Posted on 06/15/2022 3:47:38 PM PDT by Mariner
The mother of a 14-year-old boy is imploring Modesto City Schools to help after her son made threats to bring an AK-47 assault rifle to school and shoot fellow classmates. “I am literally begging you to help keep the school safe, help keep our community safe and help my son get well,” she said during a Modesto City Schools meeting last week. “I am telling you, I’m a psychiatric nurse, this isn’t something to play around with … he’s a ticking time bomb.”
The mother said she believes the best way to ensure the public’s safety is for the district to give approval for her son to enter a residential treatment program. She said the district has approved intensive home therapy services and agreed to assess the boy’s need for residential treatment, but she doesn’t think that is enough.
(Excerpt) Read more at modbee.com ...
She might have to surrender custody to get her sociopath kid into residential care. Even so, they let him out at age 18.
Um, Hey Mom! Does your kid have access to firearms?
in conclusion, The boy and his mom are both incurables.
You have to understand how the system works. If her son has an IEP (Individualized Education Program) that has anything to do with his being crazy, the district is required by Federal law to make sure he gets an appropriate education. I am assuming this is the case, since the district has already agreed to extraordinary expenses.
If this includes treatment for his craziness, then the district is responsible for providing it. If this means he has to be housed in a secure facility 24/7/365, the district is on the hook for providing it. The district won’t be free of this obligation until he turns 21.
If the district has to fire five classroom teachers to pay for all of this, then they have to fire the teachers. This kid’s ‘educational needs’ come first.
I would add that the child seems (and I'm not there, so this is a guess) is more on the emotionally disturbed side of things. However because he has an autistic diagnosis, that means he CANNOT be considered ED. My guess is that is playing a role here also.
And why is he not in a residential center? The school is going through the continuum of placement and as you said, they will need to pay for all services he receives until the year in which he turns 22.
Yes, when the time comes to escalate to a residential center, they will lay off whatever staff is needed to cover it. It will be school based staff, certainly not admin. Even though the teachers are more useful and admin isn't terribly useful.
Chillax, mom/district. I was a teenage boy once and they threaten all kinds of crazy things they have NO intention of actually carrying out. I probably heard one or more crazy things every day when I was that age. Not one of them ever happened. And so it’s been down through the ages.
Thank God our forefathers weren’t panicked so easily. We wouldn’t have any of the freedoms we have today.
Treatment for this type of behavior is a sham. We’ve become far too lenient with juveniles and tolerant of psychiatric excuses for evil.
She’s a psychiatric nurse? I think I have identified the root cause of the problem. Just one question - what role has his father played in his life?
Quite the list:
He has been on medication and in psychiatric treatment since he was 7 years old but his behavior has become increasingly violent this year and especially over the past two months, his mother said.
He is now on a 1:1 teacher ratio, plus all the intensive therapy, home therapy, etc. It would be helpful to know the cost differential between his current plan and residential treatment.* But we are never told these things.
The article doesn’t say so, but if you watch the video, she says he has already attacked other children with weapons and injured them.
*The good people of Modesto should start a GoFundMe to get this boy to Utah.
Whether he is incurable or not, I feel for this woman, who wants to do the right thing. But it is virtually impossible to get adolescents (or adults), no matter how dangerous to themselves or others, into residential treatment.
I have known parents who struggled to get their kids into involuntary commitment to residential mental health facilities, both of them were unsuccessful, and both of their children (males having adolescent onset schizophrenia) killed themselves. One of them did so very dramatically and almost took out some other people too.
CA used to have great adolescent mental health care but that’s been gone for decades and you’re seeing the results of this lack on the streets of SF and LA every day, whether self-medicating with drugs or just stark raving mad.
Take the kid hunting. Builds character.
Aha. Found the cost for these “wrap around servces”:
Read more at: https://www.modbee.com/news/local/education/article262513972.html
Given that the boy has been put on 1:1 teacher ratio, plus all the other extra services he receives in inside the school, It looks like j in could easily add $60,000 - $100,000 to his tab, counting teacher salary, benefits, additional school personnel, and their salaries and benefits, plus extra admin costs. So would it really cost that much more?
This is America. Everyone has access to firearms if they are sufficiently motivated to acquire one.
She wants to divest herself from day-to-day responsibility and kick the costs over to the taxpayer, IMO.
There is just nothing like a recorded and published public meeting to maintain confidentiality.
No record of arrest is made in the psychiatric evaluation and any subsequent holds do not become part of a criminal record. But more, this is a juvenile.
Acting-out boys can make incredible and violent threats that they seldom if ever carryout. The school's evaluation was apparently correct. But I really can't get past this mother's expressed desire to keep this confidential - by making it public.
I guess it’s a police record vs a school record? The Buffalo shooter’s police report and referral to psych evaluation became public knowledge even though he was a juvenile at the time.
I agree most of the kids who boast and make threats never carry them out. But this kid is really out of control and his behavior escalating.
The article doesn’t say so, but if you watch the video, she says he has already attacked other children with weapons and injured them.
Sometimes aeds can be better adjusted in a residential setting. He has quite the list, including manic depressive disorder on top of the autism, etc. Might be worth a try.
aeds=meds ugh
The kid has a genuine laundry list of mental disorders, has attacked other children and mom is in the medical field - specifically psych. They’re not idle threats, it seems.
She removed her firearms from the home, despite being a 2A supporter. That says to me that she is genuinely worried.
Personally, I’d find a way to put the kid into a facility, without the district if necessary. Medical workers tend to receive excellent insurance, and if that still doesn’t cover it, Medicaid can be acquired if the bills exceed a certain percenrage of her income, though I don’t know the threshold.
HartleyMBaldwin wrote:
“
Take the kid hunting. Builds character.
“
See list of issues CatHerd posted:
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4071375/posts?page=10#10
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.