A mother is suing Pueblo School District 60, claiming her severely disabled son was improperly restrained in a room described as a closet at his elementary school.
Veronica Hijar, 28, filed suit in Pueblo District Court against the district, Highland Park Elementary School, the principal, teachers, paraprofessionals and a case manager responsible for oversight of a special-education-needs program for her son.
Jeffrey Hijar, 11, has severe physical, mental and emotional disabilities, including autism, Kabuki syndrome and seizures.
The lawsuit says that when Veronica Hijar went to pick him up from school on March 1, 2006, she found school personnel gathered around a closet door. She could hear her son screaming and crying while no other children were in the classroom.
“Jeffrey was being confined against his will in a closet. One or all of the defendant school personnel were holding the closet door closed to prevent Jeffrey from exiting,” the lawsuit says.
His mother told The Denver Post at the time of the incident that her son was placed in the “closet” after he had been removed from a “timeout” room for climbing on a changing table.
The suit says the room measures 5 feet 2 inches by 7 feet 5 inches, has a cement floor and walls of cinder block, no furnishings and a window in a door that was covered by dark paper. The lawsuit says the room was “dangerous and unsafe” because of Jeffrey’s disabilities.
The lawsuit says District 60 and its employees violated the child’s constitutional rights and state law. Neither Veronica Hijar nor her Denver attorney, Alfredo Pena, would comment Tuesday on the suit.
On Monday, attorneys for the school district asked that the case be transferred to federal court in Denver. Hijar’s suit was filed in February.
Greg Sinn, spokesman for District 60, said: “Pueblo city schools did an internal investigation simultaneously with the Pueblo Police Department, and Pueblo city schools’ findings were that we were within the framework of the agreement for timeout for this student and we believe that the Pueblo Police Department’s findings concurred with our own.”
In March, a nonprofit advocacy group, the Legal Center for People With Disabilities and Older People, alleged in a report that five disabled students at Will Rogers Elementary School were subjected to 45 incidents of improper restraint and seclusion during the 2005-06 school year.
Staff writer Erin Emery can be reached at 719-522-1360 or eemery@denverpost.com.
