Special Thanks to Terri Mauro at About.com for shining a spotlight on this. I took this directly from her post:
Site of the Day: Petition to Tell the St. Lucie County School District to Respect the Rights of Students with Disabilities
Friday June 12, 2009
What It Is: An online petition in protest of the decision by Alex Barton’s school district to allow the teacher who had her kindergartners vote him out of class to keep her contract and tenure.
Who’s In Charge: The petition was posted by Kristina Chew, who originally blogged about the case at AutismVox and now writes at Autism – Change.org.
Why It’s Worth Checking Out: Though a court recently upheld the district’s sanctions against the teacher, Wendy Portillo, the school district has now reversed them itself, amid a huge wave of support for the teacher from parents in the district, and harassment of Alex’s mother and brother. While it’s understandable that even good teachers make mistakes, the fact that there has been no meaningful apology here, no acknowledgment by the teacher and the community that the teacher’s actions were harmful to all the students in that classroom, and a growing atmosphere of blame toward Alex and, particularly, his mother is something that we as parents of children with special needs have to speak out about. It may not make much of a difference in St. Lucie, but it’s a contribution to the larger conversation about bullying and abuse in schools.
Where to Start: Add your name to the online petition.
And here’s another post where the teacher explains her side of the story.
And please comment here – what do you think of this and what do you think we should do about it?
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