
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, September 1, 1994                   TAG: 9410130006
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MICHAEL STOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

3RD BOTETOURT SCHOOL SUIT FILED

A third mother has filed a $1 million lawsuit against the Botetourt County School Board, alleging that her disabled son was victimized by abusive discipline techniques.

Brenda Fay Pullen claims in a lawsuit that a special education teacher and her aide used discipline techniques that included slapping children in the mouth, pulling them by the ears, threatening them with a ruler and holding them down during nap time with a foot on their backs.

Earlier this summer, Botetourt school officials agreed to pay $30,000 each to two families that filed similar lawsuits.

Pullen's suit, filed in U.S. District Court on behalf of her 5-year-old son, Howard Wyatt Pullen, names the School Board, Superintendent Clarence McClure, teacher Cynthia Higgins and aide Margaret H. Garrison as defendants.

Brenda Pullen said Wednesday that she couldn't discuss specifics of the case, but did say her son no longer attends Breckinridge Elementary School in Fincastle, where the abuse allegedly occurred.

"I really do wish this wasn't happening," she said, "but it's time to do something for Wyatt."

Charles Allen, the school board's attorney, said this case won't necessarily be settled out of court, even though the other two lawsuits - filed by Ann Austin and Joy Parrish - ended that way.

"Every case rises and falls on its own merits," he said.

Pullen says in the suit that her son, who suffers from cerebral palsy, attended Breckinridge from October 1990 to the end of the 1993-94 school year.

In addition to $1 million in damages, Pullen is asking for a court order prohibiting Botetourt County schools from using abusive discipline techniques.

The settlements in the other two suits, reached in June, required the school system to develop guidelines for dealing with disabled children. It says that students enrolled in the county's special education program can't be subjected to different "behavior control" than other students without a written agreement among the parent, teacher and principal.

The three families that filed the suits have been battling the School Board for more than a year.

The county Department of Social Services investigated the abuse allegations last year and notified all three families that it had substantiated their complaints. The agency said "bizarre discipline" had been used in the classroom.

A state hearing officer, however, later overruled that decision.

by CNB