Ambulance Chasing Comes to PS 154 in the Bronx

Awesome article by Lisa Fleisher in today's Wall Street Journal about how easy and quick school

leaders seem to call EMS for unruly special needs students.

According to Fleisher,

"a group of New York City parents are trying to prevent public schools from sending children who have severe temper tantrums to the emergency room against their parents' wishes."

These parents are soon facing not only high medical bills, but time lost from work to pick their children up at the hospitals.

 According to the article, Nelson Mar, an attorney for Legal Services NYC who is representing the parents, said;

"...fire department protocols say that children can be transported by EMS against a parent's wishes only when the child's life is at stake, or if it is clear that even a small delay will jeopardize the child's health.  In some ways the schools are treating the hospital emergency rooms as timeout rooms,"

Funny that this came up today in the WSJ. The Crack Team has learned that a student, a little boy, a boy with some issues was taken away in an ambulance alone (Of course with a staff member, but alone nonetheless), and probably frightened, to a hospital for the sheer fact that he was acting out. Yep, having a tantrum.

The boy, Hyman Goldstein is a handful. Yes, there are issues and yes he does get out of control, but is this any reason for DR Alison Coviello; Ed.D. and Principal to call and/or OK an ambulance and have him taken away to check for mental issues?

As Rober Unger a spokesman for the EMS unions told the WSJ;

"...emergency workers are supposed to respond to true medical emergencies. Schools should not be wasting lifesaving and rescue resources to resolve their discipline problems,"

But yet it happens and yet even with the greatest super duperist behavior solving program ever created by mankind, Responsive Classroom. DR Alison Coviello; EdD. and Principal felt the need to OK Hyman Goldstein to be taken away on a stretcher, with strangers, to a strange place, to wait alone in a strange locked room until his mommy arrived.

If there were real world instead of fantasy disciplinary protocols in place at PS 154 this never would have happened. A little boy would have never been ripped away from his school which is supposed to be his safe place, and according to DR Alison Coviello; EdD. and Principal, a "happy and joyful place". A mother never would have received a phone call telling her that DR Alison Coviello; EdD. and Principal approved an ambulance to transfer him to the psych ward at the local hospital and have to be behind a locked door.

This in no way reflects The Crack Team's views of the pedagogues involved in the dealing with Hyman Goldstein. Their hands are handcuffed by the one size fits all, non outside the box thinking,  discipline protocols imparted by DR Alison Coviello; EdD. and Principal.

But where everyone is forced to have a Happy Good Time smile and force fed everything is just hunky dory OK, this is what happens when the students know the discipline is a joke. 

Again, would this happen in Harrison? Of course not, but it happens in the Bronx on 135th St because it is known that the parents will be silence and there are people that think they know what is best for boys and girls of color.