be involved in the sped process but “acute disability” isn’t a category that can be used to define a student with social needs. If anything it sounds like the category under which he would receive sped services would be Emotional Disability. So the lawyer is using language to give the child a label that is NOT a disability under IDEA. It sounds like an “out” because it is. The child should never have been in a Gen Ed setting. He shouldn’t even have been in self contained. If his disability was this great he needed to be in a specialized school for students with severe mental disabilities.

[Anonymous]

Special needs* not social needs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s really alarming how many of you think that the problem is the child being in a mainstream school instead of a “more restrictive setting”. I work in self-contained special education and it isn’t a dumping ground for dangerous kids. My students are extremely vulnerable. Many of them are nonverbal and most of them can’t read or write in a traditional way. Although they are in upper elementary, many of them are functioning on a kindergarten or prekindergarten level. We had a student transfer to my class who was of above average intelligence but disruptive and violent. The students in my class had no way to advocate for themselves around this child and I was terrified about what he could do to them. The children with the highest needs ALSO have rights and need us to protect them. Do better.

Why are they dumping such disparate children in the same classroom? It sounds like there’s enough need to justify separate classrooms or separate centers. When people say more restrictive setting, nobody is thinking of lumping a violent kid in the same room as one who uses a communication board. They are thinking of put all the kids who clearly violent in their own building with very good ratios. 1:1, even. There’s a public school in nyc with 1:1 ratios for autistic students. It has been done. The tax payers just need to be willing to pay for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s really alarming how many of you think that the problem is the child being in a mainstream school instead of a “more restrictive setting”. I work in self-contained special education and it isn’t a dumping ground for dangerous kids. My students are extremely vulnerable. Many of them are nonverbal and most of them can’t read or write in a traditional way. Although they are in upper elementary, many of them are functioning on a kindergarten or prekindergarten level. We had a student transfer to my class who was of above average intelligence but disruptive and violent. The students in my class had no way to advocate for themselves around this child and I was terrified about what he could do to them. The children with the highest needs ALSO have rights and need us to protect them. Do better.

Kids who are violent don’t belong in either kind of classroom endangering others. After a couple of chances, they should be virtual only.