Shock therapy expense blasted

By: RORY SCHULER

10/05/2006

TAUNTON - In a symbolic stand against a therapy he has long considered inhumane, School Committee member and state Department of Social Services caseworker Alfred W. Baptista Jr. refused to vote to approve payment to the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center.

A 19-year-old city student suffering from autism, mental retardation and extreme fits of violence has been getting treatment and living at the center for the past three years. His mother praises the therapy, which involves supervised, court-ordered, occasional skin-shocks to curb dangerous, erratic behavior.

A mental health professional herself, she credits the center for saving her child's life.

The topic emerged publicly during a finance and law subcommittee meeting last month. Baptista and fellow committee member Richard J. Faulkner are strongly opposed to the district picking up the $18,000 monthly tab - or more than $200,000 a year - for the treatment.

Several other committee members - chairwoman Christine A. Fagan, Josephine B. Almeida and Peter H. Corr - support the mother's decision, which has the approval of Massachusetts courts and the school's special education administrators.

As the committee heard a motion to approve more than $1 million in districtwide bills, the typically rubber-stamped approval was halted by Baptista. He requested the Rotenberg Center bill be separated from the list and voted on separately.

Faulkner seconded the motion.

A motion was needed to pay the Rotenberg bill on its own. After a few moments of silence, Fagan made a motion to pay the bill, seconded by Corr. The motion passed narrowly by voice alone, and Mayor Robert G. Nunes ushered the meeting forward without a roll call vote.

Before the meeting, Baptista passed a scathing 26-page study by New York state to his fellow board members, urging them to read it. The Center is under review by that state's Department of Education. Legislation to outlaw shock therapy in the Bay State has stalled repeatedly.

"There are rapists and murderers in prison," Baptista said. "This kind of therapy can't be used there. You shouldn't be able to do this to children either."

rschuler@tauntongazette.com