6-Year-Old Fla. Girl Charged With Felony For Kicking Teacher's Aide

Local6.com ^ | May 31, 2006 | Staff

[Nachum]

NAPLES, Fla. -- A 6-year-old special education student who kicked a Naples teacher's aide and spent several hous in juvenile jail is facing felony battery charges.

Her mother, however, wants to know why the case has gone so far.

Takovia Allen suffers from behavioral problems and attends a special class at Lely Elementary in Naples.

According to an arrest report, on May 2, a teacher was trying to line up students to go to music class. Takovia refused to go and kicked the teacher's aide in the ankle.

After a discussion among school officials and two law enforcement officials called to the school, the girl was arrested.

Takovia was taken to juvenile jail and held there for several hours before being released to her mother.

She is being charged with battery on a public education employee.

It's possible she will enter a program that includes counseling. If she completes the program successfully the charges could be dropped.

[Sue Perkick]

I never was a fan of mandatory mainstreaming. I appreciate the intent. But I don't have a problem with special education schools. There can be some serious compatibility issues that come from both sides. The public school system is broken. And I'm not even sure it can be repaired at this point.

[grellis]

I know! If I had a name like that, I'd be kicking everyone around. And my parents named me Georgia, for Pete's sake.

[Paperdoll]

>If you're going to call every such offense a felony,well, to paraphrase Brody, "You're going to need a bigger prison."<

And more potty chairs.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Sometimes it's not clear what the intent of mainstreaming is. The effect in some cases is to provide some incremental benefit to a severely impaired child who will never be remotely self-sufficient, at great expense to a number of normal children who very much need a good education. The most outlandish case I've heard of was a few years back (in NJ, I think) -- there was a severely mentally and physically impaired girl attending a regular elementary school class in a wheelchair, accompanied by a full time nursing aide (at taxpayer expense, of course), and disrupting the class significantly. And for what? The girl was attending school with a DO NOT RESUSCITATE ORDER PINNED TO HER CLOTHES!!!! She wasn't expected to live long, had a history of cardiac arrests, and the decision had been made to let her go whenever the next one hit. It's hard to imagine what is going through the minds of parents and school officials when they allow this sort of insanity to go on. They seem to have completely lost sight of the purpose of school.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

With the Internet, homeschool education packages, and retired teachers offering tutoring services, it should be easy for anyone to homeschool.

[Sue Perkick]

One would think. One would be wrong. There are state laws to adhere to,(some states are much worse than others) records to keep and standardized tests that must be done. It ain't free. It ain't cheap. And it dang sure ain't "easy". And if the public school system wasn't the travesty it is, it wouldn't even be necessary.

[after dark]

I knew a woman who had two autistic boys. The special education teachers took her aside and told her the boys would be better off being schooled at home. Special education puts to many kids with severe behavioral problems in one room together. This practice brings out the worst in all the students. Fortunately for her although her boys were noticeably autistic they were educable.

[after dark]

I would not say that mainstreaming is a bad thing. I could make a case that some of the "special" students do not need to be segregated. I knew of one person in special education for stuttering and nothing else.

[Sue Perkick]

Exactly. It should be a case by case thing. Some kids will excel when mainstreamed. Others not so much and they end up regressing. Some kids have been given the "special needs" label when there's no cause for that. Your example is a good one. A child who stutters should not be in a special needs setting. But they seem to herd everybody together without any thought to what is best for all involved.

It may be different depending on the location. But where I'm from regardless of the child's development, if there is a diagnosis of autism that child is required to be mainstreamed. Ridiculous. Then they add unqualifed staff to the mix & wonder why there are problems.

[Sue Perkick]

While I'm not familiar with this case, it does sound like this child would have benefitted more from some type of in-home program. It doesn't appear she was getting anything out of it herself. They need to do what's right for everyone. The "neurotypical" kids need an education and we can't just shove the ones who do have special needs aside. They are going to be part of the community as well, and it's to everyone's advantage that they be functioning, contributing members of society. Constant disruption impairs the ability to learn. So that's not fair. At the moment the system seems to be just pushing them all through without concern whether anyone is really even getting an education.