WURTLAND, KY — A Kentucky elementary school teacher shown in a video as she dragged a 9-year-old student with autism down a hallway by his arm is facing criminal charges and has been fired, Greenup County Schools officials said Monday. The incident happened last fall at Wurtland Elementary School, but the video was just released by the child’s mother, Angel Nelson, who says she wants to improve protections for special needs students.
The more than one-minute-long video, which was captured by school security cameras, shows the teacher attempting to get the boy to walk on his own. When he didn’t, she continued to drag him, both on his back and on his knees. The teacher, identified by Nelson as Trina Abrams, is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesay on a charge of fourth-degree assault, a misdemeanor, according to media reports.
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The school district said in a statement Monday that both Kentucky’s Child Protective Services division and its Education Standards Board were made aware of the teacher’s actions, and that she has been fired.
Nelson wrote on Facebook that in addition to autism, her son has been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression, and also has speech limitations. As part of his diagnoses, he sometimes experiences “a meltdown,” his mother wrote.
When that happened on Oct 24, 2018, Abrams “grabbed my son by the wrist and bent it backward,” Nelson wrote, adding that tests taken later that day and in subsequent days showed that he had a wrist sprain, swelling and bruising.
Nelson said she may never know what happened before her son was dragged into the hallway because a security camera in the classroom was pointed toward a corner that day — something she doesn’t think should be allowed — and because of her son’s limited ability to communicate what happened.
But, she wrote on Facebook, the “incident was violent enough to not only injure my child, but to also destroy his shoes.”
Nelson said she posted the video on her Facebook page to raise awareness.
“We as parents trust teachers and school staff on a daily basis to help teach and help our children succeed,” she wrote. “We should never have to worry about anything like this ever happening.”
She also thinks teachers should receive more training on how to handle children with disabilities.
“There should also be more laws in place for any child, like my son, who are abused by the adults we entrust to care for them,” she wrote. “The fact that my son is not able to fully verbalize what he went through means that we must fight that much harder for all kids, but especially the kids who cannot speak for themselves.”
Nelson told CNN the teacher humiliated her son in front of his classmates and “made him feel different.”
“Teachers are supposed to stop the bullying,” she told CNN, “not be the bullies.”
As result of the experience, Nelson wrote on Facebook that her son will have to go through “more intense occupational therapy to regain his skills that took so long to grasp,” including fine motor skills like handwriting, buttoning his pants and tying his shoes.
Calep Nelson, the boy’s stepfather, told WSAZ that he and his wife told Abrams about their son’s special needs when they enrolled him in school. He said the teacher reassured them that she had many years of experience dealing with autistic children and they shouldn’t worry.
“This is the same lady that looked us in the eye and said ‘Your son is safe with me,'” Calep Nelson said.
He thinks the teacher should see “the inside of a jail.”
“She didn’t beat him to a bloody pulp, but she did abuse a child,” he said. “Anybody that does that to a child should go to jail.”
Greenup County Schools Superintendent Sherry Horsley tells WSAZ the woman is no longer teaching at the school.
In a statement to television station WSAZ, Horsley said the school district acted appropriately as officials became aware of the situation. The statement said:
“The Greenup County School District prioritizes the safety of our students. The district followed established safety protocol as soon as this situation became known. The parent was contacted immediately and the student was assessed by the school nurse and referred for outside medical evaluation. Child Protective Services was contacted and the Kentucky State Police opened an investigation. The teacher was removed from the school and a formal investigation was conducted. The superintendent also followed protocol and reported the incident to the Kentucky Education Standards Board. The EPSB determines whether or not a teacher keeps their teaching certificate. All GCSD staff are trained to prevent incidents of restraint. Each school has a specially trained team to address immediate issues. In addition, each school has teachers specially trained to address autism related behaviors.”
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