A Teacher Dragged a 6-Year-Old With Autism by His Ankle. Federal Civil Rights Officials Might Not Do Anything. — ProPublica

A brief video made at the school of Illinois took anxious behavior: a teacher who clamped a 6-year-old boy with autism on the ankle and dragged him down the hall on the back.

The early April incident would be upset at any school, but it happened at the garrison school, which is part of the special education area, where students were arrested at the highest level of any area of ​​the country. The teacher was charged with battery a few weeks after pressure from the student’s parents.

It’s been about eight months since the US Education Ministry directed the garrison to change how it responded to students with disabilities. The Department said it would follow School often participated in the police and used conflicting disciplinary methods.

But the Office of the Regional Bureau of Civil Rights in Chicago, which was responsible for Illinois and five other states, was one of the seven abolished Presidential Administration Donald Trump in March; The offices were closed and all their employee was fired.

The future of surveillance in four rivers, in the Western Central Illinois, is now uncertain. Since Trump, he has taken the position of Trump, and his administration has stopped the anti -discrimination agreement with at least one school district, in South Dakota.

In the April incident, Xander Reed, who has autism and does not say, did not stop playing with the blocks and go to the PE when he was told, the police said. The Xander then “fell on the ground,” the statement reads. When he refused to get up, the teacher -the reaper remedy pulled him into the gym.

Another employee took a picture and warned the school management. Amy Haarman’s director said Draik’s actions “were not an acceptable practice at school,” the police said.

Xander’s family asked for charges. Drike, who worked in the Xander class for more than a month, was accused about three weeks later in the battery, showing records. She did not find herself guilty. Her lawyer said Prapublica that he and Drake did not want to comment on this story.

Treis Fair, Director of the district, said that after the incident the school was safe and that Drake would not return to the area. She refused to comment on the incident, but stated that school officials perceive their “duty to make students and staff very safely.”

Thompson’s arc, the police chief in Jacksonville, where the school is located, said he could not discuss the case.

Xander’s mother, Amanda, said her son was afraid to go to Garnison, where she said he was also punished when he was put in a school “crisis room”, a small space where students take when staff feel that they were badly or demanding time alone. “He didn’t want to go to school,” she said. “We want him to be educated. We want him to be with other children.”

Four rivers serve eight district squares, and students in Garrison vary from kindergartens through a high school. About 70 students were enlisted at the beginning of the school year. Areas that believe that the student is unable to send them to four rivers; Xander travels for 40 minutes in each way to visit the garrison.

Federal control over the garrison began after PROPUBLICA and Tribune showed that during the five -year period the school staff called the police to report the students’ bad behavior on average at school. During this period, police made more than 100 students under the age of 9. They were handcuffed and taken to the police for devastating or naughty; If they physically attacked the staff, they were often accused of crime.

The news organizations also found that the garrison staff often removed students from their classrooms and sent them to crisis when students were upset, naughty or aggressive.

Civil Rights Office ‘Office The conclusions repeated the data investigation data. He determined that the garrison regularly sent students to the police for non -criminal behavior, which could be related to their disability – something that is prohibited by federal law.

The area was supposed to report its progress to amending OCR by December last year, which seem to have done, according to the Proopublica documents obtained through a public record request.

But the records show that OCR has not talked to the area since then, and it is unclear what will work in four rivers. OCR stopped at least one agreement he concluded last year – an agreement with the South Dakota School District, which agreed to take discrimination measures against the Indians. Representatives of the education department did not answer propublica questions.

Scott Reid, 6-year-old Father Xander Rid, said he and Xander’s mother were aware of the frequent use of police as disciplines in four rivers and OCR participation. But they reluctantly enlisted it this school year because they were told that there were no other options.

“You can say that you have made all these changes, but you haven’t done it,” Scott Reid said. For example, he said that even after confirming that Drake had pulled a 50-pound boy down the hall, the school management sent her home. “They did not call the police until I came to school and demanded her,” he said.

“If it was a student,” who acted so, “they would be handcuffed.”

The new propublica report revealed that after starting a school in August, police were summoned to school at least 30 times in response to students’ behavior.

Thompson, the police chief, told Propublica that in one case officers called because the student said: “Inappropriate things.” They were also summoned last month after the report that the student struck and beat the staff. According to the police newspaper, the officers “helped reassure the student.”

And police continues to arrest the garrison students. Six arrests of students for damaging property or exacerbation of battery have passed this academic year, according to police. A 15-year-old girl was arrested for plus the employee’s face, and the 10-year-old boy was arrested after he was charged with staffing. According to police, there were at least nine students of students.

Thompson said four students between the ages of 10 and 16 were arrested this academic year on a more serious exacerbation of the battery; One of the students was arrested three times. He said he believed that the calls for the police in Garnison are inevitable, but the school staff now solve more problems on the behavior of the students without addressing the police.

“I feel that the calls for service are more directed at what they have done everything they can and now they need help,” Thompson said. “They tried to de -escalate themselves, and the student has not yet cooperated, or it is not under control and they need additional help.”

Last week, police were summoned to school to cope with “indignation related to a student,” a police blot in a local newspaper Jacksonville reports. This time it did not end in arrest; My father came and “forced the student to obey the staff.”