WTH: Bully In The Classroom Is The Teacher?

(Reuters) - A New Jersey school district has fired at least two educators for verbally abusing autistic children after a father sent his 10-year-old autistic son to school wearing a hidden microphone upon suspecting he was being mistreated by staff.

The audio recordings, made public in a 17-minute video later posted on YouTube, capture educators speaking in harsh tones to the autistic children, including one in which a woman tells the young boy what sounds like "You are a bastard."

"That night my life changed forever," father Stuart Chaifetz said of the first time he heard the recording. "What I heard on that audio was so disgusting, so vile."

The father demands an apology, saying it is about reclaiming his son's dignity.  For six months, he had meetings with the school in response to complaints that his autistic son was acting out of character.  The man was worried about his son's development and taped the events that led to the firing of at least two school employees.

The thing is, while it's great that uploading the video to YouTube had the right results, I'm really worried about the lack of teacher supervision in schools, especially for the most vulnerable students.  In the day of remote monitoring and other technology, I really expected schools to be proactive in recording and watching classrooms, if for no other reason than to deter lawsuits and allegations.

Mistreating autistic children should mean never working with kids again.  However, it likely won't, something that should concern other parents.  Hell, I don't even have kids and I'm worried about it.