Another family has come forward alleging a special needs student was left alone in time out rooms; DA’s office confirms involvement.
A third Lexington family has come forward and asked that their case be included in a state investigation into the alleged mistreatment of special needs students within the Lexington Public Schools. Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office on Thursday confirmed the office was looking into a complaint associated with the seclusion room allegations, but could not comment about the specifics or who filed it. That confirmation came a day after Lexington Superintendent Paul Ash said the district filed a 51A with the state’s Department of Children and Families following public calls for an independent investigation into allegations made in an opinion piece published last weekend in the New York Times. In the OpEd, …
From the publication of shocking allegations to competing statements to calls for an independent investigation and beyond.
In recent days, the Lexington community has been abuzz over allegations of the mistreatment six years ago of a special needs student. First came the opinion piece published by the New York Times in which former Lexington resident Bill Lichtenstein claimed his daughter, then a 5-year-old kindergartener enrolled as the Fiske School, “was kept in a seclusion room for up to an hour at a time over the course of three months, until we discovered what was happening.” That discovery, Lichtenstein alleges, was on Jan. 6, 2006, when he and the girl’s mother found their daughter standing naked and alone “on the cement floor of a basement mop closet, illuminated by a single light bulb.” Next came the school district’s response, in which Superintendent…
42.460334
-71.221549
Fiske Elementary School
55 Adams St, Lexington, MA
/articles/recapping-the-lps-seclusion-room-controversy-to-date
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/locations/7815097
42.44148
-71.23178
Lexington High School
251 Waltham St, Lexington, MA
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/locations/7815098
Alan Seferian
10:12 am on Monday, September 17, 2012
The worst thing you can do in a crisis is to appear arrogant and dismissive, even if you sincerely believe the charges to be false. Containing the damage is the primary goal of crisis management. The facts will eventually come out. Lexington keeps making the mistake of raising the stakes with Mr. Lichtenstein, even after hiring a professional PR person. Her initial response was as bad as the … more ›