Guess Who Just Got Out of Jail?

The Littleton School District employed Kiarra Jones to watch over disabled kids as they took the bus to school.

She took the opportunity to torture them. For months. And when parents asked the schools why their kids were coming home injured–they were nonverbal autistic kids–the school brushed off their concerns. She bruised them. She broke their bones. She knocked out a tooth. 

The District did nothing for months. 

What exactly should happen to this woman? https://t.co/Cpokl0YELp

— Right Angle News Network (@Rightanglenews) April 9, 2024

Jones was arrested after video of her assaulting children was uncovered–she did this on the bus, which had a surveillance camera!–and she is out of jail on a $5000 bond. She barely spent a moment incarcerated. 

Fractured bones, a knocked-out tooth, deep bruises and immeasurable heartache. Those are just some of the injuries suffered by at least three students with autism allegedly at the hands of a Littleton Public Schools paraprofessional trusted to care for them.

The kids take a dedicated bus provided by the LPS transportation system to get to one of Colorado’s most highly regarded private schools for students with autism – The Joshua School. Yet, as some parents discovered and told CBS News Colorado – that bus was a place of what one attorney called torture.

Broken bones. Lost teeth. No concern for the kids from the public schools, which always claim to know what is best for children. I wish I could say this was shocking, but given the state of our schools, I suppose it is more like a random Tuesday. 

Jess said she noticed strange bumps and bruises on her son months ago, dating back to September 2023. She brought her concerns to staff at The Joshua School, who confirmed with her Dax did not suffer those injuries while in their care. Jess said she then brought her concerns to LPS, but they told her there was nothing to be concerned about. Then, Jess said, her son’s injuries became worse, and she demanded answers from the district.

“I notified LPS on March 18 and on March 19 got a phone call from Littleton police informing me that an LPS employee had severely abused my child,” she said. “I went to the LPS transportation building and was in utter shock.”

Six months of torture for this boy. And he wasn’t the only one. Only the children involved literally couldn’t speak for themselves, and the district ignored their concerns. The kids were nonverbal, which is why they had an escort. 

Unfortunately, this is totally believable. I wonder how many DEI, LGBTQ+ educators, and counselors the school has. How much time, energy, and money do they put into “Social and Emotional Learning?” Do they have people who tell kids not to trust their parents with private information? Most schools do now because they care and are professionals. 

Parents really shouldn’t have a say in their kids’ education, right? What do they know compared to these compassionate experts?

Jones was a “professional” too, by the way. That worked out well. 

LPS has not responded to multiple requests for an interview but did share a letter a district spokesperson said the superintendent emailed to LPS parents on April 5. It states the district “learned a parent observed injuries after being transported home on March 19.” That’s when an internal investigation began, Jones was fired, and police were notified.

Yet that’s upwards of six months after three different families say they started raising concerns about observed injuries to LPS staff.

Six months. And it wasn’t until a parent got into the district video archive that any of this came out because the school district did not care. 

Jones was arrested on Thursday last week and released on bond on Friday. $5000. 

She was caught on camera torturing a nonverbal autistic child and had been doing it for 6 months. 

$5000. 

No doubt Jones will be punished eventually, but she is just the tip of the iceberg. The news report above names other districts where disabled kids are being abused, and there is no indication that the people responsible for the care of the children–the administrators in charge–are doing their jobs. 

Time and again, we are told that public schools are run by “experts” who know what is good for kids and that parents should defer to the professionals. And time and again, we see those professionals fail the kids. Kids can’t read, can’t do math, get subjected to constant propaganda, and, of course, are abandoned when they need the schools most. 

“Kids are resilient!”

Americans have to get over the fetish we have for public schools. Far too many of them are simply awful. 

There are good schools and good teachers, but the system is not good. It sucks. Tear it down. 

School choice is the obvious answer, and momentum is building in Red states to liberate children from a failing system. With any luck, that will mean that even the kids who remain in the public school system will see improvements–in order to survive, most schools will have to improve. 

School choice will not lead to nirvana because there is no nirvana on earth. But it will help millions of kids get a better education. If the public schools wind up dying rather than reforming themselves, then good riddance to bad rubbish.