A Huge, Negative Experience

OK, here’s the story, with my very own headline:

Stand Up and Be Taped

The third-grade teacher who taped a disobedient child to a chair last month will be disciplined but not fired, the Oakridge School District said.

What type of action will be taken against Jill Tomchak has not been disclosed because personnel decisions are confidential, the Associated Press reports.

She had been placed on administrative leave following the May 28 incident in which a 9-year-old boy was secured to a chair with masking tape after repeatedly refusing to stay seated. The boy’s unwillingness to sit had been a problem throughout the school year.

The boy’s mother, Becky Faile, told The Register-Guard newspaper in this story that she was satisfied with Superintendent Don Kordosky’s decision and will not pursue legal action.

“We’re trusting that since Don got to hear all sides that they’re doing the right thing,” she said.

Faile said her son will stay home for the remaining four days of school, but she expects to send him back to Oakridge Elementary in the fall. Tomchak, a long-time Oakridge teacher did not return a phone call made by the Register-Guard.

Faile told the paper “we decided that would be the worst thing for Austin, to drag this out.” She said another parent contacted the media about the taping and that she “never intended it to be such a huge, negative experience.”

“I was just trying to protect my son,” she said. “When you have your child come home and tell you something like this, you want to defend him.” She said she told Kordosky that she, her husband and Austin would be willing to meet privately with Tomchak this summer to try to put the matter behind them all.

The teacher was disciplined. Why not the child? Oh, wait. He was disciplined…by the teacher. In a manner unacceptable to the parents.

So the mother sets out to defend him.

Did she punish the child, too?

The boy already had a track record for disobedience and uncooperation at school. If that isn’t disciplined out of him by his parents and his teachers, he is in for worse things in life than getting taped to a chair.

Poor little boy.

(I resisted a few urges to call him a brat.) 🙂

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