Behavior in the classroom

[Guest guest]

Our daughter is in a multi-age, self contained autism classroom in a public school. She's 6 and was in this same classroom last year. This year there is a new student with serious behavior issues: screaming, running, hitting, etc...this new child smacked our daughter in the face today (reportedly unprovoked) and when my husband came to the school to pick our daughter up, he saw the new student having a full on screaming meldown in the hallway of the school. According to the teacher, the child has hit other children in the classroom as well. Our concerns are for our daughter's safety and for her ability to learn in the school setting. She has her own behavior issues and has made great strides in the past year with improving her behavioral issues. She is very distractible and will not be able to concentrate when another child is screaming / throwing a

fit in the classroom. My husband expressed our concerns to the teacher today and she recommended that we talk with the prinicipal. We have been down that road before: talking to a principal about concerns / issues in the classroom and we were met with opposition and retribution on the part of that principal. This is a good school with good teachers and good principal and we want to handle this situation correctly.

How can I find out our daughter's rights as they relate to the rights of other children in the classroom? Our daughter has a right to be in this classroom and so does this other child but how do those two balance out? This is an autism classroom - not a behavior disorder classroom - and I know there are some blurry lines there but where do the rights of the other children come into play?

If you were in this situation, where would you start? What would you do?

Thanks for any help!!