Donna Weidenbenner - Gallatin, TN

A 47-year-old special education teacher is facing federal lawsuits alleging she severely abused students under the age of six.

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Donna Weidenbenner is accused of force feeding children until they vomited, shoving them into furniture, kicking them, strapping children to a toilet and restraining them with blankets. Nineteen separate examples of abuse are cited in the charges.

A total of six special needs children were allegedly abused.

http://www.wsmv.com/news/21406011/detail.html

Laurie Peavy and Nancy Cheek - Woodstock, GA

A Georgia teacher and her classroom aide have been arrested for allegedly duct-taping a boy with Autism to his chair on multiple occasions. The abuse was not reported for over a year after it occurred. The two educators are also accused of confining a blind girl under the teacher's desk. Laurie Peavy and Nancy Cheek have both been charged with first-degree cruelty to children and false imprisonment. Peavy faces two counts of each, while Cheek is charged with one count of each offense.

http://www.disaboomlive.com/Blogs/disabled_politico/archive/2009/05/21/teacher-and-classroom-aide-arrested-for-allegedly-abusing-student-with-autism-and-blind-student.aspx

Elizabth Valeriay - Fairfield, CT

Fairfield police have arrested a special education teacher on allegations she punished a 6-year-old autistic student by making the girl take her shirt off in a classroom.
Elizabeth Valeriay, 53, of Madison was charged Tuesday with cruelty to persons.

Police say Valeriay was working at Dwight Elementary School in Fairfield last October when she made the girl take her shirt off for refusing to stop scratching her chest. A police report says the girl had become fixated on striped shirts and was wearing one that day.

Police say Valeriay told them she had been taught to verbally redirect students and remove distractions when they get distracted. She had been a special education teacher for 30 years.

http://www.wtnh.com/dpp/news/news_ap_fairfield_special_education_teacher_charged_with_cruelty_200901080848

Susanne Means - Allen, TX

A longtime Allen teacher stands accused of using a cooking pan to burn the buttocks of a 14-year-old disabled boy in early 2008.
A Collin County grand jury indicted Susanne Means earlier this month on a charge of injury to a child, a first-degree felony.

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The indictment says she knowingly caused serious bodily injury to the boy, using a cooking pan and also an unknown object. The incident is alleged to have occurred at Lowery Freshman Center, an Allen ISD school.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/DN-alteacher_30met.ART.State.Edition1.4b9f4f4.html

Bereket Haile - Louisville, KY

The mother of a 13-year-old autistic child said a hidden camera in her home caught a caretaker beating her son. That caretaker is now charged with criminal abuse.

Penny Harbin said she is speaking out because both she and police believe her son may not be the only mentally challenged person allegedly abused by this caretaker.

"I can't imagine a day without Chris," said Penny Harbin, but she's been forced to imagine the possibility of losing her son after what she saw captured by a camera hidden in a stuffed animal in her home.

She and her husband put up the camera after noticing odd behavior from Bereket Haile, an in-home sitter provided by a nursing company to take care of her autistic child, who doesn't speak and suffers with seizures.

"In my eyes, he would be a little more rougher than what he should be with Chris," she said. "My husband said, 'Something's not right here; we need to put a camera up and see what actually is going on.'"

She described what the camera caught Haile doing to her son on Sept. 8, as she was out and her husband was in the garage.

"I saw him take his knuckle and extend it out and continue to hit the top of his head," she said. "I also saw him take the TV controller and backhand and hit him underneath the chin to where his head went back. Then I saw Chris lay down on the couch and very softly cry."


Harbin said Haile spat repeatedly on her living room carpet as Chris lay on the couch crying.

After turning over the videotape to detectives, she said they found more abuse.


"He had received one blow that was very, very severe enough that it could have done brain damage," she said. "I feel like there's others out there that he has abused or taken advantage of."
http://www.wlky.com/r/25104320/detail.html

Terry Babbitt, Penelope Miller-Smith, Shelly Jensen - Mona Shores, MI

The Holdens say staff at Mona Shores’ Ross Park Elementary routinely restrained Ethan, who was 3 at the time, in a chair in the classroom. The Holdens said school staff never informed them of the restraints, which Nicole Holden discovered when she visited her son’s Christmas Party.

The couple have said their son has autism, and the lawsuit says he is in special education and has delayed speech that prevented him from telling his parents about his treatment at school.

Named in the lawsuit are the school district, Superintendent Terry Babbitt, former Director of Special Education Penelope Miller-Smith, teacher Shelly Jensen and other unknown staff members referred to as “Jane Does.”

Babbitt said he, nor any staff members, could comment on the pending litigation. He said Miller-Smith is in Germany.

“What the teachers and administrators did to this child is unconscionable,” said David Honigman, the couple’s attorney who is based in Troy. “It is simply inexcusable that they would repeatedly restrain a 3-year-old with a disability and then hide that fact from (his) parents.”

http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2010/09/couples_lawsuit_against_mona_s.html

Lori Davis - Pittsburgh, PA

The mother of an 11-year-old boy with autism -- who's seen being apparently slapped by a teacher in a YouTube video -- has filed a lawsuit against the Pittsburgh Public Schools.


The cell phone video that got Lori Davis fired from her job as an autistic support teacher at the Conroy school in Manchester shows her hitting a student named J.R. on the side of the head, Team 4 reported.


According to the lawsuit, after hitting J.R., the teacher then verbally assaulted him, telling him, "Stop moving your chair back. Move it! And you stay back there! I've had it with you!"

http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/r/20531472/detail.html