12-Year-Old Special Education Student Charged With Disorderly Conduct for Wetting Pants

This is the Danville police cheif:

Danville Police Chief Eric Gill (570)275-2101

And here is:

Danville Middle School (570)275-1281

How about a few dozen people call and see if they still think a 12 year old special ed girl doing community service is a good idea.

I would agree with the bulk of the posters here that the principal blew the whole situation out of proportion.

I would like to add a thought to the conversation, and I apologize if it is off topic. Our school systems spend a lot of money on special education students, at a time when most school systems are strapped for cash. I definitely think it is worth it to spend a little extra money on students who need just a little extra help to accomplish good things. For example, it is worth it to buy Braile textbooks for Blind students, build wheel chair ramps for kids who cannot walk, give dislexic kids the training they need to read and write just like everyone else, or give highly functioning mentally retarded people an education that can make them somewhat functional adults. On the other hand, there are kids who are so severely handicapped, that whatever gains they make in the school system are not worth the high costs. For example, it does not make sense to pay 2 or 3 specialists to tend to the needs of a severely disabled student who will only be able to tie their shoes and count to 5 by the time they "graduate," when that money could be spent on other things that can help larger numbers of kids like lowering student teacher ratios and valuable extra curricular activities like music and sports.

Oh lord, sounds like the automatic response of an abuse survivor. What else has the principle done to the poor child that he scares her so badly and tries to criminalize her?

Every strategist knows the best defense is a good offense. Pedophiles are attracted to work with children.

Originally posted by closettrekkie
Ok, ok, now hold up a minute. While I agree that the school should not have called the cops, you people are jumping to a lot of conclusions here.

So the big bad principal scares the pee out of a 12 year-old retarded girl,

Where in the article did you read that she was retarded? For someone who does such extensive research about bird flu, I'm surprised that you answered this way. The article said she was a special education student. That can mean ANYTHING! Yes, some special ed students are mentally challenged (they don't like being called "retarded"), some are physically handicapped, but there are some special ed classes that are for kids that have behavior problems also. When I went to highschool, there were classes that were called special education that was especially for all the druggies and problem children.

Most people think Special Education and think mentally challenged (ie some level of retardation or autism). Yes, unfortunately, some physically handicapped children are placed into special ed ... if that is their only problem then they do not need to be there. A school is supposed to be ADA compliant and therefore accesible. Putting children who are mentally fine but physically challenged into an environment that displays that they are "abnormal" from the mainstream does little for their self esteem and self development. Parents should not allow their physicall handicapped, and otherwise normal, children to be put into special ed environment. How do we expect such children to go onto college and careers if we but them in the same classes with kids who bang their heads into walls?? Sorry for the digression from the topic at hand but my sister is paraplegic and my parents fought several school districts she attended to allow her into "regular" classrooms even though she tested gifted.

Back to the issue at hand. A young girl in special ed wets herself, for whatever reason. Even if they thought there was a behavior issue involved ... I'm not sure what they hoped to attain by calling the police. I'm more amazed that the local PD or sheriffs would actually arrest this juvenile on a disorderly charge. That sort of charge would definitely not fly around this neck of the woods ... unless someone was urinating/defecating onto someone's desk or chair or other digusting activity.

She may very well be wetting herself on purpose ... possibly to get attention ... maybe because something has happened to her ... maybe even because she is mad and has some mental health issues on dealing with anger. Either way you cut it this is not a matter of a crime being committed ... arresting her isn't going to change this behaviour.

hotpinkurinalmint
Well, the point you raised in your last post may sound cruel and insensitive to some, but I happen to agree with it.

This country spends an exhorbitant amount of money on special needs kids, some of whom shouldn't even be in public school. In contrast, we spend very, very little on exceptional students, and not nearly enough on those who, as you say, just need a little help to achieve good things.

Special ed classrooms are huge money suckers - they have a much, much better student to teacher ration than the regular classrooms, and they are the darlings of every budget in every district in this country, and that's not due to compassion or love, it results from a visible pattern of budgetary blackmail.

If a school doesn't spend enough on the regular kids, nothing happens. If they fail to spend enough (defined by the parents) on the special ed kids, they get their pants sued off - which just exacerbates the financial worries of the district. The feds are supposed to pick up the tab for special ed programs (since they were the ones who wrote the rules), but they just don't. Broken promises are a dime a dozen when it comes to this crappy, overreaching, dead-beat big brother, who always collects when owed, but welches with astounding consistency when it comes time to pay some of that loot back into the public sphere.

Obviously, people with special needs, whatever they might be, deserve an education if they've paid for it with their taxes (while we're saddled with this abysmal public school system we might as well administer it fairly), but they don't deserve one tenth the education at ten or twenty times the price. Any way you slice it, that's wrong - it's a disservice to the kids, the parents, the future of this nation.

One final point, I have to make it - money is not the golden key to success in education. The best-performing districts often function on less than their under-performing 'peers', so obviously it's got less to do with money, and more to do with efficiency, creativity, and good sense.

My vote is for a good old-fashioned trimming of the fat. Make the government as lean and mean as possible, at the national, state, and local levels. Starvation diet - no more money until they learn to get by on a fraction of the current budget. A lot of complaining is sure to result, but if we can't learn to solve problems, instead of just throwing money at them and hoping they'll go away, we're hopeless as a nation.

Originally posted by closettrekkie
I never said that they were right in calling the cops, infact I said they shouldn't have. I just said we don't have all the facts and people are starting to assume things they don't know for sure

i agree with you 100%



no matter what there is no need to call the cops for that situation though..

Originally posted by WyrdeOne

My vote is for a good old-fashioned trimming of the fat. Make the government as lean and mean as possible, at the national, state, and local levels. Starvation diet - no more money until they learn to get by on a fraction of the current budget. A lot of complaining is sure to result, but if we can't learn to solve problems, instead of just throwing money at them and hoping they'll go away, we're hopeless as a nation.

Apply that criteria to the military, and I'll vote with you. Maybe.

I do believe that future of any nation, and any people, depends on education.

BTW - I fought with a school because my genius daughter's education was neglected due to all the $$ going to other 'special needs' students. ('Gifted' falls under 'special needs' in New Mexico - maybe other states too.)

It's a difficult issue.

I sympathize with 'special needs' goals - in terms of social integration, and as a hedge against the re-introduction of eugenics policies.

BUT - 'special needs' funding policies created the usual bureaucratic monster. That being - any government department measures its success on the size of its budget - 'special needs' was made the primary avenue for growth in the education budget. So that's how it was used. To the detriment...




Can't help thinking there's another solution besides cutting off our own noses to spite our faces.

Control, Control, Control.

Think you control your own body functions little girl?

WRONG!!!

You will obey our every whim, or the big bad police man gonna getcha!

This pants wetting is going to go in your PERMANENT RECORD!!!, and may well effect your ability to receive government subsidized diapers in the future!

I find it amazing that anyone would send their children to public schools when our power mad rulers do such things (and many worse) to children.



[edit on 6-1-2007 by resistor]

Here is the email address of the superintendent of the Danville school system. Please email this individual in reguards to the principals action he took with the special needs kid!


[email protected]

As the parent of a special needs kido, nothing would make me happier than for this guy to be removed from his job!

Thank you in advance for your support.

Originally posted by WyrdeOne
hotpinkurinalmint
Well, the point you raised in your last post may sound cruel and insensitive to some, but I happen to agree with it.

This country spends an exhorbitant amount of money on special needs kids, some of whom shouldn't even be in public school. In contrast, we spend very, very little on exceptional students, and not nearly enough on those who, as you say, just need a little help to achieve good things.

Special ed classrooms are huge money suckers - they have a much, much better student to teacher ration than the regular classrooms, and they are the darlings of every budget in every district in this country, and that's not due to compassion or love, it results from a visible pattern of budgetary blackmail.

If a school doesn't spend enough on the regular kids, nothing happens. If they fail to spend enough (defined by the parents) on the special ed kids, they get their pants sued off - which just exacerbates the financial worries of the district. The feds are supposed to pick up the tab for special ed programs (since they were the ones who wrote the rules), but they just don't. Broken promises are a dime a dozen when it comes to this crappy, overreaching, dead-beat big brother, who always collects when owed, but welches with astounding consistency when it comes time to pay some of that loot back into the public sphere.

Obviously, people with special needs, whatever they might be, deserve an education if they've paid for it with their taxes (while we're saddled with this abysmal public school system we might as well administer it fairly), but they don't deserve one tenth the education at ten or twenty times the price. Any way you slice it, that's wrong - it's a disservice to the kids, the parents, the future of this nation.

One final point, I have to make it - money is not the golden key to success in education. The best-performing districts often function on less than their under-performing 'peers', so obviously it's got less to do with money, and more to do with efficiency, creativity, and good sense.

My vote is for a good old-fashioned trimming of the fat. Make the government as lean and mean as possible, at the national, state, and local levels. Starvation diet - no more money until they learn to get by on a fraction of the current budget. A lot of complaining is sure to result, but if we can't learn to solve problems, instead of just throwing money at them and hoping they'll go away, we're hopeless as a nation.

You my friend couldn't be more wrong if you tried. You have no idea the challenges of raising a special needs kid. You have no idea the gov't red tape and abuse that is abundant. A few examples are as follows for my 5 year old autistic son:

Medicaid: He is suppose to qualify for it immediately. This is due to the fact that insurance doesn't cover him or his therapy for the most part. We have 3-5k monthly health bills for him.

He has been on the medicaid waiting list for over three years. We have exausted every possibility we can to expedite the coverage.

The school system provides......... Drum roll please.............. 30 mins of group speech therapy weekly... That is it!


Immunization immunity for the drug companies:

My son was part of a class action lawsuit against a couple of different pharmaceutical companies. Everything was going great. We had settled on an amount, time frame for payment set up his trusts to gain interest until we died, everything!!!

The night before the Patriot Act a US Senator (can’t think of his name off the top of my head) snuck into the Act, immunity for the drug companies in regards to immunization legislation. It passed without a negative vote, and nobody new it was in there until after.

As a result my son has nothing! It is up to my wife and myself to fund his trust after paying his medical bills that are a bit out of hand!



Edit: Spelling

[edit on 6-1-2007 by Hlodde]

You my friend couldn't be more wrong if you tried. You have no idea the challenges of raising a special needs kid. You have no idea the gov't red tape and abuse that is abundant. A few examples are as follows for my 5 year old autistic son:

That's funny, because I thought we were talking about education, and you go on to describe the hardships of providing medical care to an autistic child.

I don't see anywhere in my post where I commented on the cost of medical treatment, so let me do so now.

As far as I can tell, the exhorbitant cost is worsened by two primary factors. The first is abuse of intellectual property protections, which really should take a back seat to helping people. The second is a glut of litigious people who want a free ride on someone else's back.

The school system provides......... Drum roll please.............. 30 mins of group speech therapy weekly... That is it!

What do you want from them, exactly?

As a result my son has nothing! It is up to my wife and myself to fund his trust after paying his medical bills that are a bit out of hand!

I realize the vaccine link is popular, but I really think you're barking up the wrong tree. There are other sources of mercury, and they probably have more to do with your child's illness than the shots.

Even then, most kids can handle the shots, they're equipped with a metabolism that can efficiently eliminate mercury from the body. Other kids were born with a reduced ability to process the metal, and are much more sensitive to even small doses, since they compound over time. That gives big pharma a ready-made excuse, because it technically wasn't their mercury responsible, it was the underlying metabolic issue.

Anyway, isn't this a completely different discussion?

Are police officers qualified education and childcare workers in the US these days?

More and more stories pop up about parents and schools calling the cops on students for things they are getting paid for to take care of.

A few weeks ago it was a mother calling the cops on her 12 year old son for playing with a PSP or GameBoy a week before he was supposed to get the thing as a Christmas present.

Originally posted by WyrdeOne

You my friend couldn't be more wrong if you tried. You have no idea the challenges of raising a special needs kid. You have no idea the gov't red tape and abuse that is abundant. A few examples are as follows for my 5 year old autistic son:

That's funny, because I thought we were talking about education, and you go on to describe the hardships of providing medical care to an autistic child.

I don't see anywhere in my post where I commented on the cost of medical treatment, so let me do so now.

As far as I can tell, the exhorbitant cost is worsened by two primary factors. The first is abuse of intellectual property protections, which really should take a back seat to helping people. The second is a glut of litigious people who want a free ride on someone else's back.

The school system provides......... Drum roll please.............. 30 mins of group speech therapy weekly... That is it!

What do you want from them, exactly?

As a result my son has nothing! It is up to my wife and myself to fund his trust after paying his medical bills that are a bit out of hand!

I realize the vaccine link is popular, but I really think you're barking up the wrong tree. There are other sources of mercury, and they probably have more to do with your child's illness than the shots.

Even then, most kids can handle the shots, they're equipped with a metabolism that can efficiently eliminate mercury from the body. Other kids were born with a reduced ability to process the metal, and are much more sensitive to even small doses, since they compound over time. That gives big pharma a ready-made excuse, because it technically wasn't their mercury responsible, it was the underlying metabolic issue.

Anyway, isn't this a completely different discussion?

I realize I went off on a bit of a tangent there with that rant, but this is a hot button issue with me to say the least.

The reason I went into government issues along with school system issues is because the two are intertwined due to funding issues.

You put together a lot of words in your post and have very few points. The only point I believe is relevant to this thread is spending in public education. I should point out that special needs education comes nowhere close to the 10% of the education budget as you claim. I don’t have specific numbers off the top of my head but I believe the number to be much closer to 1.2 to 1.6 % of the budget. The only reason I know this is my wife is on the local school board (this is her hot button issue as well). I'm sure we could look up some national numbers as well with a quick search but I would venture to guess it wouldn't be too far off from our local statistics.

The main point I wanted to get across is that the school system really doesn’t provide much help at all. Just 30 minuets of group therapy weekly. When I posted earlier, yes I was a bit emotional, but you exaggerations need to be put in check. And no I don’t want anything but an education from the school system for my son. Do I believe the federal government owes my son a lot especially after the laughable immunity snuck into the Patriot Act in the middle of the night, YES I do!

If we want to debate the cause of autism and immunizations I will be happy to. I have no doubt that this is the cause of my son’s situation and have plenty of research to back it up. Maybe you should start a new thread in a different section, as it wouldn’t belong here. I would be happy to debate this with you all day!

You have to wonder about the mental ability of the police chief Eric Gill. To be able to make simple judgement calls. dn:

[edit on 6-1-2007 by greenfruit]:

[edit on 6-1-2007 by greenfruit]

I should point out that special needs education comes nowhere close to the 10% of the education budget as you claim. I don’t have specific numbers off the top of my head but I believe the number to be much closer to 1.2 to 1.6 % of the budget.

See my links at the bottom of this reply.

The main point I wanted to get across is that the school system really doesn’t provide much help at all. Just 30 minuets of group therapy weekly. When I posted earlier, yes I was a bit emotional, but you exaggerations need to be put in check. And no I don’t want anything but an education from the school system for my son. Do I believe the federal government owes my son a lot especially after the laughable immunity snuck into the Patriot Act in the middle of the night, YES I do!

I agree that the measure to prevent drug companies from being held accountable is sick and wrong.

If we want to debate the cause of autism and immunizations I will be happy to. I have no doubt that this is the cause of my son’s situation and have plenty of research to back it up. Maybe you should start a new thread in a different section, as it wouldn’t belong here. I would be happy to debate this with you all day!

There are a handful of threads on the subject already. I'll see if I can dig them up, and I'll send them to you via U2U. Looking forward to reading your responses.

On-topic:

Here's a link showing the total percentage of federal expenditures related to special needs students.

www.ed.gov...

Based on these 1999-2000 figures, total spending to educate students with disabilities including regular education, special education and other special needs programs combined represents 21.4 percent of the $360.6 billion total spending on elementary and secondary education in the United States.

(My emphasis above)

And here's a link showing a (somewhat dated) look at state/local spending on special education as it compares to federal spending.

eric.uoregon.edu...

In the 1997 National Survey of School District Budgets, the Educational Research Service reported that districts claimed to have spent 9.74 percent of their operating budgets for special-education instruction (Protheroe). A more recent survey of 50 states pegs total national spending for special education at $49.2 billion for 1998-99; the federal share would have comprised 7.7 percent of total expenditures, compared to 38.8 percent for states and 53.9 percent for local districts (Parrish 2000).

Here's a link showing the disparity I described earlier, regarding the breakdown of special-ed classes.

www.reason.com...

Nearly 12 percent of American students in kindergarten through 12th grade are assigned to the special education system. Children with severe disabilities, such as mental retardation, autism, blindness, and deafness, account for only a tenth of these students. The remaining 90 percent are described as suffering from conditions that are less obvious and harder to verify objectively, such as specific learning disability (SLD), speech and language delays, mild mental retardation, and emotional disorders.

Here's a link showing just how money has failed to help the situation.

www.heritage.org...

Unfortunately, there’s little reason to believe even these dramatic funding increases will lead to improvements in student learning in American schools. Since the early 1970s, inflation-adjusted federal spending per pupil has doubled. Over that period, student performance has not markedly improved, according to the long-term National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which is designed to measure historical trends.