Harsh pupil discipline alleged

      A teacher's aide who expects to be fired has accused a teacher of using harsh discipline on severely disabled children without parental consent.
      The aide, Ruth Mowrer, made the allegations in a five-page school police report claiming her two years in teacher Mila Kitt's class were marked by forcing children to eat their vomit and placing children in restrictive holds for failing to recite the day of the week.
      "This stuff has got to stop," said a tearful Mowrer. "I don't want another kid to go through what I witnessed, what I was made to be a part of. If it means losing my job for these kids, I guess that's how it has to be."
      Mowrer, 37, released her confidential police report Wednesday because she faces a hearing today to determine whether Beverly Minnear, principal of Variety School for special education, has grounds to dismiss her.
      Mowrer claims she is being fired for blowing the whistle on Kitt in anonymous phone calls to parents the day before this school year began.
      The principal, however, called Mowrer's comments "the act of a disgruntled employee" and said Kitt was "a wonderful teacher."
      In a Sept. 18 letter to Mowrer announcing her move to fire the aide, Minnear listed five grounds for dismissal, including "slandering the Variety staff (and) damaging Variety's reputation, seriously harming parental confidence" through the phone calls.
      Mowrer admitted she wrote the police report in August while she was angry about being transferred to Robison Middle School because of a shoulder injury. But she also said she thought she could speak up about student abuse at that point because she no longer worked for Kitt.
      Instead, she said she was interrogated about the phone calls and eventually admitted to making them.
      Kitt, who teaches students with autism and other disabilities that cause behavior problems, denied the allegations and declined to discuss them. "I did nothing, and that's it," she said Tuesday.
      And Minnear said school police investigated Mowrer's accusations but concluded they were unfounded. A school police spokesman was unable to confirm that Wednesday.
      Yet Mowrer's allegations come days before attorneys for the Clark County Legal Services Program say they plan to file a federal lawsuit on behalf of a child in Kitt's class, alleging the teacher violated the child's civil rights by inflicting corporal punishment.
      And last year the school district settled a dispute regarding a former Kitt student whose parents said was being disciplined inappropriately. In that settlement, the district agreed to remove the child from Variety and never to use such discipline again on the boy, attorney Sara Winter said.
      "We believe what Ruth is saying about what is going on at the school," said Winter, who is representing the child in the forthcoming lawsuit and works for legal services. "It's nothing short of abuse, and the procedures being used are gross violations of the students' civil rights."
      In the police report, Mowrer described being ordered to place children in restrictive holds for not repeating the day of the week. "If they didn't, (Kitt) would have myself or the other assistant ... take the child ... down, which is arms behind the back crossed, legs crossed, and then we would apply pressure on the butt until they cried or yelled, 'Let me go.' "
      At another point, Mowrer said, when one student vomited, "myself and the other assistant ... put on latex gloves (and) got a spoon (to) scoop the liquid and chewed-up food into a pile ... and then the child was made to eat it. I held his mouth open and (the other aide) fed it to him."
      The other aide was unavailable for comment, but the student's mother backed up Kitt and said she did not believe Mowrer's allegations.
      "I made several visits unannounced (after receiving an anonymous call from Mowrer) and things were fine," said Laura Savo, whose 10-year-old son is autistic. "My son is producing work, doing things he hasn't done before. Mrs. Kitt is doing a good job with him."
      Another mother called by Mowrer also said she supported Kitt. Carole Eastin conceded her son may need strict punishments such as walking on a treadmill but insisted the 9-year-old is a dangerous, difficult child.
      "My son is getting better than before in Mrs. Kitt's class," Eastin said. "We're talking about a child that when he was in the second grade, three teachers could not hold him down. He kicks people. He choked a little girl."
      Physical restraint or punishment in a special education environment is known as "aversive behavior therapy." The tactic usually involves forcing a child to wear leg weights or run on a treadmill. Such therapies are legal when the parents consent and when the committee overseeing the child's education plan agrees to permit them.
      Minnear said aversive therapy is used sparingly at Variety, with only 11 such plans enacted in the past decade. She said none of Kitt's present students have such a plan.
      "I find it very, very sad that this woman who worked in this classroom for two years never ever brought these allegations to my attention," Minnear said. "There are other staff members who are in and out of that room; there is another aide in the room. None of these allegations were confirmed by anyone else, or by the parents."
      But another teacher's aide now at Variety did back up Mowrer. The aide, who insisted on anonymity, asked, "Do you think she could make up something that gross? I'd be surprised if there's anyone in the school who doesn't know about it."
      At Mowrer's hearing today, Charlene Green, assistant superintendent for special student services, will hear evidence on why the aide should lose her $12,000-a-year job.
      Mowrer admitted she violated protocol by calling parents and then lied by denying it to school police, but said she did not trust Minnear because she believed the principal is a friend of Kitt's.
      "I told the truth, and now they want to get rid of me," Mowrer said. "I'm not going to go down by myself.''