After a N.J. kindergartner was filmed barricaded behind a gym mat, his mother wants an investigation

For months, Allison Welsh wondered why her son, Levi, had suddenly stopped wanting to go to school. He couldn’t sleep, had nightmares, and begged to stay home.

Then, two weeks ago, she was sent a disturbing video recorded by an aide in his special education classroom at Wedgwood Elementary School in Washington Township in Gloucester County. She recognized the cries of her son, heard from within a folded gym mat, acting as a barricade.

“I can’t breathe. I can’t leave. Let me out,” the kindergartner is heard pleading on the video.

Welsh was horrified and immediately demanded answers from the South Jersey school system. She also began talking with the parents of other special-needs children in the class and heard other troubling allegations of things that had occurred in the classroom.

It appears that the teacher had been using with other children the barricade method known as seclusion, which is an involuntary confinement. The video with Levi showed the teacher and an aide supporting the barricade.

“He sounded terrified,” Welsh said. “What they did to him was wrong and not acceptable. Nothing like that should have been attempted.”

Welsh said her son, who is 6, has trouble self-regulating, cries easily, and has difficulty calming himself down when he becomes agitated. But she said the use of seclusion was not included in her son’s individual education plan, or IEP.

School Superintendent Eric Hibbs declined to comment directly about the incident, citing an active investigation.

But in a statement, he said, “As a leader, the safety and security of our children is our top priority.”

Wedgwood principal Charlie Zimmerman didn’t respond to a request for comment. Welsh said parents were told that the teacher, a newcomer, had been removed and was “never going to step back into that school.”

Welsh, a speech pathologist in a neighboring district, said she reported what happened as child abuse to the state Division of Child Protection and Permanency and has spoken with an investigator. A spokesperson for the agency declined to comment.

Under a 2018 state law on restraint and seclusion, tactics such as confining students alone in a closed room can be used only with students with disabilities who present an immediate danger to themselves or others. Levi’s mother said the youngster was probably crying because he was hungry or tired.

The nine kindergartners and first graders in Classroom 14 at Wedgwood began having behavioral problems shortly after a new teacher arrived in January, according to Stacy Garofalo, one of several aides assigned to the classroom. The students have communications disorders and other learning disabilities and most cannot speak.

“Her whole personality was horrible,” Garofalo said. “She was not a kids kind of person.”

The teacher could not be reached for comment.

The teacher came to Wedgwood to replace another teacher in the self-contained classroom that was added this year, Garofalo said. The students were supposed to interact with general education students during lunch, recess, and non-academic classes, but parents said that never happened.

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The episode involving Levi occurred in March and was recorded by Garofalo on her cell phone. She said she took the video to provide evidence to support her allegations after her earlier complaints were not addressed.

Garofalo said she reached out several times to Zimmerman and notified him about the video. A union representative told her to stop talking about the allegations and that Garofalo would be reprimanded, she said.

“I just got to the point that I couldn’t take it anymore,” said Garofalo, who eventually resigned from the district.

She contacted Welsh by Facebook and sent her the videos. Welsh made several TikTok posts that went viral. She also began hearing from other parents who shared concerns about the teacher at a school board meeting last week.

One parent said her daughter was left unattended in a soiled diaper, embarrassing the girl in front of her peers. Guistina Canning said her son, who is on the autism spectrum, has been terrified to go to school because of the conduct in the classroom.

“These children deserve better, and we as parents demand better,” Canning said.

It was after she saw the video that Welsh, a mother of three, said she finally began to understand Levi’s reluctance about school. He had told her, “My teacher is mean to me,” but hadn’t been able to give examples.

Before shooting the video, Garofalo, an aide in the district for nearly nine years, began keeping a list of what she described as the teacher’s aggressive behavior toward students. She reported the episodes to her superiors, and provided The Inquirer with copies of emails she sent.

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In one instance, a medically sensitive student was pushed down to her knees. Another student sitting on the floor was jabbed with a foot. A boy had a metal water bottle pressed hard against his forehead, she said.

“I get that some of these kids have behaviors, but this is no way that a teacher should be treating them,” she wrote in a February email provided to The Inquirer. “They come to school for safety and security.”

In 2020-21, about 7.2 million students ages 3 to 21, roughly 15% of all public school students nationwide, received special education services, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Most were classified with learning disabilities.

Garofalo said Levi was kept in seclusion for about an hour on several occasions. Welsh said Levi usually can be calmed down by positive reinforcement. He also responds well to his sister, Chloe, a second-grader in the same school, who has a soothing demeanor, she said.

Now that the teacher is no longer at the school, Welsh said, Levi has returned to his former self. On a recent school morning, Levi told his mother that he liked his new teacher. “She’s nice.”

Upon hearing that, Garofalo said everything was worth it. She has landed a job in another district and has no regrets for speaking out.

“I know that I got those kids safe,” she said. “I did my job.”