Looks like child abuse to me.
The allegations, which have not been proven in court, include:
A support worker would “place him in a chair and hold his arms
tightly behind the back of the chair for certain periods of time” as a
form of punishment when he was in kindergarten at one school;
Christian was “placed in a solitary isolation room for several
hours, sometimes for the duration of the entire school-day” at another
school where he completed Grades 1 to 3; the school referred to the room
as “Mexico.”
The room was “approximately the size of a small walk-in closet” and
“the defendants … would alternate sitting on a chair against the door to
prevent Christian from exiting the room.”
He was placed alone in a room at another school on several
occasions, and that at both schools, he was denied access to food, water
or a toilet while in the room, and forced to clean up after urinating.
Another school made “false and misleading” reports to Children’s
Aid “with the intent to destabilize Karen Thorndyke’s custody of
Christian, and with further intent to intimidate Karen Thorndyke from
subsequent involvement with the school.”
Here is how the school board is describing what was done to her child:
"School board spokeswoman Carla Pereira,
speaking generally and not about this case, said schools make use of
what the board calls “alternate learning environments” for students with
special needs, to de-escalate their behaviour if it presents an
immediate danger to themselves or others."
“The guiding principle is that the length of
time spent in an alternate learning environment should be as short as
possible,” she said.
