HUNTINGTON – A Cabell County woman says her autistic son was restrained, ridiculed, threatened and shoved by county school board employees.
The mother, identified only as C.G., filed her complaint May 5 on behalf of 11-year-old K.P. in federal court against the Cabell County Board of Education and employees Kim Conway, Diana France, Kayla Byrd McDowell and Brooke Heck.
“She was led to believe the employees of the Explorer Academy were supporting K.P. through his disability associated behaviors,” the complaint states. “C.G. was devastated to learn that her trust was misplaced.
“Instead of caring for and respecting K.P. … Cabell County Board of Education’s employee restraining, ridiculed, threatened and shoved him to the ground. They told K.P. he was a ‘baby’ and a ‘bad kid.’ They made K.P. believe he was worthless.”
According to the complaint, K.P. attended Cabell County’s Explorer Academy in Huntington in the spring semester of 2021. He was 9 years old at the time.
She says her son’s autism substantially limits several major life activities, including caring for himself, learning and communicating. He requires assistance in daily activities and is unable to engage in prolonged physical activity or sent prolonged time in heat.
She also says her son’s disability causes him to sometimes present difficult behaviors, such as verbal behaviors, throwing objects, hitting, kicking and turning over objects.
C.G. says her son began engaging in self-deprecating and problematic behaviors when he began attending Explorer Academy. Those include calling himself “baby” and a “bad kid.” He eventually began saying he didn’t want to go to school and would physically resist getting on the bus. She says she was worried he was being bullied or criticized at school.
In March 2021, she says France called to ask her to come get K.P. at school and that he was being restrained in the school’s Sensory Room. She says she arrived 15 minutes later to learn K.P. was being inappropriately restrained by France and McDowell in the starfish position on the floor.
She says she later learned he was being forcefully restrained through ongoing and improper punishments and restraints from March to May 2021.
On May 11, 2021, C.G. again was called by France and asked to come get K.P. because he had injured a teacher and was being suspended 10 days. She demanded to see the video. Deputy Superintendent Tim Hardesty said 90 days of video would be saved for her to view, and Principal Ryan McKenzie said he was working with the county’s tech team to prepare the video.
She wasn’t permitted to see any video until July 2021, and it only was from May 11, 2021. She says she still hasn’t seen the other 89 days she was promised.
Once she saw the May 11 video, C.G. says she discovered Conway falsely accused her son of assaulting her. She says classroom video showed Conway actually repeatedly shoved K.P. to the ground and screamed at him, “threatening to take everything he and his mommy had.”
The video showed Conway repeatedly shoving K.P. into the Sensory Room. It also showed McDowell seated outside the Sensory Room verbally berating the boy, and France also could be heard discussing K.P. and his “bad” behavior. Heck also entered the room to tell K.P. he as ad and that he had to stay confined in the Sensory Room.
“When K.P. tried to leave the room, he was physically shoved by defendant Conway and yelled at by defendant Conway and McDowell,” the complaint states, adding that K.P. never touched Conway.
After the May 11 incident, C.G. took her son out of the Explorer Academy. And she says a Cabell school employee told her those teachers and aides were “engaged in a continued course of conduct whereby they regularly restrained K.P. at school” multiple times a week.
She says the board knew K.P. was being mistreated but failed to intervene because principals are required to view no less than 15 minutes of video in each self-contained classroom at the school no less than every 90 days.
C.G. says the defendants’ conduct has caused additional maladaptive behaviors in her son. She says he refuses to attend school, requires additional medication, has begun engaging in escalating behaviors in hopes of being physically restrained and now tries to run away when he is panicked.
She says she and her son suffer severe emotional distress. She says she can’t sleep and has had to undergo medical treatment to address her anxiety and turmoil. She also says she doesn’t trust others and fears how her son may respond to others.
She accuses the defendants of negligence and loss of filial consortium. She accuses the board of negligent supervision, intentional disability discrimination in violation of the American with Disabilities Act and violation of the Rehabilitation Act. She accuses Conway, France and McDowell of civil battery and civil assault. She accuses Conway of defamation and all of the individual defendants of intentional infliction of emotional distress and violations of K.P.’s Fourteenth Amendment Constitutional Rights to freedom from undue restraint.
C.G. seeks compensatory damages, punitive damages, court costs, attorney fees and other relief.
She is being represented by Casey Waldeck and Ryan Donovan of Hissam Forman Donovan Ritchie in Charleston. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Robert C. Chambers.
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia case number 3:23-cv-00373