Sometimes a Brat Is Just A Brat

On Wed, 04 May 2005 00:08:43 -0500, toto
wrote:

On Wed, 04 May 2005 04:33:05 GMT, Nan wrote:

Ah, I missed that part. Makes one wonder why the campus police
weren't called, then. As well as a school social worker.

They were called. There are only 12 of them in the district and
they were unable to respond in a timely fashion so the city police
were called.

Nan

Interesting.... we have a fairly large school district, and I'm having
trouble imagining that all 12 officers would be too busy to respond
quickly enough.

Nan

On Wed, 04 May 2005 04:02:18 GMT, dragonlady
wrote:

That's kind of harsh. You don't know the mother's position. She may
have been in a position that she would get fired if she left her post,
or where she was the only clerk on duty in a store and couldn't leave
until the next person came in. She may not have had transportation
until her shift ended. There are lots of people who cannot walk off
their job without getting fired.

In addition to the 5-year-old girl, Akins has a son, 4, and another
daughter, 3. Pinellas court records show she has been trying without
success to collect child support from two St. Petersburg men who are
the fathers of the children. The father of the 5-year-old has been
arrested more than a dozen times since 1995, mostly on drug charges.

Akins is a certified nursing assistant at a Seminole retirement
complex, where a supervisor declined to be interviewed for this story.

In 2002, records show, St. Petersburg police stopped Akins on Fourth
Street N for driving a car with a stolen license plate, a misdemeanor.
She was taken to jail, but went to jail two more times on the same
charge because of missed court appearances.

She later paid a fine.
Records also show that around the time of her daughter's handcuffing,
Akins was in the throes of an eviction proceeding with the owners of
her St. Petersburg apartment. A note she wrote to the court indicates
the problem involved subsidized rent payments from the St. Petersburg
Housing Authority.

In a recent interview, Akins said the arrest prompted the state
Department of Children and Families to investigate her. She said she
passed a DCF review.


She may have been called to the school frequently, and her boss said,
"Once more and you're fired."

"Couldn't be bothered" is uncalled for unless you know all of the
circumstances.

I don't think she *couldn't be bothered* to pick the girl up, but that
is no excuse for not having a backup plan in place.

Apparenty, at least part of the problem was that, instead of campus
police, who are trained specifically to work with out of control
children, the city police were called.

http://snipurl.com/enfh

The girl had a history of problems at the school, though the full
extent is not known because student records are not public.

District officials have discussed an incident several weeks before the
handcuffing in which a city police officer was called to the school
because of a behavior problem with the girl. The officer said
something to her about the possibility of being handcuffed if her
behavior continued.

Akins later objected to that conversation, part of an ongoing feud
with the school over her daughter's treatment.

http://snipurl.com/enfi

Wilcox said school employees were in a "last resort" situation when
they phoned city police to intervene with the girl. The Pinellas
schools police force, which is better trained to deal with
schoolchildren, is a small force of about 22 officers and "couldn't
get there" in time, Wilcox said.

He said school officials exercised good judgment in calling city
police and "made the best decision they could under the
circumstances."

But you're right: I would not want to have to be responsible for a
child who was trashing a room and hitting me for the rest of the day.

me either


--
Dorothy

There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..

The Outer Limits

On Wed, 04 May 2005 05:20:59 GMT, Nan wrote:

On Wed, 04 May 2005 00:08:43 -0500, toto
wrote:

On Wed, 04 May 2005 04:33:05 GMT, Nan wrote:

Ah, I missed that part. Makes one wonder why the campus police
weren't called, then. As well as a school social worker.

They were called. There are only 12 of them in the district and
they were unable to respond in a timely fashion so the city police
were called.

Nan

Interesting.... we have a fairly large school district, and I'm having
trouble imagining that all 12 officers would be too busy to respond
quickly enough.

Nan

Ooops, 22 not 12


--
Dorothy

There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..

The Outer Limits

Kent wrote:

Don't be one of those parents who lets your kid get like this!

-------------------
Kids who act that way have been abused.
They don't come that way.
Steve

On Wed, 04 May 2005 00:32:52 -0500, toto
wrote:

On Wed, 04 May 2005 05:20:59 GMT, Nan wrote:

On Wed, 04 May 2005 00:08:43 -0500, toto
wrote:

On Wed, 04 May 2005 04:33:05 GMT, Nan wrote:

Ah, I missed that part. Makes one wonder why the campus police
weren't called, then. As well as a school social worker.

They were called. There are only 12 of them in the district and
they were unable to respond in a timely fashion so the city police
were called.

Nan

Interesting.... we have a fairly large school district, and I'm having
trouble imagining that all 12 officers would be too busy to respond
quickly enough.

Nan

Ooops, 22 not 12

Even worse.

Nan

"Nan" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 04 May 2005 00:32:52 -0500, toto
wrote:

On Wed, 04 May 2005 05:20:59 GMT, Nan wrote:

On Wed, 04 May 2005 00:08:43 -0500, toto
wrote:

On Wed, 04 May 2005 04:33:05 GMT, Nan wrote:

Ah, I missed that part. Makes one wonder why the campus police
weren't called, then. As well as a school social worker.

They were called. There are only 12 of them in the district and
they were unable to respond in a timely fashion so the city police
were called.

Nan

Interesting.... we have a fairly large school district, and I'm having
trouble imagining that all 12 officers would be too busy to respond
quickly enough.

Nan

Ooops, 22 not 12

Even worse.

Not necessarily. Once again, all of the circumstances are not known.
Our city had a hostage situation today in which a large number of officers
were
unexpectedly called upon to deal with. Who knows what the 22 in that city
were doing? There isn't any reason to assume that they were slacking.

I also don't think that the "emergency school contact" situation covers
things. Having taught poorer students, whose phones were often cut off
and I often couldn't get in touch with the *primary* caregiver, I would
suspect that emergency info would be even more difficult to accurate
attain and update.


P. Tierney

toto wrote:

On Wed, 04 May 2005 03:31:29 GMT, Nan wrote:

It certainly does not seem that the child needed
to be handcuffed and arrested by police.

I don't understand this outrage over handcuffs. What's the big deal?

Also I don't understand why the child's age has very much to do with
it. If a 5 year old shouldn't be handcuffed, how about a 10 year old?
From the POV of the restraint, what is the difference?.

It sounds to me as if an adult interpretation has been put on
handcuffs that is not really justified by just the actual implement
itself. Would Chinese handcuffs result in the same outrage? How
about a strait jacket?

I also understood (without reading the article - sorry Dorothy) that
the mom told the school they were not to ever touch the child. That
sounds as if they had their hand tied (no pun intended) as to what the
school was able to do. If they can't touch her, what other option did
they have?

If the child had acted like this before (and I understood that she
had), they should have had some backup plan also.



Agreed. However, the principal was ineffective in her approach. When
I worked at the women's shelter, a child that behaved like that would
have been restrained by staff in what we called a "basket hold". It
was very effective in getting the child to calm down.

I agree and I wondered about that myself, but.... I would bet that
the staff was not trained in this kind of technique and/or that there
is some school rule or legal problem with using it on a regular
ed student in a regular kindergarten classroom.

I have used that hold on children in a daycare setting and it
*is* much more effective and usually the children calm down
and want to sit on their own and either talk it out or at least
stop the mayhem. The problem is that if you are not properly
trained on it, you can hurt a child when you attempt it and
that may put the school in line for a lawsuit too. My suspicion
is that the training educators were put through emphasized
not touching the child. I also will say that with the fact that
this incident and others in Pinellas County are being touted
as racism since more black children are put in this situation
than white children, the other problem involved would be having
a white teacher restrain a black child. I would bet their would
be an outcry against any teacher who did that hold with a
child of another race. It can get pretty complicated.

Unfortunately, the mother apparently would not come to get
the child until she got off work so the school personel were
in a situation where they would have had to have a principal
or teacher or aide staying with her and monitoring her until
that time.

I'll play devil's advocate and say I wouldn't want to be in the
position of having to monitor the child for possibly an entire day
just because the mother couldn't be bothered to come get her. I
wouldn't have called the police, but I may have referred the
situation to DFS or a similar agency.

I am not sure that dcfs will come and pick a child up from school
whose mother *is* coming to get her at 3:15 pm which is what
the tape said the mom was doing.

I would not necessarily want to be in that situation as an emergency
contact, but that *is* an option if the mother cannot come - usually
the contacts are other relatives who are available during the day,
though neighbors are also used on occasion.

I wonder about the emergency contacts and why they could
not retrieve the child. It seems that she needed to be picked
up at the earliest time possible and when mom is not available,
every school I ever worked in had other people to call as
backup to pick her up.

Link to a more detailed story about the incident itself he
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/04/22/So...olice_ha.shtml

Archived article he
http://snipurl.com/endu

grandma Rosalie

In article ,
toto wrote:


Link to a more detailed story about the incident itself he
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/04/22/So...olice_ha.shtml

Archived article he
http://snipurl.com/endu

Here's another view: I agree with the OP'd article in that this is not a
tantrum. The child is not displaying any loss of control (though frankly, she
doesn't seem normal either!). But the teacher plainly has NO control. As the
kid wanders around the classroom, the teacher tells her vainly to "stop", that
what she is doing is "not acceptable" (Do people really use words like this to
5yos? What about "wrong"?).

Hope the teacher got a few things out of her self-improvement video like:
- use vocabulary the child can understand
- it is better to act than react
- following the child around wringing your hands doesn't prevent destructive
behaviour
- punishing the class by throwing *them* out of the classroom instead of one
naughty little girl is counterproductive, and trying to make the child feel
guilty as a result is just as bad

Of course handcuffing a 5yo is inexcusable. But did anyone else pick up on
the body language? The child sat down *because she saw the police*, not
because she had calmed down -- she was frightened of them; literally scared
stiff. It seems she had met one of them before (he asked if she remembered
him).

I wonder about the emergency contacts and why they could
not retrieve the child. It seems that she needed to be picked
up at the earliest time possible and when mom is not available,
every school I ever worked in had other people to call as
backup to pick her up.

Well, I can't help suspecting that they knew exactly what the child was like!

Wish we could see the trigger to the whole incident. Perhaps if the teacher
had been able to take the little girl out of the class (yes, carrying her if
necessary) and/or have a quiet talk with her and a cuddle, the whole sorry
mess could have been avoided.

No, the brat is not a brat. But there is something plainly wrong with her,
and something even more seriously wrong when the school discipline policy
forces teachers into requiring the police to deal with a 5yo.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"In Melbourne there is plenty of vigour and eagerness, but there is
nothing worth being eager or vigorous about."
Francis Adams, The Australians, 1893.

On Wed, 04 May 2005 06:47:14 GMT, "P. Tierney"
wrote:


Not necessarily. Once again, all of the circumstances are not known.
Our city had a hostage situation today in which a large number of officers
were
unexpectedly called upon to deal with. Who knows what the 22 in that city
were doing? There isn't any reason to assume that they were slacking.

Campus police are called on to deal with a situation outside their job
description? The officers in our city are only there to deal with the
schools and school events.

I also don't think that the "emergency school contact" situation covers
things. Having taught poorer students, whose phones were often cut off
and I often couldn't get in touch with the *primary* caregiver, I would
suspect that emergency info would be even more difficult to accurate
attain and update.

I didn't say it covered things. I said it's the parent's
responsibility to make sure the info is available, and that either
supervision or transportation from the school is available in this
type of situation. The mother couldn't/wouldn't leave her job to deal
with her child. I've met too many parents that consider the school
free babysitting service and don't have any backup plans.

Nan

On Wed, 04 May 2005 11:54:01 GMT, Rosalie B.
wrote:

toto wrote:

On Wed, 04 May 2005 03:31:29 GMT, Nan wrote:

It certainly does not seem that the child needed
to be handcuffed and arrested by police.

I don't understand this outrage over handcuffs. What's the big deal?

For one thing, the girl wasn't out of control when the officers
arrived. She was sitting at a table by that time. Bending her over
the table to put cuffs on her at that point was ott.

Also I don't understand why the child's age has very much to do with
it. If a 5 year old shouldn't be handcuffed, how about a 10 year old?
From the POV of the restraint, what is the difference?.

IMO, the fact that a 10 year old would have a better grasp of why they
might be cuffed.

It sounds to me as if an adult interpretation has been put on
handcuffs that is not really justified by just the actual implement
itself. Would Chinese handcuffs result in the same outrage? How
about a strait jacket?

I also understood (without reading the article - sorry Dorothy) that
the mom told the school they were not to ever touch the child. That
sounds as if they had their hand tied (no pun intended) as to what the
school was able to do. If they can't touch her, what other option did
they have?

The admins were trained to use techniques that didn't involve
touching.

Nan