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Parents and advocates urge Highlands County School Board to seek residential placement after repeated violent incidents
Summary
At a Highlands County School Board meeting, parents and advocates told the board a special-education student has become violent, is Baker Acted and hospitalized, and urged the district to follow a paid neuropsychological evaluation that recommends medical review and possible residential placement if medication is insufficient.
At a Highlands County School Board meeting, parents and advocates urged the district to pursue residential placement and medical interventions for an 11-year-old student who has repeatedly attacked staff and family, speakers said.
Those who addressed the board described a pattern of escalating aggression that they said district staff have not adequately managed, culminating in the child’s Baker Act hospitalization in Kissimmee and forced medication there. Parents and advocates repeatedly said a district-paid neuropsychological evaluation completed April 15, 2023, recommends medical assessment and, if medicines do not control the behavior, consideration of a residential placement.
Joey Poyer, an exceptional-student-education (ESE) advocate, described episodes of hitting, spitting and yelling in school and criticized what he characterized as misuse of the student’s behavior intervention plan (BIP). “BIPs are not…
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