Submitted by John P. Miller DOM, Jul 29, 2007 16:48

I thank you for your article.

I am the father of a 14 year old boy with Asperger's Syndrome.

My son is currently entering ninth grade at the Allegany-Limestone Central School.

When he transitioned to the Middle School in September of 2004, in our school district, it would seem the Middle School was unaware of his autism spectrum diagnosis. I believe the teachers and staff were unaware of his autism spectrum diagnosis because he was classified as speech impaired, rather than autism spectrum (his more accurate diagnosis). As is typical of Asperger's individuals, my son had deficiencies in his pragmatic language skills. Howerver, his language was superficially normal and the School did not provided speech therapy of any kind when he entered the middle school because it felt he had plateaued.

My son was mainstreamed in most of his classes. The School did not have, as required, an autism expert for his teachers to consult with. I do not believe his teachers even knew he was autistic. The words "autism" or "autism spectrum" were not included in his IEP. His IEP mentioned "PDD" under the heading of "other health concerns" Unfortunately, none of his middle school teachers seemed to realize PDD indicated my son to be autistic.

The school was given written notification of my son's autism diagnosis in January of his second grade year. In spite of the diagnosis notification, no social skills program was enacted for him. In spite of the diagnosis notification, no parent training or counseling, as required by education regulations, was ever offered to the parents. In spite of this diagnosis, my son was never given the benefit of social stories (as per Carol Gray).

When my son transitioned to Middle School, he rode a school bus for the first time. On the school bus, he would tell other students where to sit and the bus driver acquiesced to his demands and had the other students follow my son's instructions. I did not learn of this until I received an email from the middle school in hich he stated he, as a parent, did not understand why his daughter should be made to sit next to my son.

This reinforced mal-behavior led to problems in the classroom with my son telling others where to sit.

During sixth grade the school had an escalating behavior problem related to my son's Asperger's social impairment. This culminated in the school employing several multiple person prone physical restraints on my son. These restraints were done by individuals who had no training in any type of prone physical restraints. My son was 12 years old and weighed 95 pounds at the time of the physical restraints.

The school did not keep documentation of the restraints. Through a fluke, I was able to obtain the classroom logs written by my son's special education teacher and his teacher's aide. Through these logs, I was able to find an occasion where the special education teacher stated : "I layed over his back. Mrs......had his legs.

I also found a passage where the classroom logs indicated he had been continuously physically restrained for approximately twenty minutes.

Another passage indicated my son had been restrained for approximately five minutes and that "This continued off and on for approximately one hour.".

Another passage indicated my son had been restrained for refusing to get on a mat (part of an inappropriate behavior plan designed by and implemented by the school without consulting parents or obtaining parental approval. This same passage indicated that the restraint was released after my son had "calmed" (code word for "exhausted" It then further stated that my son began to bite his leg. "He was told to stop biting his leg. He chose to continue biting his leg , so he was restrained again.".

My son had no history of self injurious behavior. He had never given himself a bruise, bite mark, welt, missing hair, bleed. The school was supposed to know his history. "He shoulld not be physically restrained for non injurious self stimulating behavior. It the school did not know the behavior was non injurious, the restrainers only needed to look at his leg and see there were no bite marks.

The non injurioius self-stimulating behavior of biting his leg was in response to being restrained by and surrounded by adults.

Another passage referred to my son having slept for the rest of the day after having been restrained. Exhaustion?

I raised questions after obtaining the classroom logs. The school, refused to provide me with the training of the restrainers. The school repeatedly advised me that the restrainers were well trained. I eventually found out that the restrainers had been trained in CPI restraint methodology which had no type of prone restraint.

The School District Superintendent denied, in an email to me, that dangerous prone restraints (for which there are known fatalities) had been used on my son in October of 2005. She denied prone restraints in an audiorecorded meeting in March of 2006.

Our Impartial hearing commenced in July of 2006. It was not until school staff contradicted the school district superintendent with their testimony that we received an admission that each of the above prone restraints was done by multiple untrained adults with my son in a prone position. The hearing officer opined that my son was endangered by these restraints and she opined that the evidence showed my son had been emotionally and psychologically harmed by the restraints. The hearing officer ruled my son had been denied FAPE. She ruled the school did not provide an FBA. She ruled the school did not provide an appropriate behavior plan. She ruled the school did not provide requested educational records in a timely fashion.

SRO Paul Kelly overturned all of the above, in spite of overwhelming evidence.

Mr. Kelly is, in my mind, a criminal.

Sincerely,

John P. Miller DPM

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