Former Guiding Hands staffers arraigned in boy’s death, could face prison time
The three El Dorado County school staffers facing involuntary manslaughter charges for the 13-year-old autistic boy who died in their care were arraigned Wednesday in Placerville and will return for a January court date.
School site administrator Cindy Keller, Guiding Hands principal Starranne Meyers and Kimberly Wohlwend, the teacher accused of being among those who restrained 13-year-old Max Benson, return Jan. 7 to El Dorado Superior Court, Judge Mark Ralphs ordered with the condition they do not teach school or daycare.
If convicted, Keller, Meyers and Wohlwend face up to four years in state prison, said prosecutors, who took the added step of criminally charging the now-defunct school in Benson’s death “so people couldn’t hide behind the entity,” El Dorado County Deputy District Attorney Joe Alexander said following the brief hearing.
Keller and Meyers are no longer affiliated with the school. Wohlwend, for months after Max’s death, was employed as a special education teacher at Pollock Pines’ Sierra Ridge Elementary School. Pollock Pines Elementary School District officials confirmed her employment, but said little else in a written email, adding that “the safety and security of our students and staff is always our primary concern.”
The troubled school in El Dorado Hills took in special needs students from school districts across the region before Max’s death. State and local investigations into how students were treated at the campus forced authorities to shut down the school.
Guiding Hands’ attorney Linda Parisi offered a brief statement to reporters outside court after the hearing: “They’ve dedicated literally their entire lives to working with special students,” she said, calling the three, “a treasure to the community of special needs students.”
Parisi’s words echoed those of Guiding Hands parents and former staffers who joined the educators-turned-defendants in the courtroom and spoke with assembled reporters outside.
Cindy Brown’s children attended the school. According to state records, she was listed in 2015 as the Chief Executive Office for the school. She volunteered at the campus and a daughter was an instructional aide. She said Guiding Hands “took the hard kids,” the ones whose emotional and physical disabilities were too challenging for mainstream schools.
“This was a tragedy. A child’s life was lost. But all those kids’ lives were changed’ when Guiding Hands closed,” Brown of Garden Valley said.
A separate civil lawsuit filed against Guiding Hands also alleges Wohlwend restrained Max with the help of other teachers.
The suit, filed Nov. 7 on behalf of Max’s family, names Meyers, Keller and Wohlwend and also names Davis Joint Unified, Elk Grove Unified, Folsom Cordova Unified, and Amador County Unified school districts – districts which contracted with Guided Hands for education services – along with California Department of Education and special education administrative bodies in Yolo and Amador counties.
The suit also states Handle with Care, a New York based agency that specializes in behavior management and crisis intervention training, failed to instruct staff on the known dangers in using restraints on children.
Guiding Hands was removed from a list of non-public school providers for special needs students, according to court documents, but families in Elk Grove Unified, Folsom Cordova Unified, Amador County Unified and Davis Joint Unified were not informed. Had they known, the suit says, they would not have enrolled their children in the school – including Max. Three other students named in the lawsuit were “repeatedly battered and assaulted by teachers,” according to court documents. The state investigated the school multiple times prior to Max’s death.
The civil suit alleges Wohlwend held Max’s upper body while other staff members Betty Morgan, Le’Mon Thomas and Jill Watson, took turns holding Max’s legs down and observed. Max asked to use the bathroom, was denied and subsequently urinated on himself and vomited before becoming unresponsive.
Max was restrained face down for one hour and 45 minutes for allegedly spitting at a classmate, one of his behaviors when he was not receiving adult support, the lawsuit states. Wohlwend and Morgan “performed a ‘takedown’ maneuver ... holding Max’s hands behind his back, then dropping him to his knees, and rolling him over into a prone restraint,” according to the civil suit. The state Department of Education said in 2018 the school staff used “an amount of force which is not reasonable and necessary under the circumstances.”
The suit states that the staff “imposed a prolonged prone restraint on Max and failed to render competent medical aid to Max,” and did not conduct CPR in a timely fashion.
The suit alleges staff members took no steps to ensure that Max was released from a hold, nor did they check on his medical condition and that it took 10 minutes for a school nurse to arrive after Guided Hands staff called for help. Paramedics weren’t called until nearly a half-hour after Max lost consciousness, plaintiffs allege in the lawsuit.
Max was declared brain dead the following day at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento.
A vigil for Max will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday at the El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office.
This story was changed on Nov. 15 to clarify Cindy Brown’s role with the school.
This story was originally published November 13, 2019 at 5:38 PM.
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