Mother of toddler strapped to chair ‘in shock’
Says she’s removed 3-year-old from the Condon School after he was restrained
The mother of a 3-year-old boy with special needs who was restrained in a chair with nylon straps at the James F. Condon K-8 School in South Boston last month said Monday that she’s “furious” that her son was treated in such a harsh manner.
“I’m still in shock,” Anacelia Cuevas, 30, of Hyde Park, said in a phone interview. “I’m in denial. I just don’t want to believe that this happened to my son.”
Boston Public Schools officials are investigating the incident and said Sunday that several employees had been placed on leave. A district spokesperson said the child was restrained in a classroom chair using nylon straps and duct tape.
Superintendent Mary Skipper briefly addressed the incident at a School Committee budget hearing Monday, calling the situation “deeply concerning.”
“The safety and well-being of our students is our number one priority,” Skipper said.
She told the committee that as soon as her administration was made aware of the incident, “we took immediate action and we placed staff members involved on leave.”
The school district did not release the names of the employees placed on leave following the incident, which was first reported by WBZ-TV.
The Boston Teachers Union referred questions to Boston Public Schools.
Cuevas said she wasn’t aware of the Feb. 14 incident until about two weeks later, when the state Department of Children and Families called her to say that a report of possible abuse and neglect had been filed after “my son was strapped to a chair.”
“It feels like they’re just trying to sweep this under the rug,” Cuevas said.
A spokesperson for the Department of Children and Families confirmed Monday that the agency has received a report of the incident and is investigating.
Cuevas said a teacher had walked into her son’s classroom and had seen that he was strapped to the chair, according to the child welfare agency’s report.
“It was not a mechanical chair for disabled children,” Cuevas said, adding that straps holding her son in the chair were “duct-taped to the floor.”
Cuevas said her son “was placed there because apparently he was in trouble. That was the quote.”
Her child has symptoms of autism but has not yet received a formal diagnosis, she said.
“My son is basically nonverbal,” Cuevas said. “He can say a few words here and there.”
Recently, her child had taken to saying “trouble” at home whenever a chair was mentioned.
Initially, she didn’t think anything was amiss and assumed he was using the word incorrectly, since he didn’t come home with any “bruises or cuts or visible trauma.”
But knowing what happened, Cuevas said “it makes a lot of sense now that he was in a chair for quite some time.”
Michael Krezmien, a professor of special education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, called the educators’ actions “draconic” and said the use of manual restraints is “never warranted.”
“Some students with autism may display physical behaviors that are difficult to manage, but in those circumstances, school personnel should have safely utilized crisis prevention and intervention strategies consistent with their training,” Krezmien said in an email Monday.
“Resorting to the use of available office supplies to mechanically restrain the student was unwarranted and hearkens back to medieval responses to people with individual differences.”
He said he was shocked that the child’s mother was not notified within a day of the incident. “I am deeply concerned that this could represent wider unwarranted and undocumented use of physical restraints,” he said.
“Either these individuals were ‘trained’ but engaged in these egregious and abusive practices or they were not trained, indicating a potential widespread lack of understanding of the district policies on physical restraint. Both circumstances are deeply disturbing.”
In a letter to parents with children in pre-kindergarten at the Condon School on Thursday, Region 2 Superintendent Mary Driscoll said the district’s Office of Specialized Services “is in direct contact with the school to support staff with proper district protocols regarding the use of student restraints.”
“I want to reassure you that this matter is being fully addressed consistent with school and district policies,” Driscoll wrote.
Cuevas said she has removed her son and his twin brother from the Condon, and officials are working on placing them in a different school.
“It’s been a tough week,” she said.
She said she is seeking a school “that gives them the special needs services they [require] and the safety, which is very important right now.”
‘I’m in denial. I just don’t want to believe that this happened to my son.’
ANACELIA CUEVAS, of Hyde Park