BOSTON --State regulators are
investigating seven employees of a controversial Canton
school for special needs students as part of a broadening
probe into whether the school has overstated its staff's
qualifications to the government.
Government agencies pay the
Judge Rotenberg Educational Center more than $200,000
annually for each child. The school is the only one in the
country that routinely uses electric shock to punish
misbehavior.
Fourteen other clinicians at
the school are already facing a hearing next month to
determine if they should be criminally charged for calling
themselves psychologists when they don't have state
licenses.
The school's founder, Matthew
Israel, is being investigated by the Board of Registration
of Psychologists for his role in supervising the unlicensed
psychologists.
"We're taking this matter
very seriously and intend to investigate it vigorously,"
George Weber, director of the Division of Professional
Licensure, told The Boston Globe. "You have to have
sufficient training to engage in activities that affect
families' lives."
School officials deny they
misrepresented anyone's qualifications and note that the
people who claimed to be psychologists had substantial
training in the field. They also say they immediately
changed the title of "unlicensed psychologists" to the more
generic "clinician" after the state pointed out the mistake
last month.
"There is not one shred of
evidence that anybody did anything intentionally or anybody
was defrauded," said Michael Flammia, attorney for the
school.
The broadening investigation
comes after a critical report on the school by investigators
in New York, where two-thirds of the center's students come
from.
The New York Education
Department found that children are often given shocks for
minor misbehavior, such as swearing, and that some students
are kept in physical restraints for long periods or denied
food.
It said staff training was
insufficient and said the school risked losing New York
students unless drastic changes were made.
Rotenberg officials say the
New York report is inaccurate.
They said that although half
the 250 students wear shock devices, the treatment is
approved in each case by the parents and a probate court
judge and overseen by psychological consultants.
Controversy about the school
heated up in March, when a New York teenager accused
teachers of torturing him. Twenty-two abuse complaints have
been filed against the center this year.
