The father says teachers need more training in dealing with special needs students and doesn’t believe police should have been involved.
SAN ANTONIO, Texas — A Northside ISD parent is outraged after they say their autistic child was put into handcuffs and spent eight days in the Juvenile Justice Center.
The parent says the school did not follow proper protocols in place when his son had an outburst at school.
The parent who spoke with us did not want their identity revealed to protect his son’s identity.
“They should know how to respond to a child with this kind of disability and I don’t feel they do,” he said.
The father says his 11 year-old son with special needs attends Pat Neff Middle School, part of Northside ISD.
“(He’s) very bright, he loves to craft and take things apart, build things and do crazy things. He is autistic, he’s got multiple diagnosis with ODD, ADHD,” he said.
The man says over the past school year, his son has had dozens of behavioral issues and he has asked the district for help.
In November of 2024, the child was charged for Assault on a Civil Servant.
“Then I had asked them in multiple emails, if we couldn’t figure out a different setting for him, because I didn’t think that it was working at that school and I never got an email back,” he said.
Now months later, the father says they are in the same boat after another assault against a teacher. He says during an outburst, the teacher was taking things away from his son that he was putting in his mouth.
“I guess that upset him because he had seen them putting the things away. He had tried to push the teacher out of the way to get into the closet that they were putting the things away in and she had gotten pushed,” he said.
The district confirmed the assault and said the employee sustained bodily injury and police and EMS were called.
“They had called me before and I was at work. So I called them back at break and when I got to him at break, it was already too late. They had already had him in handcuffs and detained him,” he said.
The child was taken to a juvenile detention center and given a court date.
“We had went to court and that’s when they sentenced him to eight days of detention,” he said.
The father is now calling for change and more training for teachers in dealing with special need students.
The child did have a Behavior Intervention Plan (BIP) in place, which is a customized plan designed to address behavioral challenges in the classroom.
Pam Allen with Eagles Flight Advocacy and Outreach says she became involved with helping the father in dealing with the school district.
“They weren’t responding appropriately to what this child needed. When I asked them to do another evaluation, they did,” said Allen.
Allen says a week after the new plan was in place, the second assault happened.
“We went back and started talking to the probation officer, even the judge. They were unaware that the child had special needs” said Allen.
Allen is also calling for change and more training.
“I think that they should have responded appropriately with appropriate interventions, de-escalating techniques that they’re supposed to be trained in, that should have happened. It should never come to using a police officer as behavior modification,” said Allen.
The district says they are confident the students behavior plan was followed appropriately and it was the teacher that decided to file charges and the court system that handed down the sentence.
KENS 5 also spoke with Judge William “Cruz” Shaw, who was the judge who handled the student’s assault case. The judge could not speak specifically about the case but did talk about law enforcement being used as a resource.
“It’s a real difficult situation because oftentimes, either parents, grandparents or outside agencies might be schools, they tend to use PD, sheriff’s departments as their first resource,” said Shaw.
The judge also went on to say that the criminal justice system should be used as a last resort, in dealing with these types of issues.
“Juvenile detention is not the safe space to de-escalate situations,” said Shaw.
As a result of this recent legal battle with his son, the single father has had to miss multiple days of work and is now facing eviction.
Pam Allen with Eagles Flight started a GoFundMe. If you would like to help, you can find the link to the GoFundMe here.
As for the child, he is back in school. The father says he is doing OK but it’s tough to tell.