KILLEEN DAILY HERALD
BY LAUREN DODD AND CLAY THORP
August 16, 2015
Editor's Note In the wake of a critical report by the Texas Education Agency, the Herald is looking into practices and procedures of the Killeen Independent School District’s Special Education Department. This is the first part of the investigative series.
A Killeen mother is calling for transparency in special-needs classrooms after a case of mother’s intuition led her to uncover “shocking” treatment of special-needs children in her son’s life skills classroom at Iduma Elementary School in the spring.
After witnessing one life skills teacher lose her temper with a child during a field trip, Laura Thomas said she was left with an awful feeling.
“I saw this teacher and aides act terribly to these children. After seeing her yell at a kid who spilled popcorn, I thought this isn’t right and had a really bad feeling.
“That’s when my friend suggested I send a recorder (to school), because you never know how bad it is when you’re not around,” Thomas said. “I’m so glad I did, because I was mortified.”
In March 2014, Thomas and her family moved to Killeen from Colorado Springs, Colo., where they were stationed at Fort Carson. Thomas’ son, a now 6-year-old special-needs student at Iduma Elementary, suffers from a rare condition, schizencephaly, in which he is missing a large portion of the right side of his brain. He is nonverbal but typically has a very pleasant demeanor, Thomas said.
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