According to WDTV, a lawsuit has been filed against the Taylor County Board of Education and several employees surrounding claims that a disabled elementary school student was “unlawfully restrained” to a chair.

 

The lawsuit alleges a special education teacher and an aide at Anna Jarvis Elementary School used a gait belt to bound a 9-year-old boy for 22 minutes while the teacher ate lunch.

 

According to the lawsuit filed by the boy’s parents, he suffers from a number of conditions that cause him to be dependent on adults and require close supervision for most tasks.

 

Due to his special needs, the child was placed on an Individualized Education Program by the school system, but the lawsuit says it did not require the use of any form of restraint.

 

West Virginia requires video cameras to be placed in “self-contained classrooms” that can monitor all areas of the classroom and record audio. However, the lawsuit alleges the video camera placed in the classroom was not cable of monitoring all areas or recording audio.

 

In September 2021, the lawsuit says the teacher carried the child across the classroom and sat him in a chair. Moments later, a teacher’s aide returned to the classroom with a gait belt. and the two allegedly wrapped it around the child tightly, bounding him to the chair.

 

After being bound to the chair, the lawsuit says the child tried to get the belt loose by pulling, tugging, flipping and putting the end of the belt in his mouth. The child also rocked back and forth in his chair, causing it to bounce up and down and slide across the floor.

 

After the child was restrained to the chair, the teacher began eating her lunch and at one point walked out of the classroom, according to the lawsuit. A few minutes after the child was restrained, his one-on-one teacher’s aide returned with another student and sat down at a table on the other side of the classroom to do paperwork, ignoring the child.

 

Click HERE for the rest of the story and updates if, and when, they become available.