naplesnews.com

6-year-old goes from classroom to jail

A mother asks: How did her daughter, who suffers from behavior problems, end up charged with a felony?

By Chris W. Colby

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Takovia Allen is 6 years old. She’s a special education student at her elementary school. And for about four hours several weeks ago, she was a juvenile jail inmate.

Her mother wants to know why.

Tamara Williams, 30, said Tuesday she wants to understand how the problem went that far, so far that Takovia is now charged with a felony.

Her daughter suffers from behavioral problems and attends a special class at Lely Elementary. On May 2, before the teacher began trying to line up the students to go to music class, Takovia refused to go. According to the arrest report, the girl demonstrated that refusal by kicking Debra Dolan, the teacher’s aide, in the right ankle and trying to trip her.

“Dolan had to use a chair to maintain her balance,” according to the report, written by the arresting deputy, John R. Barraco. “Dolan had an abrasion and redness on the top of her ankle.”

After discussion among the school dean and principal, the deputy and a detective, both of whom were called to the school to respond to the battery call, and a Collier County Sheriff’s Office supervisor contacted by phone, 3-foot, 9-inch, 50-pound Takovia was to be arrested and charged with battery on a public education employee. That’s a felony.

Williams was called and came down to the school, where she and the deputy led Takovia to the patrol car to be taken to juvenile jail. The girl was held there for about four hours, after which she was released to her mother’s custody.

The State Attorney’s Office won’t comment on pending juvenile cases. So it’s unclear how prosecutors will handle the case. It’s possible Takovia will enter a diversion program, which would include counseling and ends with a dropped charge if she completes the terms of the program.

Collier County Public School officials declined to comment on behalf of the district, the school or Dolan, citing confidentiality regulations preventing officials from releasing information about individual students.

Williams is a School District employee herself, working with students at Naples High School who have behavioral problems in a program called ESE, for exceptional student education. It’s the same kind of program Takovia attends at Lely. Hers is a class of six students ranging from kindergarten to second grade.

“Being in that classroom, the teachers are aware of the students and their behaviors. The aides know too,” Williams said.

Takovia has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, in which children have difficulty paying attention and focusing on tasks. And she has trouble with authority figures if problems aren’t handled a very specific way.

What started the conflict that led to the arrest involved another student and the teacher’s aide’s failure to follow Takovia’s “behavior plan,” Williams said.

Each student in the ESE program has a plan for how to handle each student’s behavioral quirks. In Takovia’s case, she gets upset if a problem happens and isn’t dealt with fairly, and immediately. And she doesn’t like to feel threatened, Williams said.

So when another student intentionally broke her pencil, and Dolan ignored that and insisted all the students line up for music class, Takovia was upset, Williams said.

“She told the aide, who told her to line up, that she’d deal with it later. But she never dealt with it,” Williams said. “Takovia ended up kicking her when she didn’t resolve the problem.”

Williams is unsure why the aide chose to press charges. Williams said the school officials would neither encourage nor discourage an employee from that.

But, as Williams put it, a professional working in a class with behavior problems must come to expect just that from its students.

Williams said she was told the deputy arrested her daughter because she has a history of pushing the teacher’s aide in the past.

“If that’s true, why isn’t there any documentation of that anywhere?” Williams asked.

Takovia also was suspended from school for a day. Her case remains pending in Collier County Circuit Court. While technically the felony can send the girl to juvenile prison or to a program, Williams said, she’s been told the prosecutor will seek only counseling for the girl.

“She’s a little traumatized by (the arrest),” Williams said. “It took her two weeks to go back to school. She was afraid to go.”