When pets have better protection than students
The message in my inbox sizzled. A friend of mine had sent me a link to a story about how a Florida teacher facing felony charges for cruelly allowing her two cats to starve to death had been fired by her school district because of the case. She wrote:
A teacher is fired for starving her cats to death, but sped [Special Education] teachers who kill disabled children get … letters of reprimand, which have no legal significance, at best.
Sadly, she’s right. There have been horrible abuses of students in schools and in almost all cases, school personnel are never charged or fired.
No, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t care about the cruel treatment of pets. I’m a pet owner and reading what happened to the woman’s cats was terribly upsetting, but this is not the first time I’ve noticed that pets may get better protection than disabled students.
Hopefully, the new bill being introduced tomorrow will remedy that, but we’ll have to wait and see how the proposed law addresses school personnel who abuse students.
