The mother of an 11-year-old boy with autism has sued Southeastern Cooperative Educational Programs for $150 million, claiming employees of the special education provider mistreated him in a Virginia Beach classroom and contributed to his 2024 death.
SECEP employees confined Josh Sikes, who had autism and limited verbal ability, within a “makeshift classroom prison” made from furniture at Pembroke Elementary School in Virginia Beach, according to a suit filed Friday in Norfolk Circuit Court. Sikes was injured during the October 2024 incident, which was not reported to his mother, Julie Xirau, the suit says.
Days after the incident, Sikes died at home in Virginia Beach of natural causes from complications of a seizure disorder, the state medical examiner’s office found last year.
Virginia Beach Police, Child Protective Services and SECEP officials investigated allegations that Josh’s treatment in the classroom may have contributed to his death or caused a bruise discovered by a caregiver. No criminal charges have been filed.
Laura Armstrong, SECEP’s executive director, wrote via email that she would not comment on potential litigation or personnel matters. SECEP was created in 1978 by a consortium of public school divisions and serves students with medical, emotional, and behavioral challenges in the cities of Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Suffolk, and Franklin and the counties of Isle of Wight and Southampton. It serves about 1,500 students with an annual budget of $60.2 million.
The complaint also names four SECEP employees as defendants: Theresa Renvyle, Carole Parker, Nicole Smrz, and Katherine Wynne. Parker declined to comment, and the three others did not respond to messages.
SECEP employees secluded Josh Sikes from other students when he displayed disruptive behavior, according to a SECEP internal report. The seclusion was designed to calm the child.
The lawsuit claims that on Oct. 31, 2024, Josh was kept in a seclusion area for more than two hours, during which time he struck his head. The suit says SECEP employees did not call for a nurse and sent the child home, telling his mother nothing of the confinement – only that he had been misbehaving.
The suit says Josh had struck his head on the “exposed and unpadded” floor while in the area. The complaint calls the area “an impermissible form of seclusion” which denied him his educational rights.
Sikes died in the early hours of Nov. 3 at his home in Virginia Beach.
“What I think about the practices that were going on in this Virginia Beach classroom and what these professionals employed by SECEP were doing – I don’t see how it passes any muster,” Matthew Moynihan, an attorney representing Xirau, said in an interview.
In May, an investigation by the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO, citing an internal SECEP report, described how Josh was sometimes confined to a corner area of a classroom at Pembroke Elementary School during outbursts.
The area included bookshelves strapped together, according to the report, where a student could be enclosed on all four sides. VCIJ’s report included a photograph of the area that was taken by a SECEP employee.
SECEP oversees two Beach locations with authorized seclusion rooms, but Pembroke Elementary does not have one. Last year, Armstrong said an “impromptu” seclusion area is not allowed in any classroom.
Multiple investigations probed the treatment and death of Josh Sikes.
In September, police reviewed their findings with prosecutors under a code section about potential cruelty and injuries to children, according to Macie Allen, a spokesperson for Virginia Beach Commonwealth’s Attorney Colin Stolle. The office “determined there is absolutely no evidence to support this charge against anyone employed at SECEP,” Allen told VCIJ via email.
CPS determined that an allegation of physical abuse made anonymously against Julie Xirau was unfounded, according to a letter sent to her in August. Xirau and Moynihan previously said the complaint against her was false.
In November, CPS wrote to Sikes’ mother about their investigation of alleged mistreatment of her son. CPS said it found evidence of neglect by “an unknown abuser.”
The letter also said that after a thorough review, a claim of physical abuse by SECEP employees was unfounded.
The lawsuit filed Friday comes as the Virginia Beach School Board is poised to consider a new policy related to restraint and seclusion. Studies have found that seclusion is used disproportionately with special education students, and the practice has been banned in some districts.
Last summer, a Virginia Beach advisory committee, which includes parents of children with special needs, formally recommended the Beach school district end the use of seclusion.
The issue is scheduled to be discussed on Tuesday at a meeting of the Virginia Beach School Board.
Reach John-Henry Doucette at john.doucette@whro.org.