SILVER CREEK, N.Y. — Silver Creek Central Schools says it is investigating the claims lodged by an assistant principal who says children are being subject to abuse.
Superintendent of Schools Todd Crandall, who spoke briefly with 2 On Your Side late Friday afternoon, indicated the probe may take weeks to complete.
Then on Monday, Silver Creek Superintendent Todd Crandall released a video statement following claims that officials are locking children inside an “isolation room."
The controversy at hand involves the use of an isolation room, and some of the parents whose children were sent there are upset.
Tiffany and Dwayne Farley's 5-year-old son attends Silver Creek Elementary, which has a room where children whose actions endanger themselves or others are sometimes sent to cool off.
"I was told it was done for disciplinary action cause my 5-year-old has a little bit of an anger issue," Mrs. Farley said. "But how do you lock a 5-year-old up in a room? How do you do that? It's inhumane."
The Farleys and other parents were joined at a meeting on Thursday by the school's assistant principal, Jay Hall, who they support for speaking out.
Hall complained to the school board in a letter where he described the room as a "foreboding, cold, cinder block jail like cell." He also claimed the room had "exposed electrical outlets and wiring ... and a razor blade-like mechanism under the folding bed."
We have been unable to verify the accuracy of his description.
Hall has since been suspended but his lawyer, Thomas Eoannou, would not confirm whether it was for blowing the whistle or for something else.
"We cannot discuss that," Eoannou said. Nor would Crandall comment on Hall's situation because it involved a personnel matter.
Timeout rooms
The use of such rooms in schools are not uncommon. In fact, there is a section of state education policy governing what it refers to as "timeout rooms."
Among other things, it says children placed there are supposed to be monitored at all times, the door must not be be locked, the students can't be denied food, and a reasonable time limit is supposed to be set for how long they remain.
That is in stark contrast to how one parent, Kristina Kwaizer, says her son described his experience.
"I asked him if he could tell me about this room ... and he said the teacher put me in, and put stuff in front of door, and locked me in," Kwaizer said.
According to Kwaizer, her son also told her that the only time he was allowed out was to use the bathroom, that he missed lunch, and that he was kept in the room until the day's dismissal.
In cases where students who have learning disabilities and Individual Education Programs, along with a behavioral intervention plan, which includes the use of a timeout room, parents must first agree to it and schools must permit them to inspect the time out room before they do.
In other cases, such as unanticipated situations that pose an immediate concern for the physical safety of a student or others, students may be placed in a time out room and their parents notified later.
On the schools website a notice to parents advises that the district has engaged a third party, who immediately began and continues investigating the allegations set forth in the letter.