A Bakersfield mother is upset with the way a school handled an incident with her high-functioning autistic son last week.
Kiersten Paige says her six-year-old son is in a first grade special education classroom at Longfellow Elementary School.
Last Thursday, she says her son had an incident at school where he became frustrated with an activity and threw himself on the ground. A report of the situation made says a visiting behavior specialist in the classroom put him in a seat restraint. It's unclear if a person or object was actually restraining him.
Paige says her main issue with this incident is the timeline. She was not notified of the issue until Friday, the following day, which goes against the school's policy of alerting parents or guardians of an issue the day an incident actually occurs.
She's also worried that a seat restraint was not the best way to handle the situation. She says with autistic children, it's best to let them take a moment to gather themselves. With this situation, if her son was already on the ground, it would have been best to leave him there rather than moving him to a restrained seat.
The Bakersfield City School District says they are not aware of specific special education training for teachers, however they are aware of this incident and are looking into it.
