Protecting disabled students

Sunday, Sept. 7, 2008 | 2:09 a.m.

A lawsuit filed 10 years ago revealed that special education students in Clark County are vulnerable to excessive forms of punishment and methods of control.

The suit resulted in a state law, adopted in 1999, that requires teachers of disabled students to file a report within one working day if they use restraint for any reason.

Now the law is coming under some criticism by the School District, which intends to ask the Legislature to modify it.

The lawsuit, which resulted in a settlement that cost the School District $265,000, alleged practices at the district’s Variety School for emotionally and mentally disabled children that were clearly unacceptable.

Among the allegations: Campus staff pinning two boys to the floor and kneeling on their backs, and forcing boys onto a treadmill with weights tied to their ankles.

“We had children sprayed in the face with water because they didn’t respond quickly enough,” Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley told Las Vegas Sun reporter Emily Richmond for a story published Friday.

Buckley is also executive director of Clark County Legal Services, which represented the students and families that brought the lawsuit.

She was a key supporter of the 1999 law, which also requires district administrators to review reports filed by teachers and forward any that reveal potentially excessive actions to the Nevada Education Department. During the 2007-2008 school year, 2,886 reports were filed and 46 were forwarded to the department.

Richmond quoted an associate superintendent of the district, Joyce Haldeman, as saying that writing nearly 3,000 reports to find 46 violations “is throwing the haystack back on top of the needle,” and that there must be a better way of identifying teachers who are improperly restraining students.

Our view is that she is right to a point — it wouldn’t hurt to review the 1999 law and make adjustments based on experience and common sense. But we would not want to see any change that would water down protections for disabled students. Special education must be just that — special, not barbaric.