Another Public Eductation Fail

[Goaticus]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/23/stuart-chaifetz-father-wire-son-records-teacher-abuse_n_1447330.html

Aren't you glad the Government takes care of education?

"When Stuart Chaifetz sent his 10-year-old son to New Jersey's Horace Mann Elementary School wearing a wire, he couldn't have predicted the audio he would uncover.

The wiring came as a reaction to accusations from the school that his son Akian was having "violent outbursts," including hitting his teacher and teacher's aide -- claims that Chaifetz says are simply against his son's "sweet and non-violent" nature.

To Chaifetz's shock, Akian, a student with Autism, returned with a tape containing hours of verbal and emotional abuse from his classroom aide and teacher, which the father documented and published in an emotional YouTube video.

The Feb. 17 recording started with Akian's aide and the teacher, whom Chaifetz identifies as Jodi Sgouros and Kelly Altenburg, respectively, according to Collingswood Patch. The two engage in inappropriate conversations, like joking about their alcohol abuse and sex lives in front of their students -- all of whom suffer from conditions that prevent them from relaying the conversations to their parents.

"You would never get away with talking about your alcohol abuse the night before if this was a mainstream class," Chaifetz says in the YouTube video. "And that's the point, isn't it? They knew none of those boys could go home and tell their parents that the person who ran that class was under the influence the alcohol and was throwing up."

As the tape continues, the teacher and teacher's aide's behavior turned from inappropriate to cruel.

"Who are you talking to, nobody?" Altenburg asked Akian, who sometimes talks to himself. "Knock it off," Sgouros chimed in.

According to the video, Akian became upset, and starting crying.

"Go ahead and scream because guess what? You're going to get nothing until your mouth is shut," the classroom official is heard saying. "Shut your mouth."

Due to his son's anxiety, Chaifetz, who is divorced from his wife, has to reassure Akian that he will return to his care after the boy spends time with his mother.

"It's not a big deal," he said, describing the reassurance ritual in the video.

When Akian asked Sgouros for the same reassurance, however, she answered "no," sending him into an emotional panic.

Instead of compassion, however, the teacher's aide responded with cruelty.

"Oh Akian, you are a bastard," Sgouros said, according to the audio recording.

Although Sgouros, the classroom aide, was fired after the father presented the recording to school district officials, Altenburg remains employed, but in a different classroom.

"That my son's teacher was not fired and still works in the school district is an outrage I am not willing to allow to pass in silence," Chaifetz said in an email to the Huffington Post.

"She betrayed my son and caused him great pain. If some union rule or HR regulation has allowed her to keep her job, then the law needs to be changed so that the next time a teacher bullies a child, especially one with special needs, they will be immediately fired. For me to do nothing would mean I was treating my son with as much disrespect as they had," he added.

An online petition on Change.org and a Facebook page calling for the teacher's termination have already received attention.

Susan Bastnagel, Cherry Hill Public School District spokesperson declined to comment on Altenburg's continued employment, but told the Huffington Post that the incident is a "personnel matter that the district took seriously and handled appropriately."

Akian's troubling experience is not unique, nor is his father's method of exposing believed wrongdoing in the classroom.

"I have also been stunned by how many emails I have received from people with special needs who were bullied by teachers when they were in school, and from parents who have a situation that mirrors what I went through," Chaifetz told the Huffington Post. "These parents are desperate to find out what is happening to their child and have asked for help on how to wire them."

Thus was the case for the parents of a special needs student at Miami Trace Middle School in Ohio sent their daughter to school with a hidden tape recorder last fall, after the girl had repeatedly complaint about teacher bullying.

The revelation was shocking: the educators on the recording called the child lazy and dumb, and forced her to run on a treadmill with increasing speed.

"Don't you want to do something about that belly," former teaching aide Kelley Chaffins says in the recording. "Well, evidently you don't because you don't do anything at home. You sit at home and watch TV."

The girl and her father spoke to Ann Curry on the TODAY show last November, and in a tearful interview, the concerned dad touched on how the abuse had affected his daughter.

"She got to where she didn't want to go to school," he said, choking back tears. "She was ... starting to harm herself to keep from going to school and we knew we had to do something at that point."

Chaffins was forced to resign from her position.

Other bullying incidents like that of 15-year-old Julio Artuz at Bankbridge Regional School in New Jersey were exposed by hidden camera. Based on the uncovered video, the student asks his teacher to stop calling him "special," to which the teacher responded, "...I will kick your a-- from here to kingdom-come until I'm 80 years old."

UPDATE 1:05 p.m.: A previous version of this article named Jodi Rosenfeld as the possible "Jodi" referred to in the video. Stuart Chaifetz has since confirmed that this is not the teacher he refers to, according to Collingswood Patch."

[MrBogosity]

Oh. My. Fucking. God!

They need to be more than fired; they need to be put in jail for abuse of minors.

I'm almost surprised Chaifetz wasn't arrested for recording government agents in the line of duty!

[Goaticus]

Oh. My. Fucking. God!

They need to be more than fired; they need to be put in jail for abuse of minors.

I'm almost surprised Chaifetz wasn't arrested for recording government agents in the line of duty!

Trust me, if that had happened to my brother when he was in school the teacher would have disappeared like someone in Dexter.

[Goaticus]

I'm guessing since people are asking for help in wiring their kids pretty soon there will be rules about recording teachers.

[Travis Retriever]

Oh. My. Fucking. God!

They need to be more than fired; they need to be put in jail for abuse of minors.

I'm almost surprised Chaifetz wasn't arrested for recording government agents in the line of duty!

They need a proper nordic execution with a sword through their gullets and/or forced to attend a donkey show--if you catch my meaning.

[Ibrahim90]

They need a proper nordic execution with a sword through their gullets and/or forced to attend a donkey show--if you catch my meaning.

death is too good for them....no matter how slow and excruciating, and no matter how many donkey shows are attended.

[Travis Retriever]

death is too good for them....no matter how slow and excruciating, and no matter how many donkey shows are attended.

Yeah, that's true; no matter how many times they are sodomized by donkeys; it would always be too good for them.
For real.

[AnCap Dave]

I just watched the video.

As someone who takes care of an autistic teenager on occasion, that really broke my heart. I can't even imagine how I would react if that were my son or the kid I take care of in that situation.

While they're not saying if the union is what protected that teacher, it would not surprise me if that was the case, and this is further evidence of the evil of teacher unions.

[Gumba Masta]

What's so bad about a Donkey show? Donkey's are neat animals.

[Goaticus]

This story is proof of Martha Stout's hypothesis that roughly 4% of people are sociopath's and that they tend to cluster in fields where they can get away with victimizing people. My brother's autistic which is why this story pissed me off.

[MrBogosity]

This story is proof of Martha Stout's hypothesis that roughly 4% of people are sociopath's and that they tend to cluster in fields where they can get away with victimizing people. My brother's autistic which is why this story pissed me off.

My son is as well, which is what made me cry my eyes out as I watched the video.

[Goaticus]

I'm really impressed by the father. Most parents would uncritically take the teachers word for it.

[Ibrahim90]

I have a brother who is in special education too--he has issues that make it hard for him to learn, though it isn't autism. all the more reason I think death is too good for those two criminals.

[AnCap Dave]

I'm guessing since people are asking for help in wiring their kids pretty soon there will be rules about recording teachers.

Funny enough you mention this. Leave it to the local news station for New Haven County (WTNH) to say something like this:

A NJ dad sent his autistic son to school with a "wire" and found out teachers were bullying the boy. Was it appropriate for him to eavesdrop on his child's classroom? Would you do it?

[Lord T Hawkeye]

Just goes to show it's not just cops who need to be recorded.  Public employees are not to be trusted.  Record them all the time.