During the 3 years I worked at a special education center in Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) I expressed concern and/or made child abuse reports about assistants, teachers and administrators who perpetrated a wide variety of subtle and overt abuses such as: 

·         Leading students around using chains from their transportation vests like leashes and/or chaining students to table legs so that they could not stand

·         Hitting and slapping students. Pulling students’ hair. Choking students

·         Ignoring, ridiculing and neglecting students:  students were made to sleep or lie or left in front of television sets all day. Male assistants forced male students to dance for them.

·         Stealing from students; General misuse of school funds

However, even though my claims were verified through investigations, administrators retaliated against me by reassigning me to another school over the protests of parents, students and fellow teachers. Because I was replaced with two therapists who lacked both the experience and qualifications to serve these students, they remained virtually un-served for the year. Another teacher who did not have tenure was fired for reporting. Unfortunately the general lack of interest in the welfare and safety of disabled students and retaliation against educators who report abuse are not confined to my particular school district. In fact, research shows that when compared to their non-disabled peers, the abuse of disabled students occurs more often, involves more perpetrators and is sustained longer. Not only are disabled students the victims of predators who deliberately target them, but they are also victimized by professional policies and practices. According to research, educators unknowingly foster environments of abuse because they lack awareness of the model of disability that both underlies their training and drives their own negative attitudes. In fact, what many educators would label abuse of a “normal” person would not be labeled abuse of a disabled person.  Educator attitudes and actions affect not only the well-being and life-opportunities of disabled students, but also the general public’s general undervaluing of, and willingness to include, disabled people.

In summary, to ensure the appropriate and safe education of our disabled students, California educators should be provided with mandated training in recognizing and preventing the abuse of disabled students, including training in safe and socially appropriate feeding of students. Training should also involve additional support for teachers whose administrators violate policies mandating teacher protection from retaliation for reporting abuse.