Wake schools paying $450,000 to family who says Southeast Raleigh High teacher illegally restrained, secluded their son

The student's parents said they noticed "multiple bruises on their child’s body" last school year and school staff informed them of the teacher's "improper aggressive behavior against another disabled student in the classroom," according to a statement from the family's attorney, Stacey Gahagan.

The parents sent an email with pictures of their son's bruises to school administrators and to the school system email for reporting concerns, but no one contacted them to investigate the report, Gahagan wrote. Once the school system's legal counsel was made aware of the allegations, an investigation began and the teacher was removed from the classroom, the attorney wrote.

Staff members who reported the abusive behavior were transferred or investigated, but the school administrators were not removed, the attorney said. After investigating the situation for months, the district reassigned the school administrators to other positions in the system.

Wake schools has a protocol for reporting teachers who engage in abusive behavior to the State Board of Education, which conducts a review of the situation and decides whether licensure revocation is appropriate, Gahagan wrote. The school system has assured the parents that it follows this protocol consistently to ensure teachers who mistreat students, especially those with disabilities, do not end up teaching in another school, she added.

However, the former teacher is currently teaching at Northern Durham High School, the attorney said.

"This news is particularly disturbing" to the student's parents who "are concerned the same thing could happen to other children," Gahagan wrote. "The parents firmly believe that placing cameras in the separate classes for students with significant disabilities may prevent, or at least decrease the likelihood, of this type of harm against these students in the future."

In a statement Thursday, Wake County Public Schools spokesman Tim Simmons said the district "was unaware of the allegations prior to the parent's petition. After the allegations were made, Special Education Services provided mandatory training for all teachers at the school who work with students in self-contained classrooms. The staff member against whom the allegations were made is no longer employed with the school system."

The Wake school board voted Tuesday night to approve the settlement, but details about the case were not released at that time. The board made the decision "based on guidance from the district's attorneys to prevent protracted litigation," Simmons said.