Video shows Kentucky teacher, nurse dragging boy with autism
LEXINGTON, Kentucky (WABC) -- A Kentucky mom said she's outraged after a surveillance video surfaced of a teacher dragging her special needs son through a school hallway.
Jo Grayson, the child's mother, said the incident left her son bruised and traumatized.
On Sunday, Fayette County Public Schools released footage showing a teacher and a nurse dragging 11-year-old Thatcher through a hallway at Tates Creek Middle School.
At one point in the video, Thatcher, who has autism and is nonverbal, appeared to scream out as the pair took him up a flight of stairs.
The boy's service dog stood nearby, helpless.
"It was terrible because it's my child," Grayson told ABC News. "I mean, I don't understand how anybody could do that to any child, regardless of whether or not they have a disability ... I was initially told that he was having a meltdown, but the truth is, he wasn't having a meltdown."
Grayson said the school notified her via text message when the incident occurred on Sept. 14.
The school said the incident started after Thatcher refused to stand up in class; however, she said school officials failed to mention her son had been dragged.
"I got a call from somebody from Child Protective Services ... and she's the one who told me what had actually occurred in the video -- that he'd been dragged down the hallway and some of the specifics about what were in the video," she told ABC News.
School officials said employees are trained on how to handle these situations; however, they said the correct procedures were not followed.
"Incidents of this nature -- in which an employee is acting outside of the district's expectations and out of line with the training provided -- are isolated," Fayette County Public Schools said in a statement. "Our training is very explicit that physical restraint is a last resort only to be used when a student is a danger to themselves or others...the training also shows employees the proper ways to hold or transport students. In this case, neither of those standards were met."
School officials said the teacher is no longer an employee. However, they did not say if the nurse, who is employed by the health department, had been penalized.
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