[1] The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced that the Davis Joint Unified School District in California had entered into a settlement after OCR examined whether the district's use of restraint and seclusion in the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 school years denied its students with disabilities a FAPE in violation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504), Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (Title II), and their implementing regulations.
Following a 10-day evidentiary hearing conducted by an Administrative Law Judge, who issued a decision adopted by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing that found the school properly trained staff in restraints.
According to the investigation conducted by the California Department of Education, which afterward suspended Guiding Hands School's certification, Benson was held in a prone restraint for an extended period of time, and he urinated on himself and vomited.
[9][10] Many attended because they knew and loved Benson and his family, while others came to call attention to what they described as a "lack of educational resources for students with autism within the school district.
[11] Some people wore blue shirts with a photo of Benson and text that read, “What you permit, you promote,” referring to the complicity they said schools and teachers engage in by allowing aggressive and prone restraints on students.
El Dorado County Superior Court Judge Mark Ralphs ordered that the accused not teach school or daycare while the case is pending.
[14][15] Davis Joint Unified School District Special Education Administrators Patrick McGrew, Jennifer Galas and Riley Chessman[17] were also named as defendants.