School abuse of Special Needs and what you need to do, Autism.

Well, that's another story that has come across my Facebook feed. Only it was a live video from a school board press release in Florida. Normally, I would just ignore it but it was at a school board and it peeked my interest. A few comments I could see scrolling through were, is this about my friends son? And then the news center posted that it was concerning abuse allegations. So I clicked the link. It doesn't tell you until you click the story headline that the abuse was a child with autism. I had to read the article to find that out what exactly happened. The allegations against the teacher is that she sprayed the child with a spray bottle like a dog when the child did something wrong. But it's not just that. She had also pushed the child down with her foot and she also kneed him in the chin.

So there it is, a nonverbal child with autism was being abused by a teacher. What are the signs as a parent you should be looking for? Coming from experience of a parent whose child was abused in the classroom who had little speech, let me break it down for you. What to look for and what to do.

You know your child. You know every aspect of your child. If their mood is changing at home. That's a sign that something isn't right. This is your first sign. It starts small but the behavior will escalate. If your child is normally a loving sweet child, that will change. Normally, your child will become aggressive. An almost complete 360 of what you are used to. You will start to notice a regression. Sometimes a regression will happen and it will happen pretty quickly. But it starts out small. Little things, but you need to keep an eye out for changes. As my child was abused it started as a small regression. We started loosing speech and what sign language she had, she started loosing that as well.

Most children if they come home wet or "sweaty" looking, smell for different scents. Have your child change and smell the clothing. If it's "sweat" of the day, you know how your child smells when they've been running or playing. If it doesn't have a smell you can guarantee it's water that's been splashed or sprayed on them. If it's in the seat area, well you know what pee smells like. If your child is potty trained and doesn't normally pee themselves. That's the biggest red flag you can get.

Look for bruises or marks on your child. Check them the moment they get home. Check your child again when you give them a bath or before bed. And check them again in the morning before you get them dressed for school. The reason you have to keep checking is because bruising will appear in gradual stages. Sometimes a bruise won't appear until the next day. But red marks will appear and stay for several hours at a time. But will be gone by the next day. Look for scratches. Sometimes when someone man handles your child, they will end up scratching them.

If you are being contacted by the school for behavior that is not typical of your child and it ends up in an emergency room visit. That's your other red flag. Let the doctors know it happened at school. If the school report and what the nurse said and the teacher said do not match up at the least little bit, let the hospital know. Let them also know that you want to file a police report. If possible have to hospital contact the sheriff's department to file the police report.

If you have great rapport with your pediatrician like I do, contact them immediately. You pediatrician will help walk you through not only trying to get your child out of the school to one that is safer but they will make sure that everything is documented properly and getting that police report will be a breeze, as the dates and times will already be charted in your child's file. If you are already seeing a regression or a small regression, head to the pediatrician. If you have a doctor that you don't trust, you really need to get on the ball and get a new pediatrician. I didn't see the regression happening, but I did go to the pediatrician and she went through Doodle's file and told me that Doodle was regressing. Because she's been charting everything from the time Doodle was born. Our pediatrician even made notes about the services we were receiving for speech and OT and charted her progress. When Doodle got into the first bad school because we were zoned for it, it was our pediatrician that wrote letters to get Doodle out of the school and notated incidences of previous abuse from that school and how Doodle was regressing. Of course that letter didn't work but she was willing to fight for us. And that's what mattered. FYI, Doodle was in that first bad school for less then 6 months before a tornado wiped the school off the map. For me I'm either going to fight or stand back and let God fight the battles for me.

Go to your local sheriffs department to file a report against the school, if you have any of the above signs that something isn't right. Let them know what's going on. File a report of abuse and make sure that you have all of your times and dates of the incidences. I would make sure that I have at least 3 incidences as the third strike rule is my favorite rule to go with. As you want to make sure your child is being abused. But if your child has hand prints on them or bruising or scratches go ahead and file immediately.

Apparently, in this story the school was notified of the incident's and they did their own investigation. Which resulted in the school board and school trying to cover it up. That's a rookie move. Three people have been placed on leave, but because the sheriff's department was contacted all three have been arrested.  I never let a school know what's going on when it comes to blindsiding them. In the past I've always made sure the school was the last to find out. As I am one of those underhanded parents, you never know what I'm going to do. Hence the reason why I'm a level up mom. I get people fired for infractions against my kid or myself. Read through my past blogs. I'm proud to get para educators, bus drivers and teachers fired. Heck if we would have spent another year in the second bad school the principal was already on my target list. I don't play.

As I call it, leveling up gives me the biggest thrill. Cause I'm the parent they have to give everything to. When it comes to an IEP, I'm a stickler that it be followed to a T.  You never hear from me cause I'm always researching. But that moment I strike, they are blindsided, and don't know what to do with themselves. Of course it never hurts to always remember that your IEP is a corner to corner contract between you, the school and the State that you live in and even if you write in crayon on that IEP, it can't be broken.

With more school systems going to having special needs children in regular education classrooms we will see an increase of teachers abusing our children. Regular education teachers aren't trained to handle our children. They aren't trained to teach our children. What they are allowing is our children to fall through the cracks and breaking IEP's. Because our children have a right to a free and public education. Which is what is being denied.

Document, conquer and divide!

See you guys on the flip side.

Our emergency room visit because my child "ran into a pole".