The Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, Massachusetts tortures children and adults with disabilities and calls it treatment. Any students from New York City should be removed once and for all.

I enrolled my son Andre at the Judge Rotenberg Center thinking he would be loved and taken care of. Instead, the staff at JRC tied him to a board and shocked him for 7 hours because he refused to take off his coat. He screamed for help the entire time. When I arrived to see him, he was in a comatose state and was transferred to the hospital where he was diagnosed with catatonia post traumatic stress disorder. He has never completely recovered from it.

This is happening to other students with severe disabilities. The JRC is the only place in the world that specializes in delivering extreme pain as a behavioral treatment for autistic individuals and delinquent youths, and non-painful methods exist elsewhere in the world for the same type of student population. This is an inhumane practice that the United Nations considers torture.

New York City Department of Education Chancellor Dennis M. Walcott should remove all New York students from JRC immediately.