The Judge Rotenberg Center, a special needs school in Massachusetts that receives much of its funding from New York State, is back in the center of controversy again.
The Center is the only school in the nation that uses aversive therapy such as skin shocks as behavioral modification on its students. Many of the students at the Center are New York residents, with New York courts approving the skin shock therapy.
The Canton Patch is doing a series of articles on the controversy, reporting both on the boycott of radio ads by the Center led by a Long Island parent and also reporting on the parents and supporters of the Center and the controversial treatments.
According to the Associated Press and Boston.com, public hearings are being held this week in the Massachusetts legislature to ban the practice for those students that do not have court approval. The Center’s attorney, Michael Flammia, is calling that discrimination.
What do you think? Is skin shock therapy barbaric, or is it a necessary measure to help out of control students?