Posted on 04/05/2024 4:50:00 AM PDT by V_TWIN
The family of a West Clermont High School boy who was allegedly taped to a chair by school staff talked about the incident for the first time.
Two former staff members are facing charges after police say one of them recorded the whole thing on her cell phone. Mark and Angela Hodge said they wanted to wait until the investigation was complete and charges were filed before they spoke.
With a former teacher and a teacher's aide now due in court, they're breaking their silence about the issue that's left them shocked and shaken.
“He’s a very resilient kid though. He’s always happy. You can pretty much do anything with him and he’s always laughing, smiling, and having a good time,” said Mark Hodge.
Mark Hodge was joined by his wife, Angela, and their 15-year-old son, Dustin. They said that Dustin loves going to school every day.
“Dustin has down syndrome and also has autism, he’s very loving and very funny,” said Hodge.
But on March 1, something at school left his parents shaken. Police say that a teacher and a teacher's aide restrained Dustin by taping him to a chair. One of them even recorded it on her cell phone.
“I saw his arms down to his side and he was completely taped from his arms around his waist and around the chair. He could move his hands at the bottom of the chair and that’s it,” said Angela Hodge.
His parents said that Dustin isn't very verbal and this took away his ability to communicate.
“You hold his hands and it’s like putting a piece of tape over his mouth, that’s how he expresses himself, he’s constantly moving his hands,” said Mark.
His parents said the video showed Dustin begging someone to come over and cut the tape.
"He doesn’t like to be restrained in any way, whenever he’s restrained he kind of starts freaking out,” said Mark.
Both staff members told police they didn't do it as a punishment, but that they did as a joke.
“It was disgusting how they were laughing at him for their own fun to get kicks,” said Mark.
Police have charged the now-former staff members, Allison Vestring and Rachel Smith, with misdemeanor unlawful restraint.
Probably a Tik-Tok thing
The staff seems to have very low IQs.
Best part of whole article, “two former staff members”.
The abusers, or the people sending their kids to be abused...?
and i’m sure the union went all out to protect....the teachers
The use of tape as a deterrent or restraint is questionable when there are usually some type of deterrent or restraining policy that legally allows for the use of permitted restraints being used only in certain well defined situations that may possibly occur in such settings and are used to prevent self-harm by a student and or harm to the staff by a student when harmful out of control behavior occurs.
Yeah, the “we were just kidding” defense ain’t gonna work if this gets to a jury.
And both teachers are female....that surprised me.
Is there the chance this situation is not as it it’s being presented? I guess everyone will find out in court.
I can imagine a situation where teachers restrain a student out of a need to do so and take a video of the incident for their own protection in court. It may even be a policy of the school to do so to protect it, too.
The article doesn’t put the situation that way so it may not be. But I can imagine it. And we’ll see what the court says.
It won’t fly especially since this is a kid with disabilities they were making fun of.
The mean IQ in the USA is 98. Your experience of interacting with those lower or higher may vary widely depending upon the settings you frequent.
Our present culture ‘celebrates’ deviancy of all kinds. Why someone —especially an ostensibly somewhat professional adult— would think to do something like this to another person —especially this poor kid— is beyond me. We are immersed in evil.
They thought it was a joke?!
If someone tied up their children, in front of their classmates, even made a video of it - how amused would that humiliation be to these ‘educators’?
Maybe I read it wrong, it was the teachers that were special needs?
Fortunately these newbs are all emasculated. If that happened in my high school (back in the day), I imagine the class would have taped all the administrators to their chairs before they went home for the day.
Better than the little girl at Comet Pizza, they did it for her birthday party.
time to homeschool Dustin.
Mind-boggling.
I’m about to say something very unpopular. Prefaced with, we don’t have the whole story. I’m sure the teachers did not do this as a joke.
A lot of these special needs kids do NOT belong in a classroom with “normal” children. They are and can be disruptive with no ability to control themselves. There are limited aides for them.
The teacher is very limited in what he or she can do in dealing with the problem. Sometimes people reach the end of their rope and do very questionable things.
But a lot of these unfortunate kids should not be mainstreamed because that benefits no one.
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