Reporting School Abuse

In a recent post on sexual abuse and safety, I wrote that it's highly likely that many cases of abuse against individuals with disabilities may well go unreported. 11-year-old Stefan Ferrari, who is autistic, was abused by an adult at his Atlanta area school; after noting that he came home from school with bruises, Stefan's mother sewed a microphone into his clothes and heard inappropriate comments. As reported by WXIA on July 17th:

Teacher Sherri Jones admitted on the stand to making the inappropriate comments. But she denied ever hitting Stefan -- and the judge never named the adult whom he believes caused these injuries.

Jones continued to teach for eight months after the alleged abuse, continued to teach after admitting to inappropriate behavior on the witness stand. She was not removed from the classroom until the day after the 11Alive News story aired.

The Ferraris went to DFACS, the police, the schools -- and no one helped them. It took suing the Atlanta Public Schools and telling their story to the media to get justice for their son.

In the wake of the Ferraris' experience, the governor of Georgia, Sonny Perdue, is starting a group to create a new statewide policy on reporting abuse in the school system. The group is to include "educational leaders, law enforcement and abuse experts" and every family in Georgia will receive a copy of the new policy.

Besides the policy, here's a call to Governor Perdue to think pro-actively and see that training and supervision of teachers and parapros is in place to prevent abuse and mistreatment of students with disabilities from happening in the first place. We know that such abuse happens, and, rather than letting it happen over and over, we need to address it from the start.