Five Tuscon Unified School District employees have been put on notice after a photograph of a special needs student restrained to a fence by his backpack surfaced, sparking an investigation. The investigation revealed that the student was routinely tied to the fence to keep him from "falling over or wandering away" while waiting for an escort after being dropped off at school.
"I would never intentionally do anything to a student that would
give him discomfort or embarrass [the student] in any way," bus monitor Thomas Giacoma wrote in a
letter to district officials. He also noted that he'd used the fence to restrain the student for most of a school year, without complaints from teachers, students, or his supervisors. When he did receive a complaint from a furious teacher in March, Giacoma says he stopped the restraint.
However, disability advocates disagree with Giacoma, and say that restraining a student to a fence was clearly both inappropriate and humiliating.
"The fundamental question to ask is, 'Do you want to be attached to the
fence, with no means of escape?' And if the answer is no, then we don't
have the right to do that to anybody else - and especially for someone
who can't advocate for themselves," said Northern Arizona University
professor Dan Davidson, who holds a doctorate in behavioral disabilities and trains teachers who work with students with disabilities.
The five employees involved in the inappropriate restraint received letters of direction for the incident, and Giacoma received a verbal warning. The letters of direction signify that disciplinary action may be taken if a problem continues.
What do you think? Should the employees be disciplined, or are the letters of direction enough? What should they have done instead to ensure the student's safety between when he was dropped off by the bus and when someone arrived to escort him to his classroom?
