Mom wants school to explain son's injuries

Austin mother suspects substitute teacher injured her special needs child.

By Molly Bloom
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, July 26, 2008

One Wednesday in January, 4-year-old Alex González came home from his pre-K class at Andrews Elementary School in Northeast Austin with three big bumps on his head, bruises under his arms and tears in his eyes.

Alex is autistic and communicates through gestures and guttural sounds, so his mother, Rosalía García, couldn't ask her son how he got hurt. Instead, she asked the school's assistant principal.

García says that she is still waiting for answers.

Because neither Alex's family nor school staff noticed any injuries when Alex left for school, his parents believe that their son's injuries occurred while he was in class with a substitute teacher.

The sub, a 69-year-old retired postal worker named Gilbert Lazalde, said in an interview with the American-Statesman that he did not hurt Alex and did not know how the injuries occurred.

The district's police department has closed its investigation into Alex's injuries and has not charged Lazalde with a crime.

School records show that teachers at two campuses had complained about how Lazalde treated students before Alex was injured. Lazalde was eventually terminated from his position as a substitute after teachers at four separate campuses complained about his behavior, but district records do not indicate that Alex's injuries played any part in the termination.

Though the Austin school district allows school principals to bar specific substitutes from their campuses and file administrative complaints about subs who violate campus or district rules, it has no specific policy requiring the district to fire substitutes who have amassed multiple complaints.

And though the district's substitute handbook warns substitutes that violations of any district or campus policy can result in disciplinary action, up to and including termination, Lazalde wasn't terminated until teachers at four Austin elementary schools reported accusations that he had pinched, shoved and been verbally abusive to students.

García says Alex's story shows what can happen when adults with limited teaching experience or training are put in charge of some of the most vulnerable, and often most difficult to manage, children. A substitute teacher with multiple complaints against him should never have come in contact with her son, she said.

"I can't believe they allow (those) people to work with disabled students," García, who speaks limited English, said in Spanish.

Six months after Alex was hurt, district officials, who didn't initially tell García that a substitute was supervising her son the day he was hurt, have yet to tell her what they know about the events leading to his injuries, she said.

They have also declined to release the police report on his injuries, citing state laws on the confidentiality of child abuse investigations.

Special education shortage

There are no statewide requirements for substitute teachers beyond submitting fingerprints and passing a national criminal background check to show they haven't been convicted of a violent or sexual crime against a public school student. A search of public records found that Lazalde does not have a criminal history.

The Austin school district also requires its substitutes to have at least 60 hours of college credit and attend a one-day training session, requirements similar to or more rigorous than those of most other large Texas school districts and most other Central Texas districts.

The Austin's district's substitute handbook doesn't discuss teaching students with special needs, though a 290-page supplementary manual used in substitute orientation devotes four pages to the subject. That's four more pages than the Round Rock school district's 12-page substitute teacher's handbook devotes to it.

About 860, or 27 percent, of Austin's substitutes were certified teachers in 2007-08, according to the district. Last year, 3 percent of substitutes were certified to teach special education classes, and less than 1 percent were certified bilingual teachers.

Special education and bilingual teachers are in high demand statewide, district spokesman Andy Welch said, and special education and bilingual substitute teachers also are in short supply.

In a June letter to García, associate superintendent Claudia Tousek wrote that the district's substitute office is "exploring opportunities" to offer additional workshops on working with students with special needs. District officials declined to discuss Alex's injuries with the Statesman.

Teacher responds to claims

Lazalde said that on Jan. 16 he was subbing for Alex's special education teacher when, after walking Alex from one classroom to another, he saw the bumps on Alex's head. Lazalde said that he immediately reported them to campus staff. Lazalde said that he was never alone with Alex except when he walked him from one classroom to another. Even then other teachers were in the hallway, Lazalde said.

Lazalde said he received "absolutely no training" from the district on dealing with children with special needs before he began working in the classroom.

"They never really mentioned autistic," he said. "They just said, 'Don't mess with the kids' and stuff like that."

District records show that Lazalde, who is fluent in Spanish, completed 112 substitute teaching assignments from September 2007 through March 2007, most of them in English as a Second Language or bilingual classes.

But prior to subbing in Alex's class at Andrews, Lazalde was asked by administrators in October at Allan Elementary School in East Austin and Travis Heights Elementary School in South Austin not to return to their campuses.

Teachers at both schools said Lazalde was rude and physically abusive to students, according to substitute office reports provided by the district under the Texas Public Information Act.

According to the reports, Lazalde is accused of pinching Allan students to get their attention and telling one special education student, "Shut up. What are you retarded?"

Lazalde replied to the accusations in writing, saying that he did not pinch students and didn't recall telling students to shut up.

"In Spanish I repeatedly said, 'callense' [Be quiet] and 'silencio, [Silence]' " he wrote. "I admit that I did use the word 'retarded.' I did not call the student retarded but used it in questioning his behavior."

Lazalde apologized for calling the student "retarded," saying he didn't know the student had a disability. In a letter, he told the district's substitute office that being a substitute teacher was a "hard learning experience" and asked for advice or reading materials to help him deal with difficult classroom situations.

Complaints continue

After Alex was injured at Andrews, Alex's teacher also asked that Lazalde not return. The teacher reported that another special education student Lazalde was escorting fell and cut her lip and that his explanation of how and where it happened "didn't seem to match."

In a written response to that report, Lazalde wrote that he had no idea why the girl fell. Lazalde said he immediately took her to the school nurse.

In his response, Lazalde also explained that he did "restrain a couple [students] on several occasions in an effort to gain control of them and get them to follow my directions. ... Short of using severe physical punishment (which I would never do) I don't know what other techniques I could have used."

Two months later, Lazalde was asked not to return to Pleasant Hill Elementary School after a fourth-grade teacher reported that her students complained that Lazalde had shoved them, poked them and pulled their arms.

After that complaint in March, the district removed him from their substitute list and barred him from working for the school district again.

Lazalde said he has since taken a part-time job in a field unrelated to education.

Rosalía García, Alex's mother, said that in the weeks after being injured, Alex, the eldest of her four children, was fearful of going to school. Just passing by his school bag hanging in the hallway could make him cry, she said.

Earlier this month, Alex squirmed on his father's lap, eager to get up and greet visitors to the family's apartment off Cameron Road.

Alex bore no visible, permanent scars from his injuries. But his parents are still angry that their son was hurt at school and that no one has told them for certain how he was injured. "I just want to know what happened," García said.

The accusations

Retired postal worker Gilbert Lazalde, 69, was barred from working in Austin schools after teachers at four campuses reported student complaints that he was physically and verbally abusive:

Oct. 22, 2007 —An Allan Elementary School teacher reported that students said Lazalde pinched them, told them to 'shut up' and called a special education student 'retarded.' Lazalde responded to the accusations in writing, saying that he did not pinch students and didn't recall telling students to shut up. He said he did not realize the student had any disabilities and intended to call the student's behavior, not the student himself, 'retarded.'

Oct. 25 —A Travis Heights Elementary School teacher reported that Lazalde was 'rude' to students, told them to 'shut up' several times and touched one student on the shoulder in a way the student thought was 'rough.'

Lazalde replied in writing that students were unruly — one hit him in the chest with a rock, he said — and that he was sorry he told students to shut up. Lazalde said he touched a student on the shoulder with a rolled up lesson plan to get the student's attention. 'It was not in any way "rough" or violent,' he said.

Jan. 18, 2008 —Teachers at Andrews Elementary School reported that Lazalde's explanation of how and where a special education student he was escorting fell and cut her lip 'didn't seem to match.'

Alex Gonzalez comes home from his class supervised by Lazalde with injuries including large bumps on his head.

Lazalde replied in writing a month later saying, 'I was walking right beside her. There were no obstacles in her way. ... I have no idea why she fell!' He said he took her to see the school nurse right away. He said in an interview that he did not injure Alex.

March 7 — A Pleasant Hill Elementary School teacher asked the district not to send Lazalde to the campus again after fourthgraders complained that Lazalde had shoved them into their chairs, poked them and pulled their arms. 'One (student) said he hit her,' the teacher wrote.

SOURCE: Austin school district documents
mbloom@statesman.com; 445-3620 ¡Ahora Sí! staff writer Tania Lara contributed to this story.