EastCountyToday spoke with Interim Superintendent Doug Adams yesterday to talk about the most recent allegations of child abuse at Loma Vista Elementary School in Brentwood which put teacher Kristie Schrick Principal Lauri James on paid administrative leave until an internal, independent investigation is complete.
Although Brentwood Police completed an investigation based off a parent’s account of a teacher handling a special needs child by kicking them down a slide and further yelling at the child, they found no instance of abuse.
According to Police, there was a different story being told from the Districts side according to the Contra Costa Times.
“The teacher actually followed the student down the slide and the student turned around to bite the teacher on the leg and she moved to avoid being bitten,” Brentwood police Lt. Doug Silva said. “They later went down the slide laughing together.”
Before entering the slide, though, the student had thrown tan bark at the teacher, he said.
“She placed her hands on his shoulders to place him in time out,” Silva said. “That was the school psychologist approved technique to deal with that behavior.”
Dr. Adams states the incident is a case of misunderstanding, but the fact the reporting did not occur in a timely matter does not sit well with him and is now working on his own investigation.
“Onsite inquiry says no abuse took place according to the police and may be a misunderstanding of the challenging realities of special needs classes but I have serious concerns about why the matter was not reported to the District Office and law enforcement and I need to continue with that investigation. In addition, we are investigation that protocols were followed in terms of this incident and hopefully we can get it resolved in a timely matter,’ said Adams.
So child abuse allocations are off, and a protocol investigation is in.
We asked Dr. Adams about how training had just been conducted a few months back (note: Dr. Adams was not here then) and how this could still happen? He did not answer due to the investigation, but did share that he was concerned.
“The focus is why the time between May 6 and May 16 had no report filed with the district or authorities,” said Adams. “The investigation will be conducted this week. It will determine if employees followed procedures in dealing with not only restraint of a child, but also procedures terms of reporting.”
All school employees who work with children are “mandated reporters” who must report any suspicions of abuse to police or Child Protective Services immediately by phone, and then through a written report within 36 hours.
Although Dr. Adams was not yet “interim superintendent” when the training occurred, he shared that he had to take a test and he passed—the test included reporting incidents. The training just completed by the District highlighted proper training for reporting of incidents and the laws surrounding it.
According to Dr. Adams, the investigation will wrap up Friday where he will then make his recommendations and resolutions to the Board in about a week’s time.
Adams stated that an outside investigator is assisting. The investigator is an attorney and a retired superintendent and principal of a school.
13 comments
Looks like have two completely polar opposite stories. With training just completed, either the principal doesn’t care or is unqualified for the job. Fire James now!
Look, I am not for any kind of child abuse, but I am also not for this “mandatory reporting” either. Are we a nanny state now, where every little thing gets reported? “Mandatory” means that all teachers, state-wide, are now forced to be reporting organs for the government. “Let the social workers take care of it”, they say. A social workers job is to find any fault with the family and get that child into “care” and put them on pharmaceutical drugs. The system makes money off getting your child into the system, look it up.
So called “Mandatory Reporting” is just as bad, or worse than “Zero Tolerance”.
If in fact, a teacher touched the child on the shoulder, how does this constitute abuse?
I want to hear the parents side of this, from their child’s words. Just exactly was thought to of happened? Special needs children have issues with sensory integration, and even touching them could spark a reaction, but this is to be expected.
We would all love to hear the child’s words, however this child is non verbal, like my child was at that age. This is why special needs parents are so frustrated by these situations. We’ll never really know! We want to be able to trust our wonderful teachers, and our trust was shaken by the 2010 incident that recently came to light.The District needs to cover all bases and we’ll all be able to breathe a bit.
Yes, of course this is a problem. Do the parents have information on autism research, removing dyes from the diet, heavy metal chelation detox, vaccinations, etc? I believe my blog is listed, take a look at my “cancer” blog article, it has some very good information about diet. I will also be happy to talk with the parents about very real diet changes they can make to help their child get out of their shell.
What a horrible thing to post. You must be kidding posting this sh*t to a parent with an autistic child. STFU.
I have two children with special needs, despite the fact I grow half my food, they never received a vaccine, don’t know what plastic toys are and haven’t ever had food coloring or eaten food cooked on a toxic pan.
This type of thing implies:
1. Gee. A parent of an autistic child never thought of this!
2. We somehow caused or perpetuate autism.
3. We asked for it.
4. We can “cure” it.
It’s offensive, and unless you have a child with autism or have done research in the field, again, STFU.
Excuse me? I have a special needs child, I live it every day for 11 years. These are things I think about. Quite frankly, I talk to lots of parents, all the time, and some do not know about various alternatives like this. We advocate raw milk for instance, and many people I talk to don’t know the benefits of raw milk, and the dangers of homogenized milk.
Offensive would be to not address this on a parents board. Why so harsh on the “STFU”? I do tons of research, have a child with these needs, and talk to parents all the time about these subjects. I find it rude you assume who I am, and what I know. I got involved in this because of my child, I think it would be respectful and maybe even beneficial to see what I know. Worse case, is that I learn from your knowledge, and then it benefits me, and everyone I talk to in the future.
Its great you do these things, and have been doing them. Its very rare, in fact, that people do grow their own food, and think of these matters. Consider those parents who don’t, and can in fact help their child. Every child is different, but if you or I can get through to just the parents of a single child and talk to them about Autism now, or Autism speaks, or other such organizations, or even read books they might not have known about, I think its worth it, just for a single child.
And if parents already know all these things, and have gone through the gambit of experimentation, food trials, etc, then we know our knowledge is getting out there. 1 in 10,000 not so many years ago, and now 1 in 50 children with autism is not because parents are having babies differently, its because of something in the environment and what we eat.
Frankly, I would rather reports made to the district office and the authorities than allow abuse to continue to occur. I am not sure if you have school age children, but there aren’t social workers in school and when you have young children that are impressionable, who look up to teachers/administrators – its important to have an outside objective authority. I would suggest that you contact your legislature if you would like to change the law.
On a personal note, all of my children’s teachers at Loma Vista have been loving, dedicated teachers. I have no doubt that they care and want to give them every tool to be successful in life.
I would rather teachers be the “reporting organ” for the state then to allow someone to hurt and abuse my child. I would rather the police find the charge to be unfounded than to have my child’s trust and innocence be abused by someone that they look up to. I would imagine that most teachers would feel the same way.
Incidents should be reported directly to the parents, I was trying say. If we report everything to the police and government, then we need larger police and government agencies to handle those requests.
Keep in mind that what is being reported is not abuse from the teacher in question, because lets say a teacher was really abusing a child, do you think they would report this to anyone? What in fact turns out to be the facts here, is that parents are in fact reported on, by teachers, if lets say a child has a scratch, or a rash on their body. It “might be abuse” so they report it. The parents have to explain why their child has a rash?
This mandatory reporting is not for teachers, it is for the family. We don’t subject every law abiding, loving family to investigation and pestering, because there are a few cases of abuse out there. I think we can agree that teachers and care givers know the signs of abuse and will report it just the same.
Mandated reporting is the law for teachers, police, fire, etc. – I would ask that you educate yourself on the law. Please reference CA penal code section – The California Child Abuse Reporting Law is found in Penal Code Sections 11165-11174.3. Teachers, Administrations, Teachers’s Aides are all mandated reporters.
And the abuse case that happened at Loma Vista (previously) was a teacher abusing a child. Again – please do your research. A special needs teacher (Dina Holder) kicked a non-verbal student in the back while in school and the administration failed to report this to the authorities. The school district (BUSD) was sued of this incident and lost a $900k lawsuit.
This is the reason why everyone is concerned that yet again, we have another failure to report issue. (Under investigation)
(http://eastcountytoday.wordpress.com/2013/02/01/timeline-busd-teacher-abuse-incident/
I am versed fairly significantly in the law, actually. What makes you think that a “law” or civil code is going to persuade someone from reporting a crime, or better yet complying with the law? You don’t think that criminals care much about the law, do you? I mean, “whoa, there is a law, I best report myself”, is yet again not what is going to be coming out of someone thoughts in these cases.
Plus, lets say this incident DID get reported. Do you think the parents would have just laid back, and like said “yeah, it got reported, were good here”. NOT! Those parents would have sued the daylights out of the school district, and personally, I would have gone after the teachers pension, house and personal insurance as well.
What we need is better training, and better pay. Yes, the teachers unions keep funneling pension money into stocks and bonds that deteriorate over time, and teachers get screwed.
We need to build a better society in which our teachers and librarians get paid like rock stars and professional athletes. If you want to go to a baseball game, great, but why should those guys get the advertising contracts? Teachers, based on performance, should be getting the multi-million dollar contracts from Mellow Yellow. There should also be a clear performance retention system, and let go all the useless teachers out there who shouldn’t be teaching in the first place.
The parents did sue the district and walked away with $900,000 due to abuse that happened to their child at this school and was not reported to the proper authorities.
You are commenting on an article, where yet again, at the same school we have another failure to report issue. Where the mandated reporting to either the district OR the police was not done. The parent thought that they witnessed a teacher abusing a child, which the police have now cleared as unfounded. YEAH! But here is the rub, the Principal who was required to report this incident to the district (according to their Standard Operating Procedures) did not nor was it reported to the authorities.
I am trying to understand your point, and I am not sure what it is?
My point is this – incidents of abuse need to be reported according to the district policies and law. Since my kids go to this school, I would like for this procedure to be enforced. And if they ever saw me kick my kid or push them out of the car – I would want for them to report me!
As far as teacher pay – HELL YA. I would love to pay our teachers like rock stars. I have even spoke up at the School Board and said, “Brand my child!” If Nike wants my kid to only wear Nike shirts and the school gets millions of dollars towards educational tools – BRING IT ON. Pepsi backpacks = art, music, history, dancing at school. SIGN ME UP.
Sadly, this is not allowed.
Does anyone stop to think that it was a parent who saw the incident not a teacher? It is Ms. James job to investigate something she did not see first hand. The parent who saw the incident was mistaken. Why would you need to report to the police something that was unfounded? I think she should have gone to the DO but she handled everything else correctly.
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