Para Arrested For Allegedly Slapping Child At School

by Dereen Shirnekhi and Maya McFadden

Police arrested a John C. Daniels School paraprofessional on Wednesday after she allegedly struck a 6-year-old during lunch.

The student’s mom said that her son is nonverbal and has autism and ADHD. She said that he has been scared ever since he was hit and that he doesn’t want to go back to school.

“I can’t believe this even happened,” said the child’s mother, Rosa Scott. “He’s traumatized, he has random moments of crying, which is not typical for him.”

The New Haven Police Department (NHPD) first published a press release on Thursday morning regarding the para’s arrest. The release states that officers responded to the 569 Congress Ave. school at around 2:36 p.m. on Wednesday.

“On arrival, officers developed probable cause that a paraprofessional struck a 6-year-old student during lunch,” the press release states.

Scott told the Independent that Asst. Supt. Viviana Camacho and the school’s nurse reached out to her on Wednesday to inform her that her son had been slapped in the face by a paraprofessional. The school also told her that the state Department of Children and Families (DCF) had been called and that the paraprofessional had been sent home.

Scott said the school told her there was a photo of her son where his face was red but that they wouldn’t let her see it. She said no one answered her questions about who the para was, the details of what had happened, or the context.

“They told the police officer what happened and he told me,” Scott said. “That’s the only reason why I know what happened in general.”

She was told that her son had two paraprofessionals with him at the time — one who had worked with him for months and one who had worked with him for weeks. The latter is the one who wound up being arrested.

Scott said, to the best of her understanding, her son had walked over to another group of children and knocked down a tower of Legos. That was when the para slapped him in the face.

“The majority of students in the classroom are nonverbal or speak very little,” said Scott. “I’m sure this was also traumatizing for other students to see.”

The para was taken into custody and charged with risk of injury to a minor, assault in the 3rd degree, and breach of peace in the 2nd degree. She was assigned a $10,000 bond, according to police. The arrested paraprofessional could not be reached for comment by the publication time of this article.

Scott said that her son has been afraid since Wednesday.

“Yesterday he was very panicky and didn’t want anyone to be close to him. He’s jumping when we go near him to give him a hug,” she said. The two of them returned to the school on Thursday to meet DCF. “He didn’t even want to enter the school today. He used to love school.”

Scott said in March, while her son was a student at Lincoln Bassett School, he came home with a bite mark. She said she wasn’t able to get any answers from the school, and that she had reached out to Supt. Madeline Negrón and never heard back.

“He will not be returning to another New Haven public school,” Scott told the Independent on Thursday. While she’s not sure what the immediate next steps are, “He was hurt in their care twice, and I will not afford them another opportunity.”

Importantly, she said, “I don’t want this to happen to another child.”

Hyclis Williams, the president of paraprofessionals union AFSCME Local 3429, said that the now-arrested paraprofessional is a part-time staffer and therefore not a member of the union.

Reached for comment, New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) spokesperson Justin Harmon provided the Independent with the following statement from Supt. Negrón: “I am deeply pained by the allegations made against a staff member at Daniels School yesterday. As a mother, I empathize powerfully with the family of the child involved. I have reached out to the boy’s mother and assured her we will get to the bottom of what happened.

“While we don’t yet have all the facts of the case, I have to simply say that there is no good reason for a school employee to put hands on a child in their care. Our families trust us first and foremost with their children’s safety. We in the schools must do everything in our power as human beings to live up to that trust.

“As the police and the Department of Children and Families complete their investigations, we will know more about what happened in this case, and we will take appropriate steps to ensure the ongoing safety of our children. In the meantime, we will offer this family all the support we can give.”