4 Fort Bend ISD staffers fired for abusing 6-year-old girl with autism, district confirms

FORT BEND COUNTY, Texas (KTRK) -- Four staffers at Jan Schiff Elementary have been fired for allegedly abusing a 6-year-old, verbally-challenged girl with autism, Fort Bend ISD confirms.

Daniel Hall said the school allowed him to view surveillance footage, which he said shows a special education teacher and multiple teacher's aides manhandling his daughter, Trinity, in front of her classmates on April 14.

"They visibly seen my daughter's teacher pull her hair and pulled her hair hard enough to where my daughter's beads came out her head," Hall said.

Hall said the staffers also mocked his daughter and threw away her lunch as punishment.

Eyewitness News wasn't able to review the footage.

"Also on camera, there's literally teachers encouraging other students to cause harm to my daughter," Hall said.

"They babies, they don't know any better," Trinity's aunt, Ashley Sneed, said. "It's bad enough already. They have a disability. They shouldn't have to go through nothing like this."

In response to Eyewitness News' questions, Fort Bend ISD confirmed it fired a teacher on April 29 and three paraprofessionals on May 4 for "inappropriate disciplinary actions."

It's the same day Hall said his daughter's principal notified him of the abuse, which he said only came to light after other students complained about the same staffers.

"I think they should go to jail, you know, 'cause they shouldn't be a teacher," Trinity's grandmother, Charlotte Sneed, said. "They shouldn't even try to handle kids if they don't know how to take care of kids. That's what their job is for."

Hall said he filed a report with the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office, which didn't respond to repeated requests about the status of its investigation on Monday.

Hall said investigators should look into more than just the events of April 14.

"This was only one day of footage, so they can go back 90 days and review the footage," Hall said.

Last month, Eyewitness News spoke to the mother of a six-year-old autistic boy who she said was manhandled by staff at Burton Elementary.

Fort Bend ISD told us that week that multiple staffers at Burton had been fired after other students came forward with similar allegations.