A father posts a YouTube video in protest after secretly recorded teachers bullying his 10-year-old son, who has autism


After Stuart Chaifetz was told that his "sweet and non-violent" 10-year-old son Akian was acting violently at his New Jersey school -- including physical assaults against his teacher and teacher's aide -- he decided to investigate.

Akian has autism, as do the rest of the students in the class. This prevented him from being able to explain to his father if anything had been happening to him at school. Chaifetz decided the only way to find out what was behind the outbursts was to send his boy to school wearing a hidden audio recorder.

While Akian's teacher and colleagues denied anything out of the ordinary was happening, the recordings Chaifetz listened to told a different story.

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"You would never get away with talking about your alcohol abuse the night before if this was a mainstream class," Chaifetz says in the YouTube video (below). "And that's the point, isn't it? They knew none of those boys could go home and tell their parents that the person who ran that class was under the influence of alcohol and was throwing up."

As the video continues, Chaifetz introduces the viewer to the voice of his son's teacher, "Kelly", and her classroom aide, "Jodi".

"Who are you talking to, nobody?" Kelly asked Akian, who often talks to himself. "Knock it off," Jodi says sharply.

Upset, Akian begins to cry. "Go ahead and scream because guess what? You're going to get nothing until your mouth is shut," one of the teachers snaps. "Shut your mouth."

The abuse escalates as the video progresses, with Jodi saying, "Oh Akian, you are a bastard."

"She betrayed my son and caused him great pain. If some union rule or HR regulation has allowed her to keep her job, then the law needs to be changed so that the next time a teacher bullies a child, especially one with special needs, they will be immediately fired. For me to do nothing would mean I was treating my son with as much disrespect as they had," he added.

Chaifetz said that he made the heartbreaking video after the Cherry Hill Public School District officials listened to the recordings and decided not to fire the teacher, but rather move her to a different classroom. The aide, Jodi, was fired however. Chaifetz is calling for both the teacher and aide to publicly apologize and for the teacher to resign from her position at Horace Mann Elementary School.