This thread is wild. I am an elementary school
arts teacher who teaches everyone in the school, including kids with autism and nonverbal. I would 100% never kick a child. But I would 100% definitely have a Diet Pepsi on my desk after lunch. I think parents have an unrealistic sense of what a school looks like.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a parent of a SPED kid in MCPS this doesn’t surprise me. This happens everyday - MCPS doesn’t create a safe environment for our kids. nothing ever happens to the staff member, kid is labeled the problem. Parents concerns dismissed. Lawyers get involved, CPS is called and nothing happens….

My 2 cents is understaffing and trying to mainstream to the max is making everyone more reactive.

What did your lawyer do? Have you sued mcps?

100%
This is wild!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow that sounds pretty bad.

When first seeing the title, I was willing to get the paraeducator the benefit of the doubt. Where something might've been incidental contact and blown out of proportion. And not to offend anyone but being identified as Special Ed can be a very wide spectrum and for a variety of reasons.

But to be actually be able to kick a kid in the chest seems to be pretty deliberate.

No injury reported.

My guess is the para was sitting in a chair and she pushed the kid away with her foot when he grabbed her drink (which she absolutely should not have had in the classroom).

This is why you shouldn't bring in minimum wage untrained people off the street to care for disabled students.

Why not?

It was soda.

Are teachers prohibited from having soda?

No, but they obviously shouldn't have it in the classroom in front of students. Come on.

That isn’t reasonable.

Teachers can have soda in front of students. Some teachers have coffee or tea. Even energy drinks. This is ok.

This. Parents can be so unreasonable. With young students, she should have put her soda out of reach of the kids. No excuse for kicking a kid. Although I’m guessing she put her leg out to stop the kid and kicked him accidentally but even that is inexcusable. You need to stop kid with your hands not with your feet

This was an elementary school classroom. Soda was probably prohibited in the cafeteria, much less the classrooms themselves. Having soda out in class was obviously going to be a trigger for behaviors.

This was terrible judgement on the paraeducator's part. The kick (which I also suspect was more of a blocking move rather than a kick) was a split-second decision. Yes, an awful mistake, but I'm more inclined to be forgiving of the split-second mistake here than the conscious decision to introduce an unnecessary trigger into the classroom.

A split second decision that was done with enough force that caused a vulnerable child to fall to the ground. The woman yelled no for crying out loud. She had time to think through this. Would you be so forgiving if this happened to your child?

It doesn't take much for my kids to fall to the ground. Running into a stationary leg/foot put up for blocking would easily cause them to fall to the ground.

And the time between a trigger, saying no, and a result is *very* often less than the amount of time to think something through. She thought through bringing the soda into the classroom, but she almost certainly didn't have time to think through her reaction to the students' natural response.

I doubt you have a young child with ASD with significant behavioral challenges. I think most parents that do could easily imagine this scenario. And they learn, and are taught, to avoid triggers in the first place because of how quickly things can escalate.

You sound like you’re paid by MCPS. Are you? Because anyone with sense would know the way to prevent this isn’t by eliminating the soda. The way to prevent this is to TRAIN THE F@CKING STAFF YOU BLOODY IDIOT!!

No, I'm a parent with two kids with special needs in MCPS at the elementary level. One with high support needs.

I agree the issue is training, in addition to resources. And the paraeducator's decision to bring soda into the classroom reflects that. Their training and policies should have prevented such an obvious trigger from being introduced to the classroom.

I would like to know why all the kids had enough time to gather around the teacher to see what she had to eat. What were the staff members doing???

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow that sounds pretty bad.

When first seeing the title, I was willing to get the paraeducator the benefit of the doubt. Where something might've been incidental contact and blown out of proportion. And not to offend anyone but being identified as Special Ed can be a very wide spectrum and for a variety of reasons.

But to be actually be able to kick a kid in the chest seems to be pretty deliberate.

No injury reported.

My guess is the para was sitting in a chair and she pushed the kid away with her foot when he grabbed her drink (which she absolutely should not have had in the classroom).

This is why you shouldn't bring in minimum wage untrained people off the street to care for disabled students.

Why not?

It was soda.

Are teachers prohibited from having soda?

No, but they obviously shouldn't have it in the classroom in front of students. Come on.

That isn’t reasonable.

Teachers can have soda in front of students. Some teachers have coffee or tea. Even energy drinks. This is ok.

This. Parents can be so unreasonable. With young students, she should have put her soda out of reach of the kids. No excuse for kicking a kid. Although I’m guessing she put her leg out to stop the kid and kicked him accidentally but even that is inexcusable. You need to stop kid with your hands not with your feet

This was an elementary school classroom. Soda was probably prohibited in the cafeteria, much less the classrooms themselves. Having soda out in class was obviously going to be a trigger for behaviors.

This was terrible judgement on the paraeducator's part. The kick (which I also suspect was more of a blocking move rather than a kick) was a split-second decision. Yes, an awful mistake, but I'm more inclined to be forgiving of the split-second mistake here than the conscious decision to introduce an unnecessary trigger into the classroom.

A split second decision that was done with enough force that caused a vulnerable child to fall to the ground. The woman yelled no for crying out loud. She had time to think through this. Would you be so forgiving if this happened to your child?

PP. In fact, I've had to bring my kids to the the ER or urgent care on three occasions after incidents involving the kids and staff, although all occurred outside of MCPS.

In two cases, my son with high support needs was in a self-contained program with staff much better trained than MCPS paraeducators. I was and am confident they did their best to ensure the safety of both my child and the staff, but sometimes incidents and injuries cannot be avoided.

In the other case, my other son with lower support needs was in a mainstream setting that I knew lacked staff with training for handling kids with ASD. Both I and the school were aware of the associated risks and chose to accept them. I suspect this incident could have been avoided had it occurred in a more structure setting with SPED staff, but I didn't want that for my child. I think they did their best in the situation and we worked together following the incident to try to reduce the chance something similar would happen again.

The immediate outcome doesn't affect my willingness to forgive as much as the lead-up and response.

Anonymous wrote:If a teacher has a beverage in a classroom and is being attacked by students over said drink then 1) your student/staff ratio is too high and 2) your staff need additional training.

Do you have additional information about this case? Because the article doesn’t say that the child attacked the teacher. It says that they ran over and took a sip of their drink. But you are absolutely correct that the staff need additional training.

If a teacher has a beverage in a classroom and is being attacked by students over said drink then 1) your student/staff ratio is too high and 2) your staff need additional training.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow that sounds pretty bad.

When first seeing the title, I was willing to get the paraeducator the benefit of the doubt. Where something might've been incidental contact and blown out of proportion. And not to offend anyone but being identified as Special Ed can be a very wide spectrum and for a variety of reasons.

But to be actually be able to kick a kid in the chest seems to be pretty deliberate.

No injury reported.

My guess is the para was sitting in a chair and she pushed the kid away with her foot when he grabbed her drink (which she absolutely should not have had in the classroom).

This is why you shouldn't bring in minimum wage untrained people off the street to care for disabled students.

Why not?

It was soda.

Are teachers prohibited from having soda?

No, but they obviously shouldn't have it in the classroom in front of students. Come on.

That isn’t reasonable.

Teachers can have soda in front of students. Some teachers have coffee or tea. Even energy drinks. This is ok.

This. Parents can be so unreasonable. With young students, she should have put her soda out of reach of the kids. No excuse for kicking a kid. Although I’m guessing she put her leg out to stop the kid and kicked him accidentally but even that is inexcusable. You need to stop kid with your hands not with your feet

This was an elementary school classroom. Soda was probably prohibited in the cafeteria, much less the classrooms themselves. Having soda out in class was obviously going to be a trigger for behaviors.

This was terrible judgement on the paraeducator's part. The kick (which I also suspect was more of a blocking move rather than a kick) was a split-second decision. Yes, an awful mistake, but I'm more inclined to be forgiving of the split-second mistake here than the conscious decision to introduce an unnecessary trigger into the classroom.

A split second decision that was done with enough force that caused a vulnerable child to fall to the ground. The woman yelled no for crying out loud. She had time to think through this. Would you be so forgiving if this happened to your child?

It doesn't take much for my kids to fall to the ground. Running into a stationary leg/foot put up for blocking would easily cause them to fall to the ground.

And the time between a trigger, saying no, and a result is *very* often less than the amount of time to think something through. She thought through bringing the soda into the classroom, but she almost certainly didn't have time to think through her reaction to the students' natural response.

I doubt you have a young child with ASD with significant behavioral challenges. I think most parents that do could easily imagine this scenario. And they learn, and are taught, to avoid triggers in the first place because of how quickly things can escalate.

You sound like you’re paid by MCPS. Are you? Because anyone with sense would know the way to prevent this isn’t by eliminating the soda. The way to prevent this is to TRAIN THE F@CKING STAFF YOU BLOODY IDIOT!!

All of this! It definitely seems like either MCPS reps or the accused are in this forum.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an MCPS training issue. Clearly their staff haven’t been trained on crisis intervention.

Paraeducators receive very limited training. This is particularly problematic given the high turnover in the "critical staffing" paraeducator positions that don't receive benefits.

This particular case was probably the result of a poor safety culture combined with insufficient staffing.

Absolutely. And yet, MCPS refuses to acknowledge this as an issue and tells parents staff receives sufficient training and that they have things covered. There’s no accountability and these kids and their families end up suffering.

They've got a long way to go, but Taylor is doing more to acknowledge the problem than McKnight or Smith ever did.

I hope you are right because I haven’t heard a single thing about this situation out of Taylor’s mouth. There hasn’t been any comment about it in any media reporting, and it would be amazing for MCPS to be accountable for their employees’ actions and make an actual plan in writing to put parents at ease about sending their disabled nonverbal children to school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow that sounds pretty bad.

When first seeing the title, I was willing to get the paraeducator the benefit of the doubt. Where something might've been incidental contact and blown out of proportion. And not to offend anyone but being identified as Special Ed can be a very wide spectrum and for a variety of reasons.

But to be actually be able to kick a kid in the chest seems to be pretty deliberate.

No injury reported.

My guess is the para was sitting in a chair and she pushed the kid away with her foot when he grabbed her drink (which she absolutely should not have had in the classroom).

This is why you shouldn't bring in minimum wage untrained people off the street to care for disabled students.

Why not?

It was soda.

Are teachers prohibited from having soda?

No, but they obviously shouldn't have it in the classroom in front of students. Come on.

That isn’t reasonable.

Teachers can have soda in front of students. Some teachers have coffee or tea. Even energy drinks. This is ok.

This. Parents can be so unreasonable. With young students, she should have put her soda out of reach of the kids. No excuse for kicking a kid. Although I’m guessing she put her leg out to stop the kid and kicked him accidentally but even that is inexcusable. You need to stop kid with your hands not with your feet

This was an elementary school classroom. Soda was probably prohibited in the cafeteria, much less the classrooms themselves. Having soda out in class was obviously going to be a trigger for behaviors.

This was terrible judgement on the paraeducator's part. The kick (which I also suspect was more of a blocking move rather than a kick) was a split-second decision. Yes, an awful mistake, but I'm more inclined to be forgiving of the split-second mistake here than the conscious decision to introduce an unnecessary trigger into the classroom.

A split second decision that was done with enough force that caused a vulnerable child to fall to the ground. The woman yelled no for crying out loud. She had time to think through this. Would you be so forgiving if this happened to your child?

It doesn't take much for my kids to fall to the ground. Running into a stationary leg/foot put up for blocking would easily cause them to fall to the ground.

And the time between a trigger, saying no, and a result is *very* often less than the amount of time to think something through. She thought through bringing the soda into the classroom, but she almost certainly didn't have time to think through her reaction to the students' natural response.

I doubt you have a young child with ASD with significant behavioral challenges. I think most parents that do could easily imagine this scenario. And they learn, and are taught, to avoid triggers in the first place because of how quickly things can escalate.

I actually do have a child with ASD and behavioral challenges so I have learned my child’s triggers and have made sure that any and all of their caregivers are aware of those triggers. Whether those caregivers actually follow through with that is unknown. But I have done my due diligence and know that I wouldn’t stick out my foot and knock my kid over with enough force to have them fall to the ground over a drink (according to the information from the Baltimore Sun- this is not a guess on my part). That’s just me, though.

In this case, we don’t know the reality of whether or not it was an accidental thing as we didn’t witness it. However, it seems there were eyewitnesses that felt this situation was clearly NOT okay and reported it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an MCPS training issue. Clearly their staff haven’t been trained on crisis intervention.

Paraeducators receive very limited training. This is particularly problematic given the high turnover in the "critical staffing" paraeducator positions that don't receive benefits.

This particular case was probably the result of a poor safety culture combined with insufficient staffing.

Absolutely. And yet, MCPS refuses to acknowledge this as an issue and tells parents staff receives sufficient training and that they have things covered. There’s no accountability and these kids and their families end up suffering.

They've got a long way to go, but Taylor is doing more to acknowledge the problem than McKnight or Smith ever did.

Sad but true.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow that sounds pretty bad.

When first seeing the title, I was willing to get the paraeducator the benefit of the doubt. Where something might've been incidental contact and blown out of proportion. And not to offend anyone but being identified as Special Ed can be a very wide spectrum and for a variety of reasons.

But to be actually be able to kick a kid in the chest seems to be pretty deliberate.

No injury reported.

My guess is the para was sitting in a chair and she pushed the kid away with her foot when he grabbed her drink (which she absolutely should not have had in the classroom).

This is why you shouldn't bring in minimum wage untrained people off the street to care for disabled students.

Why not?

It was soda.

Are teachers prohibited from having soda?

No, but they obviously shouldn't have it in the classroom in front of students. Come on.

That isn’t reasonable.

Teachers can have soda in front of students. Some teachers have coffee or tea. Even energy drinks. This is ok.

This. Parents can be so unreasonable. With young students, she should have put her soda out of reach of the kids. No excuse for kicking a kid. Although I’m guessing she put her leg out to stop the kid and kicked him accidentally but even that is inexcusable. You need to stop kid with your hands not with your feet

This was an elementary school classroom. Soda was probably prohibited in the cafeteria, much less the classrooms themselves. Having soda out in class was obviously going to be a trigger for behaviors.

This was terrible judgement on the paraeducator's part. The kick (which I also suspect was more of a blocking move rather than a kick) was a split-second decision. Yes, an awful mistake, but I'm more inclined to be forgiving of the split-second mistake here than the conscious decision to introduce an unnecessary trigger into the classroom.

A split second decision that was done with enough force that caused a vulnerable child to fall to the ground. The woman yelled no for crying out loud. She had time to think through this. Would you be so forgiving if this happened to your child?

It doesn't take much for my kids to fall to the ground. Running into a stationary leg/foot put up for blocking would easily cause them to fall to the ground.

And the time between a trigger, saying no, and a result is *very* often less than the amount of time to think something through. She thought through bringing the soda into the classroom, but she almost certainly didn't have time to think through her reaction to the students' natural response.

I doubt you have a young child with ASD with significant behavioral challenges. I think most parents that do could easily imagine this scenario. And they learn, and are taught, to avoid triggers in the first place because of how quickly things can escalate.

You sound like you’re paid by MCPS. Are you? Because anyone with sense would know the way to prevent this isn’t by eliminating the soda. The way to prevent this is to TRAIN THE F@CKING STAFF YOU BLOODY IDIOT!!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an MCPS training issue. Clearly their staff haven’t been trained on crisis intervention.

Paraeducators receive very limited training. This is particularly problematic given the high turnover in the "critical staffing" paraeducator positions that don't receive benefits.

This particular case was probably the result of a poor safety culture combined with insufficient staffing.

Absolutely. And yet, MCPS refuses to acknowledge this as an issue and tells parents staff receives sufficient training and that they have things covered. There’s no accountability and these kids and their families end up suffering.

They've got a long way to go, but Taylor is doing more to acknowledge the problem than McKnight or Smith ever did.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow that sounds pretty bad.

When first seeing the title, I was willing to get the paraeducator the benefit of the doubt. Where something might've been incidental contact and blown out of proportion. And not to offend anyone but being identified as Special Ed can be a very wide spectrum and for a variety of reasons.

But to be actually be able to kick a kid in the chest seems to be pretty deliberate.

No injury reported.

My guess is the para was sitting in a chair and she pushed the kid away with her foot when he grabbed her drink (which she absolutely should not have had in the classroom).

This is why you shouldn't bring in minimum wage untrained people off the street to care for disabled students.

Why not?

It was soda.

Are teachers prohibited from having soda?

No, but they obviously shouldn't have it in the classroom in front of students. Come on.

That isn’t reasonable.

Teachers can have soda in front of students. Some teachers have coffee or tea. Even energy drinks. This is ok.

This. Parents can be so unreasonable. With young students, she should have put her soda out of reach of the kids. No excuse for kicking a kid. Although I’m guessing she put her leg out to stop the kid and kicked him accidentally but even that is inexcusable. You need to stop kid with your hands not with your feet

This was an elementary school classroom. Soda was probably prohibited in the cafeteria, much less the classrooms themselves. Having soda out in class was obviously going to be a trigger for behaviors.

This was terrible judgement on the paraeducator's part. The kick (which I also suspect was more of a blocking move rather than a kick) was a split-second decision. Yes, an awful mistake, but I'm more inclined to be forgiving of the split-second mistake here than the conscious decision to introduce an unnecessary trigger into the classroom.

A split second decision that was done with enough force that caused a vulnerable child to fall to the ground. The woman yelled no for crying out loud. She had time to think through this. Would you be so forgiving if this happened to your child?

It doesn't take much for my kids to fall to the ground. Running into a stationary leg/foot put up for blocking would easily cause them to fall to the ground.

And the time between a trigger, saying no, and a result is *very* often less than the amount of time to think something through. She thought through bringing the soda into the classroom, but she almost certainly didn't have time to think through her reaction to the students' natural response.

I doubt you have a young child with ASD with significant behavioral challenges. I think most parents that do could easily imagine this scenario. And they learn, and are taught, to avoid triggers in the first place because of how quickly things can escalate.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an MCPS training issue. Clearly their staff haven’t been trained on crisis intervention.

Paraeducators receive very limited training. This is particularly problematic given the high turnover in the "critical staffing" paraeducator positions that don't receive benefits.

This particular case was probably the result of a poor safety culture combined with insufficient staffing.

Absolutely. And yet, MCPS refuses to acknowledge this as an issue and tells parents staff receives sufficient training and that they have things covered. There’s no accountability and these kids and their families end up suffering.