Photos of a wooden box, allegedly used for student “time outs” at an elementary school in Akwesasne, drew shock and anger from parents this week and have prompted an investigation by the school district.
Akwesasne Mohawk Territory, near Cornwall, Ont., straddles the Ontario, Quebec and New York state border. St. Regis Mohawk School is a kindergarten to Grade 5 school on the U.S. side, and is one of four schools in the Salmon River Central School District.
Chrissy Jacobs, a resident of Akwesasne and a former Salmon River Central School District board member, posted the photos to Facebook Monday after they were sent to her by a teacher who’d recently resigned from the school.
Last resort band-aids like this are a natural outcome when classrooms are overcrowded and schools are underfunded. I don’t approve of it, but when funding for better solutions has been cut, what are teachers supposed to do? Let one child disrupt the education of the 29 other kids in the classroom?