HOUSTON – A mother and father are desperate for help after they say their son with special needs was locked in a dark room at Arrendondo Elementary School.
“How can you do this to someone this young, this innocent?” Rosie Omeire asked while explaining how she felt when she watched the disturbing classroom video.
The video was released to Destiny and Rosie Omeire in December, months after their 5-year-old son with autism came home from school with a foot injury in September. In the video, a paraprofessional can be seen disciplining the child. She picks him up off the floor and carries him to a small room within the classroom. You can hear the child’s cries for help.
“She locked him in a room, she turned off the lights, and she was screaming at him,” said Rosie while sharing the story with reporters.
“When she pushed the door, his toe is trapped in the wedge of the door. The video is over 20 minutes, he is screaming the entire time,” said Karen Mayer, an advocate for special education.
Mayer joined the family to speak with reporters outside of the Lamar Consolidated ISD administration building Monday afternoon. They are hoping to get more answers from administrators.
The Omeires say they hadn’t even been alerted that their son was hurt the day of the incident. Rosie says her son lost the entire nail on his big toe that day.
“The only time we knew that our son was injured is when he got off the bus and we saw that he couldn’t walk,” said Rosie. “He was bleeding, they refused to provide him a nurse.”
So far, the family says the district has only offered to pay $400 of the child’s medical bills and provide some counseling. But, they say it’s not enough. They want the employee involved fired.
“No action has been taken on the abuser. The abuser, the teacher, still works at the school district and has not been terminated,” said Mayer.
KPRC 2 reached out to the district and learned the paraprofessional in question still works in the schools, but she’s been reassigned and no longer works with students.