Zakhqurey Price: A Call for Nationwide Legislative Educational Reform

Zakhqurey Price: A Call for Nationwide Legislative Educational Reform

Ylanne Sorrows



(Note to Carole Reynolds: If there are any inaccuracies whatsoever in the below, let me know and I will fix them as soon as possible.

Second Note to Carole Reynolds: I made the corrections. Apologies for any inaccuracies that still remain.)

On October 30, 2009, police in Ft. Smith, Arkansas responded to a call from Beard Elementary about a “problem juvenile”. They arrived to find a classroom in disarray, two teachers pinning down a boy, and they arrested student Zakhqurey Price, taking him out of school in handcuffs and transporting him to the juvenile detention center, where he was booked on charges of second degree battery, a Class D felony under Arkansas criminal statutes.

What makes this story strange and newsworthy are the rest of the facts: Zakhqurey Price has autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, ADHD, and minor mental retardation (with an IQ of 68, with normal range being between 90 and 110, 70 being the cutoff for ‘mental retardation’). All of these diagnoses were made and confirmed by several different professionals. His mother is also learning disabled, and Zakh has three brothers and a sister who are on the spectrum as well.

After spending two and a half years in an institution where Carole alleges mistreatment, Zakh was enrolled in this school on August 9, 2009 and began on August 18, without an IEP or appropriate behavioral supports in place. Before the school year, Carole Reynolds, his grandmother, tried to meet with administrators several times about implementing an IEP, but they refused to do so before school started. She requested several accommodations, including a full time aide, but all requests were denied. (At one point, Carole decided to home school Zakh, but a local judge, whose name I forget, issued a court order that Zakh attend Beard Elementary).

She specifically told school officials how to prevent meltdowns and what to do if one occurs, but they blatantly ignored her, calling the police on three occasions, the last resulting in this bizarre case. Zakh had been suspended several times from school for behavioral issues. They were never addressed in a supportive or therapeutic manner from the school. Two weeks before the arrest, Carole attended an IEP meeting in which the school agreed with some of her suggestions and guidelines, but did not complete a formal behavior plan, or implement any of the suggestions.

Initially, Zakh was placed in a classroom with twenty-eight typical students, with no supports in place whatsoever. At the time of this incident, on October 30, Zakh was in a small classroom with eight ED students, a male teacher, and an older woman teacher. Because of his OCD, he became frustrated because the teacher erased extra-credit spelling words too quickly, and Zakh went into meltdown. The male teacher evacuated the other eight students from the classroom, and Zakh threw around some books. For a half hour, the teachers watched him, and then the principal, Pamela Siebenmorgan, and his classroom teacher Jan Honeycutt, cornered Zakh and grabbed him in an unspecified manner to restrain him, just as he had finally begun to calm down. Those of you familiar with autism know that any physical contact will only exacerbate an autistic meltdown, because of sensory issues. Zakh lashed out in fear, pain, and confusion, pushing Mrs. Honeycutt (she fell into a bookcase) and kicking Mrs. Siebenmorgan once.

Both teachers complained of pain, but no visible injuries, whereas on Zakh, the arrest report clearly documents a skinned knee. Neither teacher was transported to the hospital, given stitches, or given leave from work. According to Arkansas statutes (§ 5-13-202, to be exact), battery in the second degree requires intentionally, purposefully, knowingly causing physical injury to another person (teachers and school employees are specifically referenced). Zakhqurey did not intentionally, purposefully, or knowingly cause physical injury to the teachers. And if there really was any physical injury, it was minor in the way accidentally walking into the thin side of a door leaves a painful bruise is minor.

There is a similar case in the fiction novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, when the autistic narrator is touched by a policeman, and then lashes out, hitting the policeman, in the same way that Zakh lashed out when grabbed by the two teachers. Taken to the station, he is asked by another policeman, “Did you hit the policeman?” and he responds, “Yes,” because autistics think literally and are honest. He is then asked, “Did you mean to hurt the policeman?”, and he says “No.” Yes, he hit the policeman, but he never intended to hurt the policeman – he wanted to escape the sudden sensory input. Same with Zakh.

What does this show? This case is another sad case in point of the unfortunate decline in special education across America. While we promote equal opportunity and awareness of disabilities, we neglect to give our teachers appropriate training on interaction with students with learning differences. While we give lip service to better accommodations for students with disabilities, we don’t know how to serve these members of our communities.

It is true that some special needs students do need to be placed in separate schools or adjunct classrooms dedicated to special education; however, there are many students on the autism spectrum who can and should be placed in mainstream classrooms, full-time or part-time as appropriate, with proper and necessary support systems. That’s why an IEP, individualized education plan, is mandated under federal law.

And no matter where you have placed a special needs student, it is our moral and legal obligation to provide him with an appropriate education, and equal opportunity to learn and succeed. Equal opportunity does not necessarily mean equal curriculum, or equal teaching style, or equal services and time invested. There are people who say that we are pandering to the lowest denominator in our public schools, that we slow down the classroom to the pace of the slowest learning student. There are others who say that gifted programs are elitist and detrimental to students without the gifted label. To these, I say each and every student, gifted, mainstream, or special education, needs to be provided with an appropriate level of education.

This is not what Fort Smith school district has done. In fact, I have stumbled across information suggesting that this particular school district has a history of providing poor supports if any to special needs students and those with disabilities. That is appalling. A onetime incident like this one is in itself awful and a terrible representation of our failure to educate our children, but repeated and similar incidents suggest a pattern of disturbing conduct and policies. (For those of you who, like me, are concerned about reliable sources and citations, I honestly don’t remember where this information came from, but there were exactly three corroborating sources).

It is time that our nation steps up to defend the rights of all students to a free and appropriate public education (FAPE). It is time that we take a moral stand, a clear stand, on this issue so that cases like this one do not happen again. Legislation currently in review in the US Congress is demonstrative of the beginning of a wave of action – HR4247, the Prevent Harmful Restraint and Seclusion in Schools Act, an act “to prevent and reduce the use of physical restraint and seclusion in schools, and for other purposes”, is a bipartisan piece of legislation being considered in the House and Senate. The two primary sponsors are George Miller (D – CA) and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R – WA), and this legislation has also been sponsored by key disability organizations, educational organizations, and the National Teachers Union.

So I’ve been talking about taking action. What can you do? Send letters and postcards to the prosecutor, judge, and school officials in Arkansas urging them to drop charges. Call the national news stations (I did so this week, so the more people who call, the more interest they might take in the story) about Zakh Price. Call your legislators, your US Representatives and Senators, and urge them to support HR4247 so that there won’t be another Zakh Price. HR4247 can’t be passed in time to help Zakh, but it can be passed so that generations of students with disabilities can avoid unfortunate situations.

What else can you do? Begin discussions in your community about how your schools can better serve all students. Spread awareness of these problems – Zakh’s story is not the only incident of disregard for special needs students’ rights. Blog about it. Work with local lawmakers and schools to implement better policies directed toward educational reform. God only knows our country needs it.

Works Referenced

Note: You can also google “Zakhqurey Price” and you will find upwards of 150 blog posts, but almost no news coverage. These are the sites which I read before writing this article. There may be others where I got some information, but if they are not included and you know which site contains the information, simply send me a link and I will add it to this page. I also chose not to format these citations in proper and exact MLA, Turabian, or APA, because I didn’t want to look up the proper format; however I provided the information typically included in a citation where available.

Fort Smith Police Department Arrest Report, dated 2 November 2009, retrieved 27 January 2010 from Rescue Post

Prevent Harmful Restraint and Seclusion in Schools Act full text

Reynolds, Carole and Vince Steele. “The Zakh Appeal”.

Caraballo, Amy. Autism Women’s Network. “Zakhqurey Price and the Danger of Incarcerating Our Youth”, dated 7 January 2010, retrieved 8 January 2010.

Debbaudt, Dennis. Autism, Advocates and Law Enforcement Professionals: Recognizing and Reducing Risk Situations for People With Autism Spectrum Disorders. Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2001.

Ditz, Liz. I Speak of Dreams. “Update on Zakhquery Price’s Case: ASAN Action Alert”, dated 6 January 2010, retrieved 8 January 2010.

Emily. A Life Less Ordinary. “Zakhqurey (Zakh) Price and the system.”, dated 13 January 2010, retrieved 14 January 2010.

Hansen, Robin. The Examiner. “Fifth grade autistic boy charged with a felony”, dated 30 December 2009, retrieved 10 January 2010.

Mitchell, Jonathan. Autism Gadfly. “Zakhqurey Price: More inconsistencies from Ari Ne’eman?”, dated 6 January 2010, retrieved 17 January 2010.

Rosenberg, Squid D’Artagno. Squidalicious. “Please Help Zakhqurey Price, Please Help Him Now”, dated 10 January 2010, retrieved 30 January 2010.

Stagliano, Kim. Age of Autism. “Why Would a Principal Call the Police to Arrest a Special Needs 11 Year Old?”, dated 16 January 2010, retrieved 30 January 2010.

The Autism News. “11 year old Autistic boy, IQ of 68, charged with Felonious Assault”, dated 10 January 2010, retrieved 30 January 2010.

The New Republic. “Zakh Price: Cry Shame!”, dated 10 January 2010, retrieved 30 January 2010.

Wombles, Kimberly. Respect for Infinite Diversity. “Updating Zakh Price Coverage Across the Blogosphere”, updated 16 January 2010, retrieved 30 January 2010.