Very few teachers get autism, even special ed ones. We mainstreamed our child back into school this year. The only thing that sucks more than autism, is to have a high IQ and autism, because the teachers don't understand how someone that smart doesn't get it. They also get annoyed when he gets up in the middle of class or lunch and starts stimming (but have never acted like these teachers). NYC outsourced most of the really autistic kids to private schools, but ones like my son, due to the fact that most of his classmates were performing several years below his academic level, did not fit in there either. I agree, he probably should not be in a regular honors program, and several teachers have told us his pacing is distracting and makes him stick out but no one has set up a honors program for autistics either. They were about to set up a private school for gifted autistic kids in Long Island. The tuition was going to about $75,000 a year (about $10,000 more than the state had already been paying), it was going to be state contracted, but then the economy collapsed. He has an aide who is a sweet man but is not very helpful or trained for this. I was once on the phone with the District 2 person in charge of special ed placement. He said he had a pile of folders with kids like my son - and they had no idea what to do with them or where to place them as a parent can reject a program where the students are 3 years behind them in cognative function. Placement us not so easy as many people think it is.

THE TEACHER WAS MOVED TO ANOTHER SCHOOL?! damn. i'm glad it isnt my kid at that OTHER SCHOOL.

Abuse is defined as:

1. maltreatment: the physical, psychological, or sexual maltreatment of a person or animal

2.
improper use: the illegal, improper, or harmful use of something
"allegations of abuse of government powers"

3.
improper practice: an illegal, improper, or harmful practice
"human rights abuses"

4.
insults: insulting or offensive language

5.
drug use: the harmful use of drugs or alcohol

Okay so any questions? Escpecially you who asked, "where the abuse is?"

Die.

I have a question: why do **I** have to PAY to SUPPORT this autistic kid FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE? You know what? I've paid ENOUGH TAXES in my life ALREADY to support kids like this BECAUSE THEY'LL **NEVER, EVER** BE ABLE TO WORK AND PAY **BACK** INTO THE SYSTEM WHAT THEY TAKE FROM IT.

GO AWAY.

HOME SCHOOL YOUR BRAT. And DON'T get pregnant AFTER the age of 30-ish if you're smart. **WE** the taxpayers shall have to BEAR THE BURDEN of 1-in-80 kids born with this disease, since they'll NEVER EARN A LIVING.

People at Horace Mann Elementary, FIRE HER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is absolutely amazing to witness the depths to which our education system and educators have fallen to. With the assistance of Teachers' Unions, incompetent Public School System adminstrators, and this sorry arsed Federal Government we should be equivalent to a Third World country soon. Or maybe we are already there. Our "Teachers" seem to be lower than pond scum in terms of morals and competence anymore.

BRAVO Stuart ! Get her and anyone else involved in such a DISGUSTING mind bending way "of teaching" out of the children's world of learning forever ! You've handled this on such an intelligent and to the point manner ! I probably would have had them disposed of !

God Bless you and Akian !

Personally, I hear nothing abusive in the clip, unless I missed something. All that I heard the teacher say was "You get nothing, until your mouth is shut." What is so wrong with that?

As a single parent who has raised and autistic child, I understand the challenges that comes with the condition. That was how I had to talk to my son William at times, before he would co-operate. When he was 7-10 years old, people thought that I was mean and cruel to him, however now that he is a 26 year old engineering student, he recalls and thanks me for raising him the way that I did. When he was 4 years old, he wasn’t talking. He would grunt when he wanted food or water and point to the stove, faucet or fridge. One day I insisted that he said “I’m hungry.” before I fed him dinner. He cried for hours and I went to take a nap. Later he can into my room and said “I’m hungry.” Had I not taken that stance that day, and many days afterwards, my son would not be where he is today.

I have gone around and around with teachers throughout his school years that will vouch for what I’m claiming and at the end of each year, most teachers thanked me for educating them on how to reach my son which also improved the way they taught student without special needs. What I am saying is true and my son is living proof.

Our problem today in this country is our children have too much power. It's almost as if they have some sort of diplomatic immunity and are above correction or reproach. It's easy for ones heart to go out to a child like that, however at times it is necessary to be stern. Depending on the level of autism, the child will learn and adjust. You've heard it here first.

The teacher has not been fired for one reason: the teacher's UNION

It would cost the district thousands of dollars to fire the teacher because the union would step in and fight the firing every step of the way.

Moving the teacher is how districts routinely handle things like this.

First off, does the parent have any legal right to record the activities? If not, it's an illegal wiretapping and the parent should be sued. Second, if the child were damaging school property the parent should be sued. Why do we always have to cave in to these rotten parents who believe their child can do no wrong? The school district should show some backbone and expel the juvenile for his destructive patterns. There is no way these children should be integrated with others, it just interupts education for everyone else too much.

Personally, I hear nothing abusive in the clip, unless I missed something. All that I heard the teacher say was "You get nothing, until your mouth is shut." What is so wrong with that?

As a single parent who has raised and autistic child, I understand the challenges that comes with the condition. That was how I had to talk to my son William at times, before he would co-operate. When he was 7-10 years old, people thought that I was mean and cruel to him, however now that he is a 26 year old engineering student, he recalls and thanks me for raising him the way that I did. When he was 4 years old, he wasn’t talking. He would grunt when he wanted food or water and point to the stove, faucet or fridge. One day I insisted that he said “I’m hungry.” before I fed him dinner. He cried for hours and I went to take a nap. Later he can into my room and said “I’m hungry.” Had I not taken that stance that day, and many days afterwards, my son would not be where he is today.

I have gone around and around with teachers throughout his school years that will vouch for what I’m claiming and at the end of each year, most teachers thanked me for educating them on how to reach my son which also improved the way they taught student without special needs. What I am saying is true and my son is living proof.

Our problem today in this country is our children have too much power. It's almost as if they have some sort of diplomatic immunity and are above correction or reproach. It's easy for ones heart to go out to a child like that, however at times it is necessary to be stern. Depending on the level of autism, the child will learn and adjust. You've heard it here first.

I agree with the father that the teacher(s) should be fired, but it won't happen. (1) NJ's Teachers Union is too powerful and (2) The NJ State Legislature has no backbone. This whole situation needs to be escalated to Gov Chris Christie's office.

My husband is the Principal of an elementary school and he has several teachers he wishes he could fire, but he can't. The only thing he can do is try to make it uncomfortable for them so that they will move on. Once they have moved to several schools and it looks like they are not working out, the usually place them at a districyt office. Once teachers have worked a cetain number of years it is really difficult to get rid of them. My husband has never had a case where a teacher bullied a student though. I think this is a whole other matter and it should been grounds for dismissal of the teacher and the assistant.

Usually its a case where a teacher is just not into her job and the grades on the standardized tests end up bringing the whole school down. In that case a Principal will move them to kindergarden or first grade because students are not tested. Its a shame that even two bad teachers could bring down a whole school., especially in the multicultural and povery schools where teachers have to work twice as hard to help their students get decent grades on the tests. It's a shame but that the way it is

Don't ever be afraid to question the stupidity of teachers.

The teacher should be fired. If that was my child, I would just wait till after school and TEACH the teacher a few things.

All teachers suck until proven otherwise

Disabled Students K-12 legally beaten with impunity teacher bullying in public schools in 19 U.S. States http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vt4v7KsFi8

http://www.aclu.org/human-rights/impairing-education-corporal-punishment-students-disabilities-us-public-schools

Support Federal Bill H.R. 3027 "The Ending Corporal Punishment in Schools Act" at http://donthitstudents.com/

I hope in couple of weeks something not very flattering do not come out about this Dad.

The sad thing is, this isn't even anything new. When I was in the fourth grade, we had a teacher who would regularly verbally abuse almost every student in the class. She would call us names like "first class jerks," scream at us for sometimes hours, and would regularly walk up to a student, dump all the contents of his or her desk on the ground, and then berate the student about the "mess" while the student cleaned it up. One time she yelled at us for two hours because there was a blue napkin left on the table after lunch, and she felt like this was cause to unleash the inquisition. She regularly told us that she hated children and she was there to make us miserable.

One of the parents had enough of this after her son told her about what went on in the classroom, and she sent him to school with a tape recorder hoping to get proof of what was going on in the class. She did, and played for the principal part of what was a 30-minute long expletive-laden diatribe by the teacher. The principal's response? Suspend the student for bringing a recording device to class! It was in the days before the internet, so his mother couldn't do what this child's father has done, and we were forced to continued to be bullied by this woman on a regular basis.

I honestly don't know why people like this become teachers. It's a difficult, often thankless job, that you'll never be paid enough to do. Unless you truly care about children and want to teach them, just go work someplace else.

I'm glad the teacher's aids were fired, not sure about the teacher as she did not hear the interaction, but is ultimately responsible for what goes on in her classroom. Hiring teacher's aids is an attempt at helping with class management in expanded classes that are a result of budget cuts. They are not credentialed teachers and it is a low paid position with no benefits in most states. Class size and class management is a real problem in many of today's public schools. Equipping classrooms with video and sound recording would be a great idea and it would shock parents to see the lack of respect and discipline challenges facing many teachers.

As I wasn't there and didn't see this happen, I can only make generalized comments. I am 39 years old now and long out of public schools. I remember them very well though, the good and the bad. I am both harsh critic and supporter of them all at once. It depends on the exact nature of what they are doing. The schools are brainwashing/indoctrination centers. Few teachers if any do that intentionally though. Most were brainwashed themselves. As to abuse, I would say that 8 out of 10 teachers I had were totally opposite of being emotionally or physically abusive. About 2 out of ten though were child abusers. I remember well an incident where I had a baseball hurled full force into the back of my head at point blank range by another student right in English class in front of my english teacher. I was literally almost knocked unconcious and was too dazed even to get up and defend myself. The teacher did nothing, just watched. The kid picked up the ball to do it again and was stopped only by my best friend who grabbed the kid and body slammed him. When I complained to the teacher about this, all he did was tell me that he would never give that ball back to that kid. I was dumbfounded. My head hurt for two days. Thank god us german ancestry kids have thick skulls. Another time I watched as a gym teahcer physically beat another student without any cause whatoever, just cruelty. I took that kid down to the office after class and we both filled out complaints against the teacher. Later that day as I was walking out of school, this teacher grabbed me and slammed me off the wall two or three times and told me he would kick the crap out of me if I ever complained again about what he did. That became one of the few times my father ever went down to school instead of my mother. My father was not and is not a great person but was never the type to tolerate and adult beating a child either. He later told me the principal stood behind the teacher fully and called us all liars, even though by then my parents had called two other kids who were in the class and verified my story before moving ahead. My father and the other boys father ended the situation by simply telling the teahcer and the principal that if they ever assaulted either of us again that the two of them would simply find and kill them both. I don't support that solution but it did end the problem. That teacher never did that again. We later found at that that teacher had been moved to our middle school that year because at the high school the previous year he had assaulted another kid and the kid beat the snot out of him. My parents knew a couple people in the know in the school districts administration office. It should never have had to come to death threats. I would simply have called police and sued the teacher and his district and his union. My parents though were of that generation that did things the old way. Some adult messed with a kid, you took him apart. That was the old way and it worked. I and My friends were good kids. Our parents were old fashioned. You misbehaved or mistreated someone and any of our parents present could and would punish you and that punishment would be upheld by your own parents. We always were good to teachers and staff. Most were good to us too. Unfortunately, public schools are by their structure designed for the purpose of telling kids what to think, not for teaching them how to think. It's that way in part so that this elitist owned society of ours can go right on as it is. Those folks don't want the slaves thinking too much, and abusing children emotionally, physically and spiritually is part of that enslavement process. It's not just here, it goes on the world wide. I love America because our people here are still awesome on the whole, but the system is a dung heap and always has been and is getting worse and it starts at the public schools. We need places where any kid (even if his/her parents are penniless or idiots) can go and learn to read and write and some other basic things. We don't need the mind screwing though. We need public schools, but not 13 or 14 years of it and having many kids come out not even knowing any real history or having reasonably good reading, math, science and critical thinking skills. There are teachers out there who go out of their way and even face punishment for going the extra mile trying to teach kids to think and I say may god bless them for it for I know the persecution they face for doing that. You could never be paid or compensated highly enough for that and you have great rewards awaiting you in heaven. The system must change. The people in this country are evolving on every level, including spiritually. The systems are not though because if they do evolve, those in power will lose that power. Cops, teachers, politicians etc. Many, if not most are trying to do what they think right, but most were raised by and are part of that system. And many are afraid that if they buck that system, they will face persecution and they are not wrong in thinking that, just wrong for not bucking it anyway because they know in their hearts what is right. How may cops who are themselves not abusive will report or arrest an abusive fellow officer? Very Few. How many teachers will report an abusive fellow teacher of file a criminal complaint for child abuse against them? Very few. Therefore many are guilty as accessories to their crimes. I just hope in my babblings here I've given people a few points to ponder.

Please listen to the entire YouTube video. There is another adult talking to the teacher's aide while she is doing the "happy dance" because she had been drinking the night before. The aide Jodi also calls the boy a "bas**** . The behavior by the adults in this classroom was deplorable and there are no excuses.

The teacher always sets the tone for the classroom and the aides work directly under her/his direction, so she is responsible. Supposedly she is the one with the degree, yet another incident proving having a degree does not mean you have common sense or empathy.

The verbal bullying flowed too freely, which leads me to believe this was the "norm" for this particular classroom.

Once again, here comes the public and this father, rushing to judgement without all the facts. I agree that some should be fired over this (they already have been). But potentially, I think the father should also be sued for harassment and defamation.

For all anyone knows, the teacher may have disliked the aid (Jodi) and had problems with her. She may have filed several formal complaints about her to the school's principle. He may have filed those complaints with the local school board and they may have already been in the process of compiling a red jacket so they could dismiss Jodi.

The classroom teacher was not Jodi's boss. The school board was Jodi's boss. It's likely that Jodi answered to the principle and assistant principle. She surely did not answer to the teacher. The classroom teacher has no say in disciplining Jodi, or what action the school might take if the teacher files a complaint against Jodi.

There is no way the father could have any access to this type of confidential information. If the board reviewed everything, and did not terminate the teacher, then you can bet a situation similar to what I described is what happened.

Which in that case, the father is clearly in the wrong to pursue the teacher. It is none of his business about what confidential reports the teacher may have already filed against Jodi. And if he is wrong, he should be sued by the teacher for emotional distress, lost wages, psychiatric bills, and damage to her character. Take him for a million dollars and see if that will shut him up and make him think twice before he publicly attacks people without all the info.

Can we find out what school Kelly Altenburg works at now? Maybe the parents in that neighborhood would push to have her fired.

This lady has got to go...sorry, but she's sick. It's a shame they can't revoke her teacher's license until she gets some serious help. I would go so far as to say it appears she has a personality disorder based on her behavior or she's the victim of bullying herself. Either way, she needs help and should NOT be teaching in any capacity.

Oh...if you're in the area consider voting out any incumbent school board member, too. They seem like ineffectual leaders.

How dare that superintendent badmouth the parent, albeit without saying the father's name. He should be fired too. Somehow, they always manage to fire the "aide" or helpers, NEVER the teacher. Get rid of her. I hope her career or tormenting children is over.