Have you ever read something on the Special Need Blog at Families.com and wondered, “What happened next?” If so, then the answer to your question might be right here. I’ve got a few “follow ups” to stories that I recently wrote about.
A while ago, I put together a list of all the Sensory Friendly Santa events that I was aware of. The list had details about events that would take place in December of 2012.
Need more? Check out the awesome list that Jennifer Cerbasi put together. She has the events broken up by state, to make it easier for you to search through them.
Remember the blog about the four year old who was left on a school bus for hours? This happened in the District of Columbia. The child had special needs, and fell asleep while riding to school on the school bus. Fortunately, the boy did not suffer any serious physical harm as a result of the incident.
Did you wonder what happened next? The Washington Post has some details.
It has been made clear that the driver and bus attendant did not follow the required procedure to check the bus after students are dropped off, and to check the bus once again when it arrives in the bus yard. The attendant was supposed to be sitting in the back of the bus, but was instead sitting in front with the driver.
One of them disabled a safety alert buzzer that activates when someone is left in the back of the bus. Both the driver and the attendant have written letters of apology to the student’s family. The situation is being investigated by the Office of the Attorney General.
There is an update about the isolation room that was being used in the Special Education classroom in an elementary school. The isolation room has been “shut down” This means that children with special needs can no longer use the booth as a place to calm down, (even if their parent has signed papers allowing them that option).
It turns out that someone posted a photo of the isolation booth on Facebook. Some of the comments that were left called the teachers and administrators who used the isolation booth “lazy” and “uneducated”. Others expressed their opinion that the teachers and administrators should be “jailed”.
The school district is leaving the isolation booth “shut down” while it does an investigation. Administrators have learned that a student who was not authorized to be placed in the booth was put inside it. The criticisms on Facebook are what motivated the district to launch an investigation.
Image by NS Newsflash on Flickr