About a dozen members of the public attended last week’s hearing, which was held in a classroom. One resident interrupted the proceedings to say that there were more people outside, trying to get in. Christopher Powers, a lawyer representing the district, suggested that in order to protect the students’ privacy, those who were not already in the room be excluded. “This isn’t a matter of the district trying to hide anything,” Powers said.

But Wabnik argued that everyone had a right to attend, to hear Weitzman tell her side of the story and to expose the district’s “inadequacies, its mistakes and its failure to support these children …” After a sidebar with the attorneys, the hearing officer ruled that the room would be reconfigured to fit the 10 people who were waiting outside. Parents of the children who were involved are not permitted to be present until they are called to testify, which they are all expected to do in future sessions of the hearing.

Vincent Russo, a special-education coordinator at the middle school and Weitzman’s supervisor, was called as a witness. He recalled learning that Weitzman was using the bathroom attached to her classroom as a time-out room in conversations with her in November 2014, and telling her and her teaching assistants that such actions must stop.

The purpose of a time-out room is to de-escalate dangerous and aggressive behavior by those with developmental disabilities, Russo explained. He added that it is a “heavy-duty” intervention, that there must be continuous monitoring by a trained employee, and that the room must be comfortable and safe. The use of a bathroom is prohibited, but Russo said that, to his knowledge, there are no specifically designated time-out rooms in the district.

Weitzman oversaw a class with an average of six students with various levels of autism at the time, according to Russo. The children could be aggressive at times, he said, and sometimes hurt themselves and others in the classroom, including teachers, assistants and other students.