CHERRY HILL, New Jersey (TRP) – It’s a shocking story that will send a shiver down the spine of any parent with a child with autism.
According to his father, 10-year-old Akian who has autism, was always a sweet and gentle child so when notes from his teachers describing him as violent and aggressive started coming home, Stuart Chaifetz grew concerned.
Despite meetings with Akian’s teacher, school social worker, occupational therapist and speech coach, Chaifetz wasn’t getting the answers he wanted and decided to take matters into his own hands.
On Feb. 17, Chaifetz wired his son before sending him off to class at Horace Mann Elementary in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. As he explains in a now-viral YouTube video, “That night, when I listened to the audio my life forever changed, for I heard my son being bullied by his teacher and aide.”
In the disturbing recording, the 10-year-old is subjected to a verbal lashing by both teachers and aides where they tell him to shut his mouth and at one point, he is called a bastard and told that he can’t see his dad.
10-year-old Akian was sent to school with a wire which uncovered bullying by his own teachers.
Conversations between school staff members discussing a booze-fuel evening the night before was also heard on the recording.
As a result of the audio, one of the aides was fired, Chaifetz said, while a teacher and another aide were transferred to other schools in the district.
“Is that not a definition of a bully, when you take someone with disabilities and you make fun of them and you humiliate them,” a distraught Chaifetz said in a YouTube video that has clocked in a quarter of a million views in just four days. “My son didn’t go to school, he went to prison.”
Chaifetz is demanding a public apology from the school administrators involved, as well as their dismissals. He is taking his crusade online, where he is asking supporters to sign a petition asking state lawmakers to pass legislation so that teachers who bully children are immediately terminated.
Support Stuart Chaifetz’ cause, sign the petition.
[via GAWKER, YOUTUBE, REDDIT]
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Im in tears because i have a 4 yrold wit austism 😦