Parent Sues After Son Allegedly Shut In Closet For Discipline At School

[The Straight Story]

Parent Sues After Son Allegedly Shut In Closet For Discipline At School

POSTED: 4:50 pm EST January 9, 2007
UPDATED: 5:16 pm EST January 9, 2007

A parent in Lake County, Fla., is suing the school board over an incident in which her son was allegedly shut in a dark closet as a form of discipline at his elementary school, according to a Local 6 News report.

Parent Talonja Roberson filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the Lake County School Board and the teacher, saying the 2005 incident caused her 5-year-old to have nightmares.

Roberson said her son was locked in a dark closet at Beverly Shores Elementary School.
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The family's attorney, Michael Moore, said it was apparently a common practice for the teacher to shut children in a dark storage room -- called The Timeout Room -- for four to 12 minutes.

http://www.local6.com/news/10707301/detail.html

[mainegreen]

1. I know your not matcom, but ...... FLORIDA!

God, I love doing that.

FLORIDA!

:rofl:

:P

[katsy]

2. bloody florida schools...

5 year olds handcuffed and now locking a 5 year old in a closet???

WTF is wrong with this stupid state?

I hope the school gets walloped in this case.

Locking any child in dark closet is not appropriate. Since when is a time-out supposed to be 12 minutes long for a 5 year old anyway? A minute per year of age is all the time-out they should have and time-out should be near an adult not a dark closet.

Phucking idiots.

[Der Blaue Engel]

3. Good god

That really makes me mad. Time out isn't meant to be used this way. What the hell is wrong with people??

[Warpy]

4. Oh, for heaven's sake. The cloakroom was a step up for me

after I'd fled Catholic school and hours of kneeling on marble floors in the church to repent for heinous sins like asking somebody in the next stall of the girls' loo for some TP because I didn't have any.

The timeout room sounds a helluva lot more civilized than the blister boards they paddle recalcitrant students with in some southern school districts.

Standing in a corner in the back of the classroom probably should be substituted for punishing the littlest kids, though.

The parents sound like overprotective people who are trying to win the legal lottery. I doubt this case will get far since real injury will be tough to prove, but I imagine shutting the littlest kids in dark closets will be abandoned.

[mzmolly]

5. Two wrongs don't make a right.

If a teacher shut my child in a dark closet, they'd be lucky to see a day in court.

[MichiganVote]

6. Boy did we miss out . In the old days of RCC education a closet

would have been the least of our problems.

[Bunny]

8. The nuns walloped the shit out of us, too.

Just because we managed to survive doesn't make it right.

[Warpy]

10. I never said it did

and offered a substitute discipline method.

However, telling teachers they can't discipline disruptive kids at all will kill their ability to educate the non disruptive kids. Most kids don't really need that much in the way of discipline, certainly not the hours on their knees, the dark room, the walloping.

I have scars that shouldn't be on any kid. However, we did survive it and the dark closet really would have been a step up from it.

Some parent or other will always object to any classroom discipline, no matter how mild, though.

[mzmolly]

7. Stunning.

This is ABUSE - period.

"I bet there are very few people who would be able to tell you that they were locked in a closet with the lights turned off and held forcibly against their will," Moore said. "It is outrageous conduct and it is not acceptable in our society."

This amounts to emotional torture.

[katsy]

11. Make one wonder what that teacher's life exerperience was as

a child. Being locked in dark closets themselves? Anything more?

[WI_DEM]

9. sometimes you wonder about teachers. When I was 6 I had to go "potty"

and I kept raising my hand and my teacher kept ignoring me and I ended up going in my pants. My mom was down there the next day raising hell with that teacher and told her never to ignore me or any other child again. She didn't.

Teachers have a tough job, and most of them are wonderful, but some of them just don't use common sense.

[shadowknows69]

12. Used to have an 8th grade science teacher that did this to us

I was an angel of course and never got in trouble. :evilgrin:

[mondo joe]

13. That was the least of what the nuns did. One boy was shutin a teensy little

closet for drawing a PEACE sign.

It was like a kiddie version of Cool Hand Luke.