Moses Lake School District investigates Park Orchard incident

MOSES LAKE — Moses Lake School District is investigating an incident at Park Orchard Elementary School in early January where an adult is alleged to have dragged a student, first by the legs and then by the arms, down a hall and through the school’s front office.

“A parent reported their student had been physically moved to the office by staff when de-escalation efforts failed to resolve the situation of extreme student misbehavior,” the district said in a Jan. 29 press release.

While the district would not state the name of the child involved or the parent who made the allegation, MLSD spokesperson Claren McLaughlin did confirm that a certain video is part of “the ongoing investigation into the incident.” The video is an approximately 14-second video posted Jan. 29 on Facebook by the boy’s father, Sebastian Gutknecht, which showed a man dragging a boy through a hallway by the arms.

Neither Gutknecht nor the district would comment directly, the district saying the matter was “sensitive” and Gutknecht stating that he did not wish to talk as long as the matter was under investigation.

In a lengthy Facebook post, Gutknecht said he was called to Park Orchard on Jan. 7 because his son, a second-grader who came to live with the family in late 2017 and who is “a special needs student and suffers from anxiety and PTSD,” had been suspended for two and a half days for “hitting and kicking and screaming.”

“The principal told me that my son had been escorted to the office,” Gutknecht wrote.

(In the post, Gutknecht names his son. However, it is the policy of the Columbia Basin Herald not to name minors involved in school discipline or criminal justice matters.)

Gutknecht wrote his son’s condition “was not kept as a secret from the school,” and that his son had a difficult time in kindergarten and first grade but was learning how to interact with other kids and manage his emotions.

In fact, Gutknecht said the district had a 504 Plan in place for his son in September 2019. He said his son was also seeing a child psychologist at Grant Integrated Services.

According to the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction in Olympia, the plan name refers to section 504 of the federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973. A 504 Plan is an individual plan worked out for a student by parents and school personnel that “describes the accommodations, aids, and services the school must provide to make sure the student can experience a free and appropriate education, as the law requires.”

Gutknecht described that his son later told a doctor he “was dragged by his feet to the office and by his hands through the office into a room that the principal locked him in and wouldn’t let him leave.” He also wrote that his son told him the entire incident began when he “didn’t want to wear his jacket on the way to recess,” though Gutknecht adds his son said he “eventually agreed” to wear his jacket.

Gutknecht quickly pressed the school and the district to explain what had happened.

“I contacted the school, school district, and reached out to everyone I could in order to get a records request to see the video footage,” Gutknecht wrote.

In his Facebook post, Gutknecht wrote that school administrators, in their reports on the incident, only mentioned ”de-escalation,” “positive reinforcement” and “redirection.”

When he met with administrators of Park Orchard on Jan. 17 to watch video of the incident, Gutknecht said he was initially told that a camera that could have shown his son being dragged by the feet “mysteriously stopped working,” in Gutknecht’s words, and there was no video of that portion of the incident. However, Gutknecht then wrote that on Jan. 21 an MLSD employee who emailed him the video Gutknecht posted online told him the other camera was, in fact, working, but had been pointed in the wrong direction at the time.

“In the part I did get to watch, I had to sit there, calmly watching my 7-year-old son, who suffers from high anxiety and PTSD, get dragged through the front of the school by someone we trust to care for him,” he wrote.

“It was horrifying,” Gutknecht added. “My wife was fighting back tears.”

In that Jan. 29 press release, the school district asked the public to withhold judgment of its actions without further information.

“We encourage everyone to use discretion in making assumptions of a situation that is communicated through one short video clip obtained through a public records request,” the MLSD wrote.

In a separate press release issued on Jan. 31, Superintendent Josh Meek said the district is committed to the safety of every student.

“Our teachers are brave individuals who we expect to teach our children, to open their minds, connect with their hearts, and create opportunities for them,” Meek wrote. “But with that level of responsibility it also means they are empowered — and trusted — to do what it takes to ensure the safety and well-being of all.”

According to the OSPI document “Students’ Rights: Section 504 and Students with Disabilities,” no student with a 504 Plan can be suspended from school if the alleged misbehavior was “caused by” or “had a direct and substantive relationship to the student’s disability.”

Gutknecht wrote that he wants an apology from the MLSD. And he wants things to change.

“I want all children and parents to be able to trust those who provide care to/for them,” he posted. “I want cameras that cannot be ‘pointed on corners.’ I want staff who are trained to properly de-escalate situations and who are trained to properly deal with special needs children.”

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at [email protected].