From Dan Tepfer, CT Post:
Harding High School students forced two severely mentally disabled students into a possible sexually inappropriate action, the lawyer for one of the disabled students charged Thursday.
On Wednesday, Patrick Nolan, 19, was charged with first-degree sexual assault, risk of injury to a child and third-degree abuse, after police said he sexually assaulted a mentally disabled teenaged boy in the bathroom at Harding on the second day of school last year. Police said a group of non-disabled students cheered as they watched, and one of them recorded the incident on his phone to show around school.
Nolan was released to the custody of his parents following a brief court appearance on Wednesday, and the case was continued to July 15.
“This boy (Nolan) is profoundly retarded, and this is lost on the depiction of the situation,” said his lawyer, Mark Phillips. “Able-minded students got these two special-education students into the bathroom and then egged them on into a situation and filmed it–they are the criminals.”
Full story here.
If what the lawyer for the kid who was arrested for this sexual assault is correct and they were goaded into this by non-disabled students, there is a lot more wrong at Harding and a new school won’t fix it. If this kid is severely disabled like his lawyer states then why is he being mainstreamed with the general population of the school?
During Vallas’ reign of terror, he cut over $3 million dollars from special education. Previously, children with very serious special needs had a committed paraprofessional, Vallas eliminated the one-to-one ratio for many students. A friend of mine works with Bridgeport special-needs students and he had two students who were not assigned a single paraprofessional at the beginning of the school year. These students needed assistance going to the bathroom. They would spend the morning in a traditional school and then go to a local program. He approached the administration and asked what the children were supposed to do if they had to go to the bathroom in the morning? The administrator said there was nothing that could be done because Vallas cut paraprofessionals. Sometimes the kids would arrive at the afternoon program soiled and they would help the child. The Pride Academy was closed because BPS spent $1.1 million dollars on the program this year. Fewer than 75 students were enrolled and on average fewer than 35 students were there on any given day. These are some of the most troubled students in the district and many were in rival gangs. Students from rival gangs were being housed together. In fact, there was a riot in the school at the beginning of the school year. It was unsafe and it was a poor learning environment.
So if the teachers forgo their 8% raise we could have rehired the paras? Vallas left 3/1. The new Super failed to hire the required staff (guards, paras, etc.) to properly supervise these students leading to an unsafe and poor learning environment. The para who was present was negligent in their job performance. The only person you cast blame on is a guy who has not worked for the BOE for four months? Really? Fran closed the Pride Academy. She is responsible for putting these kids into the schools.
Heinous and despicable. Bad enough there was no or insufficient supervision, but the fact “normal” students were cheering this horrible act on makes me wonder just how “normal” they are. And to think this matter was shoved under a rug for close to a year is very unsettling. This matter warrants some very serious investigation.
Who? What? When? These are questions that require more development to understand the behavior revealed in the news stories so far.
In terms of “who,” there seem to be two special-needs students who were companioned, guided, or led into an area with no TV cameras, a restroom, and early reports indicated one person remained in the hall. (Would someone more knowledgeable about school policy outline what the policy for such a situation is?) If there were people at the school responsible for carrying out school policy, who are they, what did they do or fail to do, to whom did they report the incident and when? There is a story circulating as many as five people may have been transferred from Harding HS to other locations. Whoever decided on transfers must have known about the apparent breach of school policy, but did they report the incident further up the chain?
If the event occurred in August 2013, why has it taken 10 months for a warrant to be issued? Where was policy and procedure ignored, failed to be understood, or actually ignored and thwarted and why?
Under former Superintendent Paul Vallas, a student safety program with videos was developed and installed with TV coverage both in-school and external to locations walkers selected as most likely pathways for protection. Thus when the several persons, victim(s) and perpetrators, exited the rest room, everyone was on camera. And the names of the staff at the time are known, and the chain of command is known, so why is this story so long in coming to public knowledge and criticism? And what type of consequences were delivered to persons who were responsible and who failed to act appropriately? Time will tell.