Inclusion Daily Express -- District Sent More Students To JRC Despite Ban

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District Sent More Students To JRC Despite Ban
By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
December 10, 2007

WASHINGTON, DC--Students from the District of Columbia's special education system have continued to be sent to the Judge Rotenberg Education Center months after the district's education chief ordered her agency to stop referring students to the troubled Massachusetts residential program.

The Washington Examiner reported Monday that it obtained e-mails under the Freedom Of Information Act, which show that Chancellor Michelle Rhee ordered the district to stop sending students to the Rotenberg Center back in August after news reports revealed allegations of abuse and neglect at the facility.

The Examiner found that at least nine children from the district were still housed at the facility -- at a yearly cost of more than $227,000 per student -- as recently as late November. At least two were sent to JRC after Rhee's directive.

The Rotenberg Center has been criticized for years because of its use of aversive methods, including electrical shocks and withholding of meals, to try to change the behaviors of youths, most of which have intellectual disabilities. In recent months, JRC has been the subject of investigations over claims that those methods amounted to mistreatment and even torture.

A majority of the students housed at JRC are not from Massachusetts, but are referred there by school districts in other states -- primarily New York -- and from the District of Columbia. While many parents defend the institution's techniques, others have criticized their own local school districts for failing to meet their children's educational needs in the first place.

Related:
"Students sent to troubled Mass. school" (The Examiner)
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/07/red/1210c.htm
"Judge Rotenberg Center -- Facility Uses Electric Shock To Change Behavior" (Inclusion Daily Express Archives)
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/institutions/ma/jrc.htm

Copyright © 2007 Inonit Publishing
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