Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 13, 1993 TAG: 9310130262
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"No 'kool," Katherine Austin, who has Down syndrome, would say - refusing to go to school at a special education program at Breckenridge Elementary School.
"T hurt me," Katherine would tell her mother. Austin said she didn't suspect at first that "T" meant teacher.
But Austin's worst suspicions became grounds for her $1 million lawsuit against the Botetourt County School Board. The suit alleges that a teacher and her aide regularly abused Katherine and other disabled children as part of a "cruel and demeaning" disciplinary process.
According to the lawsuit, teachers at the Fincastle school slapped students in their mouths, pulled them by the ears, threatened them with rulers, threw cold water in their faces and held them to the floor with a foot on their backs.
The most severely handicapped children, unable to respond to instructions, were singled out for the worst abuse, the suit claims.
School Superintendent Clarence McClure, teacher Cindi Higgins and teacher's aide Margaret Garrison were named in the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Roanoke.
Austin's suit claims that school officials knew of the disciplinary measures, which are part of the "policies, practices and customs" of the Botetourt County school system.
When she raised concerns, Austin said, school officials told her she might be overreacting, explaining that some discipline is necessary to control handicapped children.
"I look at it as institutional abuse," she said. "They would characterize the children as `these types' of children."
McClure declined to commment. "I'm aware of the situation," he said. "But it would be more appropriate for me to say what I have to say in a courtroom and not in the newspaper."
He said school officials have given the same advice to Higgins, who still is teaching at Breckenridge, and to Garrison.
For Austin, the most important goal is to make the school realize that pupils like her daughter demand extra attention.
"My biggest hope is not to get any money, but to stop this," she said. "It has to stop now."
The lawsuit, filed by Roanoke attorney John Cooley, claims that school officials violated Katherine's rights as a disabled person. Down syndrome is a congenital disease characterized by mental deficiency.
"All of these actions were a pattern and practice of discipline that had the effect of violating her civil rights," Cooley said.
Katherine was enrolled in the program for disabled preschoolers when she was 2, but it was months later before her parents realized what was happening, Austin said.
"There were little things that I would see in the beginning," she said. "At first, it was just a tone with the child, a harshness, that bothered me."
Her worries escalated when Katherine came home with chipped teeth and pinch marks - injuries that Austin emphasized she could not prove were the result of abuse.
"I have never claimed they beat children black and blue," she said. Instead, the discipline often amounted to mental abuse that is more devastating to a disabled child, she said.
Months after pulling her daughter from the program, she said, "I can't even drive past the school without Katie getting upset."
Before going to court, Austin spoke to the school principal, administrators, the Social Services Department, the Department of Education and advocacy groups - all with little success, she said.
Nothing was done, despite a finding by Social Services that her charges were founded, Austin said.
"The last thing I wanted to do was file suit," she said, "but I feel they pushed my hand."
by CNB