Lawsuit claims teachers kept autistic boy strapped to chair

The mother of a 6-year-old boy who has autism spectrum disorder says employees at Koko Head Elementary School strapped her son into a chair almost daily without justification.

The mother, Maria Therese Ricks, filed a lawsuit Wednesday in U.S. District Court against the school’s special education and resource teachers, student services coordinator, occupational therapist, speech and language pathologist, principal and schools Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi.

She claims in the lawsuit that all of the defendants were aware that her son was being strapped into a chair and failed or refused to intervene and tell her about it.

Ricks says her son started attending preschool at Koko Head in August 2013 but it wasn’t until spring 2014 that she learned that staff and teachers at the school were restraining her son.

She said she told school officials she did not want her son belted into a chair and that restraint or that type of discipline is not part of the individualized education plan she had agreed to for her son. Ricks said school officials continued to restrain her son, including at the boy’s preschool graduation.

Ricks said the school has no information that her son has behavioral problems that warrant the use of restraint. She said she met with school officials in November 2014 and again told them she did not want her son belted into a chair.

She said she continued to question school officials about it in letters and emails. In response, she said the principal sent her a letter last February that said the chair restraint “was not related to any specific goal or objectives.”

Ricks said she then removed her son from Koko Head and placed him in an autism school at her own expense.

A state Department of Education spokeswoman declined to comment on the lawsuit.