\n<\/p>\n
A school district board in upstate New York is investigating school officials amid accusations that the district may have confined elementary school students inside wooden \u201ctimeout\u201d boxes.<\/p>\n
Images of the boxes, which resemble tiny padded cells, first spread on social media last week, after a former member of the Salmon River school district school board accused officials of building them to seclude children with disabilities. The images unleashed an immediate uproar in the small district, which teaches about 1,300 children and lies on the border between New York state and Canada.<\/p>\n
In addition to investigating the officials, the Salmon River central school district board of education announced last Thursday it had placed three officials, including an elementary school teacher, on leave. It also reassigned the district\u2019s superintendent to \u201chome duties\u201d and is cooperating with a New York state department of education investigation.<\/p>\n
While the district superintendent acknowledged that the district had set up three of the wooden crates at two elementary schools, he also said that the district had removed the boxes and that no student had ever been confined inside of them. However, at an emotional and tense community meeting last week, multiple parents said they suspected their children had been inside the boxes, the Albany-based Times Union reported.<\/p>\n
One parent of a minimally verbal child said his son told him: \u201cIf you are happy or if you are sad, this is the place you have to go to calm down.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than 60% of Salmon River students are Native American. For several community members, the controversy over the boxes evoked memories of abusive residential schools, the US government\u2019s boarding school system that sought to force Native American students to assimilate to white society. Nearly 1,000 students died at those schools, which operated as recently as the 1960s.<\/p>\n
\u201cSixteen of my family members, at least, have gone to residential schools; it\u2019s not generations removed,\u201d Sarah Konwahahawi Herne, whose first-grader attends a school where a box was placed, told the Times Union. \u201cThis is not history. This contemporary times in our family.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kathy Hochul, New York\u2019s Democratic governor, has called the allegations \u201chighly disturbing\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cSchool should be a place where every child is safe, respected and supported,\u201d Hochul said in a statement on Saturday. \u201cThese allegations are alarming and entirely unacceptable and the state\u2019s independent education department must take swift action to investigate and rectify this situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The district\u2019s superintendent office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. However, in a statement, the school board apologized profusely.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe recognize the pain, concern, and distress these events have caused, and we are truly sorry for the harm and trauma this has resulted for our community,\u201d said Jason Brockway, the board\u2019s president. \u201cWe want to be clear: the circumstances surrounding these allegations do not reflect the values and standards of care that guide this district.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A school district board in upstate New York is investigating school officials amid accusations that the district may have confined elementary school students inside wooden \u201ctimeout\u201d boxes. Images of the boxes, which resemble tiny padded cells, first spread on social media last week, after a former member of the Salmon River school district school board<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[3361,1286,1922,6226,334,21142,21141,476],"class_list":{"0":"post-38692","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-allegations","9":"tag-board","10":"tag-box","11":"tag-investigates","12":"tag-school","13":"tag-timeout","14":"tag-wooden","15":"tag-york"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}