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…