Handcuffed kindergartner story is not going away. Still a lot we don’t know.
The AJC’s Christian Boone spoke today with the parents of the handcuffed Milledgeville kindergartner Salecia Johnson.
As we all expected, this story is shifting to a national stage.
What remains unclear is whether this little girl has had a history of outbursts. The Milledgeville police chief said earlier this week that the principal said Salecia had run away from the school before so we can assume her past behavior played a role in the school’s decision to bring in police. A representative of the family denied that the child had run away from the school.
It remains unclear what strategies the school had in place to deal with Salecia, and whether those strategies were tried before police were called.
Here is an excerpt of the AJC interview:
Salecia was there too, and on her best behavior as she demonstrated for reporters how her hands were cuffed from the back. “It hurted,” she said.
The action was taken after police were called by Creekside Elementary School’s principal, Dianne Popp, to assist with an “unruly juvenile.” According to the incident report, Salecia was “screaming and crying” on the floor when an officer arrived. Popp told the officer she had been struck by a small shelving unit that Salecia had flipped over.
“[Salecia] was observed biting the door knob of the office and jumping on the paper shredder and attempted to break a glass frame above the shredder,” the police report stated. The officer said he attempted to calm Salecia but the girl “pulled away and began actively resisting and fighting with me,” according to the report. At that time the decision was made to place the 6-year-old in steel handcuffs “for her safety as well as others’ safety in the area.”
Salecia was charged with being an unruly juvenile, simple battery and damage to property. Those charges have since been dismissed because of her age.
“It baffles me how a child can be put in handcuffs and sent to an adult jail for an hour,” said Marcus Coleman, president of NAN’s Atlanta chapter. “You’re telling me they couldn’t find a way to restrain this little child?”
Police said they made six attempts at contacting Salecia’s mother, Constance Ruff, before they took the girl into custody but the Milledgeville woman said she never received the calls, adding the school could have contacted other family members whose numbers were in their files.
Police finally reached Salecia’s aunt, Candace Ruff, once they arrived at the Baldwin County jail. “I had to make sure someone wasn’t playing a practical joke on me,” she said. She contacted her sister and they went together to collect Salecia at the jail, where she had been placed in a holding room.
Her mother said Salecia has been “traumatized” by her arrest. “I believe my daughter was treated like a criminal,” she said.
The girl was initially expelled for the remainder of the school year, but Creekside officials invited Salecia to return to class on Monday. But her parents have decided to send her to a school outside of Baldwin County.
School administrators have declined comment on the incident. Meanwhile, Milledgeville Police Chief Dray Swicord defended the arrest Tuesday during a brief press conference. “When a person is put in handcuffs it’s for their safety, it’s not a punishment,” Swicord told reporters.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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74 comments Add your comment
bu2
April 21st, 2012
12:10 pm
And love teaching, with what you have been through, imagine what special needs teachers face regularly. They are really a special breed.
I love teaching. I hate what it is becoming...
April 21st, 2012
12:25 pm
bu2 “And love teaching, with what you have been through, imagine what special needs teachers face regularly. ”
I don’t need to “imagine” it. I have worked with many special needs teachers – often when their students are mainstreamed to my room. I have nothing but the greatest respect for those who work with special needs children. (Those who actually “work” with those children, and don’t just neglect them.) It takes a special soul to deal with those types of kids. Most of the problem children I had dealings with were likely “special needs” in some way, but getting such children help is sometimes nearly impossible these days. You really can’t do anything unless parents agree to it, and too many times, the parents actually enable the behavior.
And frankly, if I had it to do over again? You BET I would be filing an assault charge against some of the children who attacked me with intent to harm! Maybe if more teachers did, or if more parents of students who are harmed by out of control children called police, something would change.
Enough already...
April 21st, 2012
3:13 pm
All the bleeding hearts who feel the child was treated too harshly probably have children of their own with “similar issues.” They should be a “fly on the wall” in the classrooms where the undisciplined wreak havoc. I won’t even get into the cases where the admins turn a blind eye because they want to have flawless paperwork.
Two Cents
April 21st, 2012
5:11 pm
If mommy’s phone was out of minutes – would it have even rang? Mom is the one who should be handcuffed.
Archie@Arkham Asylum
April 21st, 2012
6:48 pm
Maybe the State Department of Education could arrange to take over the old state insane asylum in Milledgeville and turn it into a residential school for socially maladjusted children! (Just don’t send ‘em to Arkham!)
TeacherLeader
April 21st, 2012
8:42 pm
As a school leader I have had the experience this year of dealing with a child older and larger than the one involved in south GA. First and foremost select teachers, support staff, and administrators received CPI training. This training teaches you to recognize and deal with students who display various types of issues. We are also trained to protect ourselves when violence is used and to properly restrain students. By taking this training and applying the strategies as outlined the company will represent and defend us if a parent sues as a result. When we had this situation it was definitely not the first or third time this student had an outburst. The last time the child had an outburst the parent was called and was able to witness the child in action, see the flipped funiture, ripped clothes, and hear the foul language. When the parent’s attempt to calm the child down didn’t work we called in support, but not the police, we called in medical professionals (we had an ambulance dispatched to the school), because clearly this child was in a rage. When children have mental health issues, whether they are emotional or behavioral, we need to provide support to the child even when the parent is clueless, in denial, or part of the problem. There are always multiple solutions to a problem if you are properly trained! The problem is more and more child are coming to school with emotional, behavioral, and mental health issues (caused by genetics, environment, chemical dependencies, poor parenting, etc,) and school systems have yet to recognize that teachers, support staff, and administrators need specialized training.
Give me a break
April 22nd, 2012
10:07 am
This story is ridiculous!!! Obvisiously this little girl has some serious issues and the parents are trying to cover for her or maybe this was all planned so that the parents could make a spectacle of themselves. I smell some parents trying to make a quick buck by filing a lawsuit.
They all need help!!!
liberalefty
April 22nd, 2012
10:28 am
would she have been cuffed if she were white?
Archie@Arkham Asylum
April 22nd, 2012
3:08 pm
@Teacher Leader: That is the best, most sensible idea I have heard yet! Usually only special ed. teachers receive this training (CPI) but the regular teachers need to have it, too! That is better for staff and students, also. Also, it would be good to have a group of faculty with advanced training to form a “crisis team.” I am not exactly sure that regular teachers could take time from their classes to be on a crisis team because the crisis team would be busy. It is kind of sad that it has come to this but the average public school can be best described as a “looney bin” rather than a “sanctuary for learning” and staff needs to be trained accordingly!
NWGA Teacher
April 22nd, 2012
6:30 pm
@Archie: Sounds good, sure, but I don’t know anyone who would voluntarily be a member of a “crisis team” aimed at restraining out-of-control children. This kind of thing isn’t in the job description. We’ve seen too many colleagues who quietly disappeared, as well as those who were splashed all over the front page.
TimeOut
April 22nd, 2012
6:38 pm
The stories that those in the Media choose to cover, and how they choose to cover it, reveals a great deal about our current way of life. The Jerry Springer show aside, there are other concerns that we could all come together to address, instead of arguing and insulting each other via online blogs. There are parents who lack the intellectual and socioemotional development to adequately parent. There are school systems that lack the funds to provide training, staffing, and other elements of an adequate pro-active response to such potential situations. Yet, all of us pay the price when this person grows into an unproductive adult. Her life will be less than it could be and we all lose when human potential not only goes to waste, but comes back to haunt us through our penal and health care institutions. What can we do?
Archie@Arkham Asylum
April 22nd, 2012
7:54 pm
@NWGA: I know what you are talking about and I needed to do a bit of a “reality check.” Fortunately for me, I’m retired and “I no longer have a dog in this fight,” so to speak! There were many times when I had the doubtful privilege of maintaining “law and order” at the school I was assigned to during my 24 years in the “perfession.” There were many times when I happened to remember that I went into teaching to try to help people, not be a “cop on the beat” trying to keep kids from maming (or worse) themselves and/or others. Sometimes, in spite of the cynicism I often express on this blog the old idealist sometimes returns, if only for a while!
Hunger Games
April 23rd, 2012
1:05 am
Can’t anyone appreciate the “gray” in all of this??
The school did the right thing with the tools they had at hand. The police arguably did the right thing given the situation. But there has to be a better way.
The problem is that there are some children in our schools who have emotional or behavioral issues that their parents lack either the insight, knowledge or resources to address and whose behaviors impact the school and other students. It seems evident from the descriptions that this is not simply a child with a lack of discipline. There’s something deeper involved.
So what does the school do? There is a vacuum in this area. Most schools lack on-site trained staff to handle these situations (there’s no budget for it). There must be a procedure in place to isolate these children during a rage until such time as appropriate people can be summoned to address their issues (whether it be a school counselor or DFCS or whatever), but if the child is SIX YEARS OLD the only reason for the police to be involved is because there is a lack of more appropriate responses.
The teachers do not need to be burdened with this, nor do the other students.
Why is there not a state-wide procedure to respond to these problems? And to point these parents toward the assistance their child might need? No parent rich or poor wants to believe their child has “issues”, and particularly if they lack the resources to address them if it involves medical intervention.
These blog rants, and the legal circus are missing the point.
Schools need relief from this. Parents need to be pointed toward resources that can help. And the kids in question, who are at the heart of this, need help not lawsuits.
Local Girl
April 23rd, 2012
1:17 pm
I have seen quite a lot of comments about this topic from people who work in different settings with children and talk a lot about restraint techniques. Just to clarify, most teachers and school personnel are not trained in restraint techniques and thus are not allowed to physically restrain children. Also, while calling an ambulance might have been another option, my guess is that they would have called the police. DFCS would be useless in this situation. It can take hours to even reach someone and then more hours before anyone shows up (if they show up at all – they have recently changed procedure so that fewer children are dealt with on an immediate basis).
Another teacher
April 23rd, 2012
6:48 pm
This is what happens when people who were raised by Jerry Springer have children.
Neil Murray
April 24th, 2012
7:51 pm
There is more speculation than fact in many of the earlier comments. However, two points stand out for me. First, several commenters supplied detailed and extended examples of children going violently out of control in school. I can’t remember seeing anything like that when I was a kid. I did live in a largely professional community where most children had two parents who seldom if ever felt the need to spank. Second, even if the school in question feels unable to talk about the specific situation, can’t they explain the procedures they have in place to deal with violent tantrums?
Hunger Games
April 25th, 2012
12:34 am
@ Neil Murray, In the ’70s when I went to school, kids with repeated behavioral problems were tossed into “alternative schools”. There’s a reason you don’t remember their presence. Things have changed.
There is a lot of merit to alternative schools, don’t get me wrong. But plenty of the kids who might have qualified for those schools “in the day” actually didn’t need it. Those kids needed some help to be the fine citizens of the school (with appropriate treatment and/or counseling, and including the parents) they were capable of being.
So I go back to my “gray area” argument. If there were an acceptable way to isolate (which is different from restraining) a child until such time as parents and/or counselors or whoever, could be brought to the scene, that might set up a situation where the parents could be provided with references to the resources necessary to address the issues. Taking the kid to jail? Not so much. If the parents can’t or won’t address the issues, then it’s time to talk about other measures.
This incident is awful for the teachers, the bystander students, the school administration, and not least of all the child involved.
There should be a “triage” policy that is state wide to handle these situations. It should protect the teachers and other students, as well as the disruptive child (who may actually have a real future ahead of them). It should point the parents toward available resources, whether it be counseling, parent coaching, or medical intervention.
I’m sure there is one (at least I would hope so), but what it is I don’t know (perhaps someone could chime in), and how it works in practice is certainly up for debate.
gamom
April 25th, 2012
1:17 pm
I would like to know what set the child off. You don’t go from the class to the principals office for no reason. Something happened before hand to upset her so. Why are we not hearing about that? Stop blaming the child..my kid had tantrums at six and certain things did set him off. He had trouble communicating verbally his frustrations. I had to work with the school and they had to work with me to get through, had police been called I would have been beyond livid! SO STOP BLAMING THE KID
bu2
April 25th, 2012
1:35 pm
Sometimes very minor things can set kids off. And sometimes it is the teacher’s fault:
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/25/11389266-dad-wires-up-autistic-son-10-to-expose-bullying-by-teaching-staff
ScienceTeacher671
April 25th, 2012
2:20 pm
gamom, no one is blaming the kid. They’re blaming her parents.
Cobb History Teacher
April 27th, 2012
5:53 am
Lawsuit? Gosh isn’t that like winning the lottery? I know middle school girls who were probably just like that and when they don’t get their way now they “go crazy” and everybody is expected to walk on pins and needles around them. It’s time to stop stroking egos, and help our children understand that the world will not “cow tow” to them. I’d rather a child learn the hard lessons early when they are young rather than let them grow up and have reality smack them in the face.
Mother of a special needs autistic child
April 30th, 2012
10:58 pm
As long as the public, school administration and our government refuse to accept the many spectrum’s of Aspergers Syndrome, and insist on main streaming our special needs children in classrooms and schools of unqualified educators, this will continue to happen. I am saddened to read the negative responses of the teachers. It sounds as if they went into the profession to educate the children who are already educated, taught by their parents. Doctors must often attend workshops (voluntarily) to update their medical information. Why dont our college educated instructors feel that they too need to update their information. As educated persons they of all people should know that we all learn differently. As long as money is the reason for placing our special needs children with persons who do not know what to do with them then a lawsuit to change that is indeed what is needed. If one cannot understand love, then one should go back to reading their Bible. WWJD? by the by, budget cuts have discouraged special needs testing so schools will not know if a child has had previous outburst or not. Even now, has the subject been touched on before I have mentioned it. Aspergers Syndrome, please look it up. Kindest Regards, Be Blessed.
big daddy
July 12th, 2012
4:18 pm
It’s the parents fault. ALWAYS. period. Rather than ignore the fact that…. you know what, just because you have children doesn’t make you a parent. Lazy ignorant people create monster children.the parents should be charged. Child neglect is obvious. Own up for your children people, or you should lose them.
big daddy
July 12th, 2012
4:24 pm
And if your child has ” special needs” you don’t send them to a school that’s unqualified to deal with your “little angel” and their behavioral issues. There is NO such thing as a bad kid, only bad, lazy ignorant negligent parents.