Agency: School mistreated disabled kids

Special-needs students at Will Rogers Elementary in Colorado Springs were improperly restrained and forced into “timeout” seclusion, according to a nonprofit advocacy group for the disabled.

The group has submitted a 21-page report to the state Department of Education and Colorado Springs School District 11 demanding the allegations be addressed.

The report by the Legal Center for People with Disabilities and Older People says the techniques were used on 45 occasions and involved five students.

District 11 on Monday issued a statement saying it “strongly disagrees” with the report.

Though parents and an attorney for the legal center admit the students involved exhibited extremely challenging behavior, they say the school was ill-equipped to deal with it and that the remedial action it chose violated numerous state education regulations.

In one instance, an 11-year-old girl was denied a trip to the restroom and had to sit in her urine, according to the report. An 11-year-old boy reportedly was bloody from hitting himself and banging his head while in seclusion.

The district allowed the nonprofit free access to the school and staff for its investigation, said Heidi Van Huysen, an attorney with the center’s special-education program.

The D-11 statement denied that any student had to sit in his or her own body fluid.

“District 11 maintains a special education program at Rogers Elementary that serves students with severe emotional disabilities,” the statement said. “Because of the dangers some of these students pose to themselves and others, it is sometimes necessary for the district to physically restrain them or place them in an unlocked time-out room.”

All the incidents outlined in the report occurred in a selfcontained classroom called the “Learning Lab” and an attached timeout room, Van Huysen said. Most students in the classroom had mental-health or developmental disabilities, she said.

“I have no doubt many of these students engaged in difficult behavior, but there is no excuse for the ongoing pattern and practices the Will Rogers staff engaged in with regards to restraint and seclusion,” Van Huysen said.

“The law is you can only use it in emergency situations, and the standard for ‘emergency’ is very high. It is one of being able to cause serious bodily injury to oneself or others,” she said.

Van Huysen said the center is required by state and federal law to investigate whether abuse and neglect occur in settings that serve people with disabilities. The agency was designated in 1977 as the state’s advocacy group for such investigations.

Van Huysen said some parents contacted the agency, which then interviewed students, parents, a special-education teacher and four paraprofessionals who worked in the Learning Lab.

Students were reportedly physically carried to the timeout room for infractions such as attempting to kick, hit or bite staff members; flipping a chair; throwing books; and breaking a teacher’s glasses.

In order to leave timeout, students were required to sit calmly on a tile floor for a time based on their age — 11 minutes for an 11-year-old, for example. School staff members told the agency the clock was restarted if the student did not remain calm, the report says.

Van Huysen said state school regulations allow 1 minute of timeout for each year of a student’s age up to a maximum of 12 minutes, yet some students were sitting on a tile floor for a half-hour or longer.

She said none of the five students still attend Will Rogers, located on South Circle Drive. The incidents allegedly occurred last school year and part of this school year.

Two mothers interviewed by The Gazette said their sons now live in residential facilities, in part because their behavior deteriorated considerably while at Will Rogers.

Christie Penny said her 11-year-old son, Christopher, was put in seclusion several times a week and often denied food until late in the school day.

Christopher has high-functioning autism, and his mother said he gets easily angered and frustrated if not allowed adequate time to finish expressing a thought. “If you don’t go at his pace, he can’t do it. They’re supposed to know that in that kind of setting,” Penny said.

Christopher is now in a “hospital-type setting” in metro Denver, and the family has moved from Colorado Springs to be closer to him, his mother said.

Another mother, Penny Gilliland, said her son, Alex, who is mentally ill, is easily agitated over seemingly little things.

“He can go from one to 10 quickly,” Gilliland said of his quick temper. “I believe they should have talked to an outside professional to intervene with Alex because obviously it was out of their hands.”

Alex is now in a residential program at Cedar Springs Behavioral Health System.

A third parent, Julie Rhuby, said her 11-year-old daughter, Kayla, was so frightened of school that she’d flee. “She was scared to death of school. She had gotten so scared she would literally disappear. She would leave the building.”

Rhuby said she didn’t know how many times her daughter had been restrained or put in seclusion until she read the report, which details nine incidents. She said Kayla, who has bipolar disorder, is now attending a home-school co-op.

Van Huysen said children like those in the report need individual behavioral plans and de-escalation techniques specific to them.

“If district staff doesn’t feel it has the ability to effectively de-escalate a student, they need to consult with experts, and there are plenty of those people that exist, and that was one of the big problems with this particular case,” she said.

She said the agency is filing a complaint against a specialeducation teacher at Will Rogers; such licensure complaints could result in the suspension or revocation of a teaching license. Van Huysen also is hoping the Colorado Department of Education conducts its own investigation.