Sorry for rubbernecking

[Xelebes]

I'm not an interested party, although I'm interested.  I'm from Canada so the gross abuses being told here have largely stopped with the closure of the residential schools in 1982.  I just watch in horror at the stories of connected charlatans running amok down south.  I don't believe Canada is immune to the problem, though there are adequate disincentives here that it is not such a problem as it is in the US.  However I do have experience with institutionalised abuse at the public school that resemble somewhat of the abuse described on this site.

I know there are a couple aspies here and can relate to the trials that one can experience at a public school.  To be honest, the public schools in this city are very good and there are not a lot of private school options - the wealthy kids are sent to the same school as the impoverished kid and we make do as best as we can.  Back when I was in grade one, I moved from a small hamlet to the big city school and the remainder of that year was pretty well.  Grade two was another story as the teacher was nearing retirement, the administration was in a dysfunctional state, and there was no such diagnosis of Asperger's at the time.  I spent two thirds of grade two in a small cubicle and was often forgotten, given a stack of blue and pink pages to fill out and give to my parents (never given) and by the end became quite claustrophobic.  When I was let out, the teacher basically let the other students to pick on me, beat me and steal from me.  This pattern on the playground persisted all the way until grade six.  Some teachers were better than others, but the playground never improved.

Grade seven was an absolute horror.  Moving to junior high, the principal was better many of the teachers were battle-hardened but there were some that were not prepared for the raucous body of students.  In one class, no teaching was ever possible and fights broke out often, maybe everyday in front of the teacher.  I was the one that got involved in 95% of them, defending myself.  The worst was when my Tourette's got me into trouble and the teachers were helpless for the firestorm that would follow.  I would eventually be swarmed on multiple occasions by 100-200 students, taking turns and beating me for half an hour at a time to "prove a point" or something.

I was taken out in grade nine and moved to a better part of the city where I never got into such messes ever again.  There was also help at the time as Asperger's was becoming recognised and my younger brother got diagnosed (I got my diagnosis a couple years ago.)  So yeah, while I don't think my story is as bad as what happened at Élan or WWASP, it was enough to send shockwaves when I did get around to admitting these things happened.  These swarmings happened a year before Columbine.  I moved a month before Columbine happened.  I know a kid was swarmed and killed in the high school a week after that.

[Ursus]

I'm not an interested party, although I'm interested.  I'm from Canada so the gross abuses being told here have largely stopped with the closure of the residential schools in 1982.  I just watch in horror at the stories of connected charlatans running amok down south.  I don't believe Canada is immune to the problem, though there are adequate disincentives here that it is not such a problem as it is in the US.  However I do have experience with institutionalised abuse at the public school that resemble somewhat of the abuse described on this site.

I know there are a couple aspies here and can relate to the trials that one can experience at a public school.  To be honest, the public schools in this city are very good and there are not a lot of private school options - the wealthy kids are sent to the same school as the impoverished kid and we make do as best as we can.  Back when I was in grade one, I moved from a small hamlet to the big city school and the remainder of that year was pretty well.  Grade two was another story as the teacher was nearing retirement, the administration was in a dysfunctional state, and there was no such diagnosis of Asperger's at the time.  I spent two thirds of grade two in a small cubicle and was often forgotten, given a stack of blue and pink pages to fill out and give to my parents (never given) and by the end became quite claustrophobic.  When I was let out, the teacher basically let the other students to pick on me, beat me and steal from me.  This pattern on the playground persisted all the way until grade six.  Some teachers were better than others, but the playground never improved.

Grade seven was an absolute horror.  Moving to junior high, the principal was better many of the teachers were battle-hardened but there were some that were not prepared for the raucous body of students.  In one class, no teaching was ever possible and fights broke out often, maybe everyday in front of the teacher.  I was the one that got involved in 95% of them, defending myself.  The worst was when my Tourette's got me into trouble and the teachers were helpless for the firestorm that would follow.  I would eventually be swarmed on multiple occasions by 100-200 students, taking turns and beating me for half an hour at a time to "prove a point" or something.

I was taken out in grade nine and moved to a better part of the city where I never got into such messes ever again.  There was also help at the time as Asperger's was becoming recognised and my younger brother got diagnosed (I got my diagnosis a couple years ago.)  So yeah, while I don't think my story is as bad as what happened at Élan or WWASP, it was enough to send shockwaves when I did get around to admitting these things happened.  These swarmings happened a year before Columbine.  I moved a month before Columbine happened.  I know a kid was swarmed and killed in the high school a week after that.

Interesting perspective. I mean that in the best of ways! ...  :clown:
Sorry you were subjected to such atavism in the public school horde. Kids can be cruel, especially when you're different and don't compare gracefully with popular expectations.

As to abusive mind-fuckery in Canada, those places still exist under the guise of... drug addiction rehabs (e.g., Alberta Adolescent Recovery Center), "therapeutic boarding schools" (e.g., Robert Land Academy, Rocklyn Academy, although the latter appears to have recently gone up in smoke), and certain psychiatric wards (an example escapes my mind at the moment). It's hard to say whether this is a trend of increase or decrease.

Along similar lines, certain Provinces appear to have "special deals" or "preferred placements" with certain programs here in the States. Nova Scotia in particular comes to mind. A few years ago there was a bit of a ruckus in the media when some kid, despite the presence of a very involved Grandmama, was supposed to be shipped halfway 'cross the continent to Cinnamon Hills in Utah. Given her economic resources and/or ability to travel, this would have effectively precluded any meaningful involvement in her grandson's "rehabilitation." Turns out, this kid wasn't the first to be in such a predicament. There was a bit of a Nova Scotia -> Cinnamon Hills pipeline going on...

[Xelebes]

I remember there was a case of a teen suicide in a Ontarian prison where the an Ontario bureaucracy (maybe Health) rejected the transferral of the girl into a program in Utah.  I can't recall many details of the case, though there was a tribunal just recently on that case, but I'm suspecting the Utah facility was one of the facilities talked about here.

[Xelebes]

Went to the Edmonton Journal today to inquire about any articles written about my school.  Apparently there was an article that came out in June 1, 1993 in the Edmonton Journal, written by the Journal Education Writer, Marilyn Moysa.

Policies needed for 'time-out' rooms ? parent

A mother has pulled her seven-year old son out of a South Side school after finding the boy isolated in a room the size of a small closet.

Roberta Hooymans discovered her son in a cubicle slightly bigger than one square metre [10.8 sq.ft.] when she arrived at Meyonohk elementary to pick him up for lunch.

While she agrees "time-out" rooms have their place in classroom discipline, she doesn't understand why the rooms have to be so small.

Hooymans  said she was also shocked to find the public school board has no policy governing other specifics such as time limits.

. . .

[. . .]sent to the room for forty minutes because he had trouble finishing his class work.

. . .

[. . .]the schoolboard has never developed a policy on how small time-out rooms for regular students can be.  Rooms for students with special behavior problems must be at least 1.2 by 1.8 metres. [2.16 m² or 23.2 sq. ft.]

Meyonohk ? located at 1850 Lakewood Road South ? has 500 students, none of whom have special behaviour problems.

. . .

Principal Jon Loomis says the two mothers are the only parents who've complained about the size of the rooms since teachers started sending students to them a year ago. [So the rooms were built right before I came to the school.]

Loomis says he decided to have two cubicle-like rooms built inside a larger, quiet room adjacent to the school's general office because students were distracted if there were more than one student in the room. [bullshit, I remember too many times being the only one there.]

"the doors on the cubicles don't lock [bullshit, there was no doorknob on the inside] and students usually have a choice if they want to leave the doors open or shut," he says. [again, bullshit.  There was never that opportunity.  In fact, so bad was this, I would have panics if there ever was a fire in the school because there was no way of going out.]

. . .

Most students stay there an average of 15 minutes to get their work done, Loomis says. [Most students, I guess, but what about that minority that spent week-long in-school suspensions in there, 8 hours a day because you can't go out for recess because of the pack of wolves all above omega were out there.]

. . .

[Ursus]

Went to the Edmonton Journal today to inquire about any articles written about my school.  Apparently there was an article that came out in June 1, 1993 in the Edmonton Journal, written by the Journal Education Writer, Marilyn Moysa.

Policies needed for 'time-out' rooms ? parent

A mother has pulled her seven-year old son out of a South Side school after finding the boy isolated in a room the size of a small closet.

Roberta Hooymans discovered her son in a cubicle slightly bigger than one square metre [10.8 sq.ft.] when she arrived at Meyonohk elementary to pick him up for lunch.

While she agrees "time-out" rooms have their place in classroom discipline, she doesn't understand why the rooms have to be so small.

Hooymans  said she was also shocked to find the public school board has no policy governing other specifics such as time limits.

. . .

[. . .]sent to the room for forty minutes because he had trouble finishing his class work.

. . .

[. . .]the schoolboard has never developed a policy on how small time-out rooms for regular students can be.  Rooms for students with special behavior problems must be at least 1.2 by 1.8 metres. [2.16 m² or 23.2 sq. ft.]

Meyonohk ? located at 1850 Lakewood Road South ? has 500 students, none of whom have special behaviour problems.

. . .

Principal Jon Loomis says the two mothers are the only parents who've complained about the size of the rooms since teachers started sending students to them a year ago. [So the rooms were built right before I came to the school.]

Loomis says he decided to have two cubicle-like rooms built inside a larger, quiet room adjacent to the school's general office because students were distracted if there were more than one student in the room. [bullshit, I remember too many times being the only one there.]

"the doors on the cubicles don't lock [bullshit, there was no doorknob on the inside] and students usually have a choice if they want to leave the doors open or shut," he says. [again, bullshit.  There was never that opportunity.  In fact, so bad was this, I would have panics if there ever was a fire in the school because there was no way of going out.]

. . .

Most students stay there an average of 15 minutes to get their work done, Loomis says. [Most students, I guess, but what about that minority that spent week-long in-school suspensions in there, 8 hours a day because you can't go out for recess because of the pack of wolves all above omega were out there.]

. . .

Do you have a link for this article, Xelebes? The full version might be useful to others...

Unrelated: the Edmonton Journal's Education Writer, Marilyn Moysa, died a coupla years ago. She was a huge advocate for journalists' right to protect their sources, even going so far as to risk jail for that principle...

[Xelebes]

I will have to scan it and upload it.  I was only able to get the article on microfilm at the library.

[Ursus]

From the above article (extracts), "Policies needed for 'time-out' rooms ? parent," emphasis added:

"A mother has pulled her seven-year old son out of a South Side school after finding the boy isolated in a room the size of a small closet.

Roberta Hooymans discovered her son in a cubicle slightly bigger than one square metre [10.8 sq.ft.] when she arrived at Meyonohk elementary to pick him up for lunch."[/list][/size]
Did those "rooms" look anything at all like the one depicted in this article?

[Xelebes]

No, there was a gap between the roof and the walls.  If I was limber enough and conniving, I could be able to climb out of it.  The walls were half-way lined with carpet.  To an autistic, that often meant that you couldn't lean against the walls without being pricked and itched.  There was only one cinderblock wall, the others were particleboard or something - softer material at least.  Wait, the locked one had two cinderblock walls save for the opposite one had a retired door so it was a bit heavier than the particleboard and very uncomfortable to hit yourself with.

There was a chair and desk.  The rooms was smaller than that room in Oswego.