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Aides Say Special Ed Teacher Hit Students With Board

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By TIFFANY LANKES

Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Published: February 11, 2009

SARASOTA - - The children in Diana O'Neill's special education class started their mornings like many other students.

After breakfast, the children settled into their desks to review the calendar.

But O'Neill's students are severely developmentally disabled. They cannot speak or feed themselves, much less tell the difference between January and February.

So when O'Neill asked them what month it was, they could not respond. That, classroom aide Tamara Cooke said, is when O'Neill would go to her desk, pull out a board and hit the students over the head, causing them to whimper and cry.

"She just picked it up with both of her hands and hit them over the head with it," Cooke testified in court Tuesday in the first day of O'Neill's trial.

"Whenever we did a real circle time, someone would get hit with something."

O'Neill, 46, taught special education at Venice Elementary School before her February 2008 arrest. She is charged with four counts of child abuse.

Attorneys from both sides first presented their opening arguments, laying the groundwork for a case that will largely come down to the word of the aides against that of O'Neill.

Prosecutors cast O'Neill as a veteran teacher who used her position of authority in the classroom to abuse her students and intimidate her co-workers.

"These are children who have no power," prosecutor Dawn Buff said. "They are the most vulnerable. This is a case about power, and the abuse of that power."

O'Neill's lead attorney, Denis deVlaming, countered that the aides -- who have significantly less training -- mistook acceptable techniques for working with disabled students for abuse.

DeVlaming said O'Neill was a stern but dedicated teacher who taught her students to walk, communicate and feed themselves.

"This trial really is going to be about teaching techniques and the philosophy of teaching these kids who are really never going to be normal in the sense of the word we know normal," deVlaming said.

The mothers of the four children O'Neill is accused of abusing took the witness stand first, with family members bringing their children into the courtroom to introduce to jurors.

Prosecutors then called Cooke.

She described a disorganized classroom where O'Neill rarely followed her planned daily activities and often left the aides alone with the children for hours.

Cooke also recounted the times she saw O'Neill repeatedly strike students on the head with objects, feed them so roughly their mouths bled, kick them and push them.

The aide described one time when O'Neill put a student in a body sock -- a tight-fitting clothe used to comfort children with sensory issues -- covered her face and pushed her to the ground.

The child hit her head repeatedly on the floor and on the base of a swing as she struggled to free herself.

As she "got closer to that base she kept, wham, wham, whamming her head," Cooke said. "I'll never forget her eyes bulging. She hated it so bad."

Buff had Cooke demonstrate what she said O'Neill did to the children, including striking the prosecutor on the head with a board, causing a loud thump that elicited gasps from courtroom observers.

When Buff asked her if that was how hard she saw O'Neill hit the children, Cooke told her sometimes it was even harder. Buff also asked Cooke to step down from the stand to wrap her in the body sock.

The prosecutor also questioned Cooke about why the aides waited months before coming forward if the abuse was so disturbing.

Cooke told the jury that she was afraid of O'Neill, and afraid of losing her job if no one believed her.

The aide said she also struggled because she liked O'Neill, and considered the veteran teacher a friend.

"I didn't want anything to happen to her," Cooke said. "I just wanted her to stop hurting the kids."

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