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Panel duels over pupil shock
By: RORY SCHULER Staff Writer
10/24/2006
TAUNTON - The lines have been
clearly drawn. One by one, School Committee members are picking
sides.
The committee's newest battle involves a single student - a
deeply troubled, formerly violent mentally retarded and autistic
19-year-old city boy - and his court-approved individualized
educational program.
Quietly, with limited public discussion, committee member and
state Department of Social Services caseworker Alfred W.
Baptista Jr. has decided to make a play at changing the minds of
fellow board members regarding the student's treatment on the
district's tab.
The Taunton School District's special education administrators
have been following the student since his earliest days in the
public school system.
His mother recently recounted the five or six full-time care
institutions he has attended and, one by one, outgrown or has
been asked to leave.
Three years ago, the boy landed at the Canton-based Judge
Rotenberg Educational Center, where aversive therapy, including
mild electric shocks delivered through a limb, are used to
discourage dangerous behavior.
Baptista recently gave fellow committee members a scathing
26-page study by the New York State Education Department
describing a team of inspectors' announced and unannounced
visits to the center.
"I would never put anyone in there, professionally or
personally," Baptista said. As a caseworker, he is often
involved in decisions concerning institutionalized placement of
people in need of intense, round-the-clock therapy.
He said he has long been aware of "inhumane" practices at the
center and would never suggest their methods "in any case."
"There are many other ways," he said. "You put collars on dogs
and zap them [with] fences, but you don't do it to people."
More than 150 students from New York attend the center. The New
York agency, its commissioner, Richard P. Mills, and the state's
Board of Regents have alleged the center has violated the
Individuals with Disabilities Act with its use of aversive
therapies. They passed "emergency regulations" on June 20 in an
attempt to pull New York students from the center.
Their study alleges the center does not sufficiently monitor or
perform adequate background checks on employees, uses skin-shock
therapy on students not in need of the treatment, stresses
punishment above all else and has committed a long list of other
abuses.
In response, parents and guardians of patients, and the center,
filed a suit in the U.S. District Court Northern District of New
York on Aug. 16 claiming that the attempt "eliminated or
restricted aversive treatment that had been authorized for the
individually named students by their parents or guardians, their
[programs], and orders of a Massachusetts probate court."
After years of misery, watching her son hurt himself and his
loved ones, the Taunton boy's mother, a mental health
professional herself, has given full consent to the skin-shock
behavioral punishment.
The therapy involves a two-second shock, administered through
sensors attached to the patient's limbs, as an "immediate
punishment whenever a targeted problem behavior occurs,"
explained Matthew L. Israel, Ph.D., the center's executive
director.
Baptista made a symbolic play at pulling the Taunton student
from the center early this month. As the committee prepared to
vote on more than $1 million in districtwide bills, he motioned
to have the $18,000 monthly JREC bill separated and voted on by
itself.
The district pays more than $200,000 annually to the center.
The motion was seconded by fellow committee member and former
middle school principal Richard J. Faulkner.
Committee members, chairwoman Christine A. Fagan, Josephine B.
Almeida, and retired city police officer Peter H. Corr, however,
support the student's parents' choice.
Without enough committee votes, no payment could be made to the
center, and the student would most likely be pulled from the
program. Nonpayment could lead to a costly legal battle, though,
since the district is required by law to meticulously follow
carefully developed court-approved treatment program.
Israel has responded to Baptista's efforts in writing.
"This act by NYSED was most likely a response to a well
publicized but frivolous complaint by one New York parent," he
wrote. "After making her frivolous claims public, this parent
left her child at [the center] for two months, never visited
him, but sent every manner of print and television media to
publicize and exploit him as part of an effort to promote her
lawsuit for money damages against her local New York school
district, NYSED and [the center]. This child had done very well
at [the center], but his mother and his lawyer sacrificed his
progress as well as his privacy for the sake of seeking
[monetary] damages."
Litigation is pending.
In the Taunton student's case, according to his mother, Israel
and Dr. James Riley, consulting psychologist and former chief of
psychology at Taunton State Hospital, the therapy has been
incredibly successful.
With the boy's mother's permission, Israel referred to a chart
documenting the boy's progress.
"On this chart, each dot represents the total number of major
problem behaviors he showed each month," Israel said. "The chart
shows a 1,000-fold improvement has occurred ... after the
[skin-shock therapy] was implemented. [Before, he] was
displaying approximately 2,000 problem behaviors per month.
During the past three months the total has been between two and
six per month."
Baptista has pledged to bring the topic up again after his
fellow board members have had a chance to review the paperwork
he has provided.
To date, NYSED has refused all requests from the center and
parent to meet and resolve concerns. Israel claims the NYSED's
June 9 negative report "is completely false."
Some Bay State lawmakers have attempted to follow suit - banning
JREC aversive therapies in Massachusetts - but, so far, have
been unsuccessful.
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