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The Epoch Times reports
The family of [13-year-old Columbus, Georgia] student Montravious Thomas claim that behavioral specialist, Bryant Mosley, physically attacked the young student on his first day at AIM/Edgewood Student Services Center on Sept. 12.
[The family's attorney] Renee Tucker, [said that the boy], who was the only student in the classroom, wanted to leave the classroom to call his mother from the main office to pick him up. As Thomas tried to leave the classroom, Mosley slammed him to the floor. When he tried to leave again, he was slammed to the floor again. It's not clear how [many] times this occurred.
Tucker said that assistant principal Eddie Powell reportedly witnessed the incident and a school resources officer observed Thomas limping after the alleged attack.
Thomas was allegedly told that school officials would call an ambulance, but changed their minds. Once classes were dismissed, Mosley carried an injured Thomas to an idle school bus without notifying his family of the events that had transpired.
[...] Since the alleged incident, Thomas has undergone four surgeries. Doctors at Egleston Children's Hospital informed the family on Oct. 16 that [Thomas'] nerve damage was so severe, his right leg would have to be amputated.
U.S. Uncut further reports
The boy's mother was forced to be absent from [work] while [caring] for son and ultimately lost [her job].
Inside sources have reported that the school is in possession of a videotape of the confrontation and the boy's attorney has submitted an open records request to gain possession of the footage in addition to 50 documents related to the incident. They plan to sue the school for $5 million.
[..] Mosley works for Mentoring and Behavioral Services, which claims to conduct "holistic behavior approaches" to student discipline. Mosley is no longer working with the school district, though it has not been confirmed at this time whether this was a result of his confrontation with the student.
[Continues...]
Further details from The Washington Post :
A 13-year-old student in Georgia was badly injured after a behavioral specialist slammed him to the ground multiple times while at school last month, the boy's attorney [ Renee Tucker] said.
Montravious Thomas's injuries — which included a fractured tibia, a dislocated knee and permanent nerve damage — were so severe that his right leg had to be amputated on Tuesday.
[...] Tucker said there were at least three other school employees who saw the incident, but no one took the boy to the hospital after he yelled in pain and said his right leg was numb. Instead, [behavioral specialist Bryant] Mosley carried Montravious to the school bus, and he was driven home.
His mother took him to the hospital, where they arrived around 3:30 p.m. — about 90 minutes after the incident was alleged to have happened.
"The leg was never stabilized until he got to the hospital," Tucker said.
The boy was airlifted to a hospital in Atlanta that night for further examination. Over the next month, Montravious went through four surgeries to save his right leg, Tucker said. It was amputated Tuesday night, and he will soon have to go through physical therapy.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Friday October 21 2016, @02:06AM
That's important to understand here. It's nowhere near as hard to get sent to a reform school today as it was when many of us here were in school. At one time, a knife in school would (unless actually used on another student) be taken by the teacher and have to be picked up by a parent. That would settle the matter unless it was a repeated violation. If a student was known to be generally well behaved and had a good explanation, they might even be allowed to slide on a first offense.
But however he got there, staff using sufficient violence to break his leg and then failing to provide appropriate medical care is inexcusable. The legal argument that school faculty are acting In Loco Parentis cuts both ways.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Spamalope on Friday October 21 2016, @02:30AM
At one time a pocket knife was something boys had with them at all times, and nobody thought anything of it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 21 2016, @12:23PM
Yeah. I was a boy scout in the Rockies, and carrying a knife at all times was a matter of course. It's an exceptional tool. Of course, now the nanny state has taken over and even a nail file can get you hard time.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday October 21 2016, @02:39AM
First year of school, I watched the "big kids" in third grade playing mumbletypeg. Teacher walked past, looked things over, and moved on. It was about third grade when I got my own Barlow pocket knife, and I carried it all the time. There is no "offense" involved in carrying a common tool with you.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday October 21 2016, @03:39AM
At my elementary school, we got our knives back at the end of the day with a warning not to bring it again, no parent involvement.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Marand on Friday October 21 2016, @04:18AM
It's nowhere near as hard to get sent to a reform school today as it was when many of us here were in school
It's not even a new thing. This was a growing problem back when I went to school in the 80s and 90s, before any of the high-profile school shooting stuff started making people paranoid. I remember students ending up in one of those juvie schools because they defended themselves against bullies, because the school's policy was to send off all involved parties regardless of circumstances. Self-defense was not allowed, you either took your beating or you ended up in juvie.
The faculty was entrenched in a war against critical thinking, avoiding it at any cost when determining how to deal with situations. That's what happens with those bullshit "zero tolerance" policies, you take away any and all logic from the situation and blindly mete out punishment based on an inflexible rulebook. It leads to having an ever-present cloud over everything that happens in the school, turning the experience into something prison-like, because you might be next, and you don't even have to do anything wrong to end up there.
For example, I remember one teacher being clearly afraid of some of the students in her class. I don't know why this was the case -- maybe racism, maybe because they were tough-looking -- but it was obvious with things like the way she avoided eye contact with them or how she'd let them do anything they wanted. She usually ignored anything they did, but sometimes if they got too disruptive, she'd pick other people to punish. She would literally be looking in their direction, see that they were responsible, and then send someone else to the principal's office. Every day spent in that class was a risk that you would get sent to the office and potentially end up in juvie because the teacher was afraid to do her fucking job.
It's not just the students that have to deal with that shit, either; sometimes the teachers get caught in it, too. One of the best teachers I've ever known brought the class pizza one day as a reward for everyone excelling on a major test, and the principal confiscated the pizza and punished him for bringing it, because doing so meant less cafeteria revenue for that day. Fuck encouraging the students, that cafeteria profit is all that mattered. That teacher ended up quitting later because of shit like that. He had retired from something else, had plenty of money, and was only there because he was passionate about teaching...but eventually he couldn't take it any more and the school lost one of the smartest teachers it ever had.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21 2016, @03:43PM
Regarding thug students, sadly, the only solution I can see is to "avoid the problem", i.e., have the parents make enough money that they either can send their kid to private school or else buy a house in a school district with other professional families.
Avoid the ghetto or bad neighborhood. That takes money. You don't have to be born with it, but you can earn it with hard work.
(Score: 2) by BK on Saturday October 22 2016, @05:04AM
Agreed. Unconditionally.
You'd be surprised. I did some IT work at a school like this a while back. Interesting place...
Staff ratios were close to 1:2. Staff was disproportionately male. More male than female students. Racial mix looked like the district though... Anyway, these places are expensive to operate. Class sizes tend to be 4-6 students with 'help' close at hand -- extra counselors and a few aids that looked like bouncers.
In this case (in the story), the staff member that was involved was from an outside contractor. We think of contractors for schools for things like custodial workers as saving schools money while stiffing the workers and enriching some middleman. That's probably not the case here. Educational consultants in certain fields (speech and language specialists; vision and hearing specialists; behavior specialists...) can often name their rates. The agency is used in place of an individual contract to avoid union problems or staff unrest when these folks make 2x or 3x what their peers in regular schools make.
Anyway. In my part of the USA (New England), effective K-12 regular-ed public tuition is 10-13k per year. Placement in a program like this is ~3x-5x that amount if you can run a program in your district. If you have to place someone out, the cost doubles....
My point is that districts don't use these programs any more than they need to. Sure, a zero tolerance policy can land you there but those are rarer now as districts have seen how this can hit the bottom line. In the school that I did support for, the most common way to be placed there was to have assaulted a staff member at a regular school. The next most common was to have 'threatened' someone with a 'weapon'. In most cases, it was a second offense... the district didn't want to spend the money if it didn't have to...
Back in the 1960s, these kids got expelled from school. Today, districts can still expel the student, but they remain responsible for providing an education whatever the cost. Students aren't even allowed to drop out. Schools like this are a result.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday October 22 2016, @08:18AM
That varies greatly. In some districts, parents must pay a tuition for alternative school and provide transportation while the regular schools are funded entirely by property taxes and provide buses. That pretty much makes it a wash financially. When I was in school, nothing short of aggravated assault could get you expelled (sent to alternative school) in less than 3 offenses and even then it was discretionary.