Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Zero Tolerance strikes again...

Hey... some of you have been following this on Facebook, but I feel the need to share...

Two weeks ago (8/19) my 12-yr-old son Michael had a confrontation with a teacher. He was trying to turn in a "packet" -- several papers stapled together. She refused to accept it, saying that he needed to do more work on it. (This may well be true, but he was very upset about it, feeling he'd put a lot of work into it already.) He put it on her desk, visibly upset. She picked it up and handed it back. He lost it, and was thrusting the papers at her, trying to get her to take them. In the process, the papers touched her chin.

Sounds bad, right? Terrible behavior from my son, but he has autism so it's not inexplicable. Unacceptable, but understandable, if you see what I mean. We've been trying for the last six months or so to work with the school to help him better deal with these frustrations, and to help teachers to deal with him. The week before we'd specifically talked about teachers not getting caught up in arguments with Michael.

The exact sequence after that is unclear to me, but it ended with Michael in the vice-principal's office, who called me to come get him. Michael was still upset, and had been crying. The VP then informed me that he's been suspended for five school days. For assault. The official school write-up, which we received later, said that he "agressively" shoved a paper in her face. Oh, the horror.

But wait, it gets better. The school has a police officer on campus. He wrote Michael up and told us that charges were pending. The form he originally mailed to us said the charge would be "possession of a weapon on school grounds." To refresh your memory, the "weapon" in question was a piece of paper. I asked, did Michael actually touch the teacher. He said no, but if a student were to, say, swing a baseball bat, that would be assault just as much as punching. But it's a piece of paper, I cried! I could almost hear him shrug.

The officer wrote up a police report and filed a petition in juvenile court -- that means Michael was formally charged. It turns out that the "weapon" line on the form was a mistake; the officer had copied/pasted from another form, which was about a different child who had brought a weapon (the mind boggles; could he perhaps have had a pencil?!?). No, Michael was actually charged with "assault on a government offical."

Isn't that much better?

Yeah, not really. When the police officer told me that on the phone, I said, "Oh, that's so much better" -- then I had to explain I was being sarcastic.

Late Friday we got another notice in the mail, from the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) requesting our participation in a conference downtown. The juvenile court counselor will interview us, "evaluate" the complaint and decide whether this has to go to an actual court or if it could be dealt with in some other way. That interview was originally scheduled for this afternoon, but we've been advised not to go to any meeting like that without a lawyer, and we haven't got a lawyer yet, so I called to reschedule.

The police offer advised that we take something along to prove that Michael has autism. You know, just in case it's relevant at all.

So, for the past week, I have been scouring the web, and living on my cell phone, trying to contact anyone who could help us. The Governor's office has a group called "Disability Rights NC" -- they told us to call the autism society. I called the autism society -- they suggested I call the Disability Rights NC people. A friend of a friend does student advocacy for a living, and she's been offering advice. I've staked out the pediatrician's office to get something about his autism in writing. I've visited his school several times, gathering paperwork.

The pastoral staff of our church invited us to a meeting, to come up with new guidelines for Michael's church attendance. That wasn't fun, but they are helping us with the whole fiasco. The director of the church's special needs ministry is keeping in close touch, also working the phones, etc.

If it weren't for the bills piling up, it'd be a good thing that I'm currently unemployed, because chasing all this around has been a pretty hefty time commitment. Did I mention that I hate making phone calls? Somehow that hasn't been a factor this past week.

Up until now, we've pretty much gone along with whatever the school personnel suggested. That's worked out real well, hasn't it? As far as we can tell, they haven't even been doing the little bit they'd agreed to. We're gearing up for a meeting with them (Sept 16th) to basically tear up what they've got and write up a new plan. I just know they're going to whine about going to the extra effort. Before, I'd have been sympathetic. Now I'm thinking more along the lines of "suck it up, people; you only have to deal with this for a small part of the school day; Michael is dealing with his autism 24/7."

Before this, I was laid back, cooperative, laissez-faire. My husband has given me a new nickname: Mama Bear.

PJ

Pam, this is terrible. Is the Sept 16th meeting for a new IEP? For a teacher to do this to a special needs child is just not acceptable. Government schools are just getting too unreasonable.
Good luck, keep us informed.
Sue

Yes, Sue, we'll be writing a new IEP. The existing one either is inadequate or not followed or both. I'm guessing both. In the meantime I'm trying hard to be polite to school personnel. No sense ticking them off prematurely, and we're going to have to be able to work with them.

PJ

{{{{PAM}}}}

Go Mama Bear!

Keep us posted!

Good for you for advocating for your kiddo!

Carol

I'm sorry that you had to put so much effort into this ...

I can't believe they make a mountain out of a molehill. Don't they have anything else to do?

I second Carol:
Go Mama Bear!

We <3 Mama Bear!

I stand by what I said before: If Michael is going to be charged with assault, give him a bat and let him assault someone so at least the charge is legit. I vote for the police officer.

He is very lucky to have you as his mom!

Go, Pam!

The school staff are idiots.

I hope you can find a lawyer, not only one who specializes in juvenile cases, but one who specializes in disability law. It's time for you to go on the offensive.

Good luck.

What a bunch of idiots...but thanks for sharing; my two best friends are psychologists at an autistic school outside Boston, so I'm always trying to keep up with all the good, bad, and ugly of it. Do you mind if I repeat the story to them? The names can be changed to protect the innocent. Is this just a regular school, i.e. no extra learning programs for kids with any disabilities?

JD

I wish you lived up here, Pam. I'd be happy to walk you through this. Unfortunately, criminal law is different up here - as are the programs available.

Finding a lawyer who can walk you through it is a good idea. They should know who to talk to who will be reasonable - and what programs or other options are available to you.

As for outrageous charges, they happen all the time. I saw a person charged with assault with a weapon for hitting someone with a pillow. *dangerous weapon there, all right*

Sorry you're having to go through this. Try, though, to hold your temper. You're more likely to get people to be reasonable if you don't point out to them how crazy they are (I know it's tough. I struggle with it on a daily basis )

ML

As a teacher, I think I should comment on this.

Personally I would not accept having a piece of paper shoved up my face. I would report it to the principal, and I would expect the principal to ask the parents of the kid who had committed the offence to come to school for information and didscussion. I would expect the parents to be informed of what had happened, and I would expect a discussion and an agreement between the parents and the school about what was to be done to prevent this kind of behaviour in the future, and what was to be done if the kid stepped out of line again. I would most certainly expect to be present myself and explain what the situation had been like to me.

I would expect to be asked if there was anything I myself could do to prevent incidences like this from happening again. For example, if the student insisted on handing in a paper, should I accept it even if I thought that I couldn't give it a passing grade? I would certainly be willing to do that, but only if my accepting it didn't mean that I was automatically implying to the student that his work was okay.

Alternatively, if I could only accept the paper if I was ready to pass it, then I should specify what the student needed to improve to get a passing grade. For example, he might need to add more background. Or he might need to consider the facts he had already presented and formulate a conclusion. Or he might need to make a full list of the sources he had used to find his information. Maybe his grammar and vocabulary needed improvement. Maybe he simply hadn't written a sufficiently long text to pass, if, for example, I had told him to write at least a thousand words.

But in any case, I would have to tell him what exactly he had to keep working on in order to pass. It is not enough for a teacher to tell a student that his work just isn't good enough.

Getting the police involved in a case like this is obviously totally ridiculous. It solves nothing, but makes the whole thing worse.

You should of course stand by your son, Pam. Hopefully, the school is willing to work with your son, not against him. But the school is right to take action if your son becomes aggressive, even if it just means that he shoves a paper in a teacher's face. But getting the police involved is totally contra-productive.

You and the school must cooperate, and the goal must be that your son should do as well as possible academically. But your son, the teachers at the school, his classmates and you yourself should also be as happy as possible when your son is at school.

Ann

Once an autistic child is upset, there is no reasoning with them. Couldn't the teacher have taken the packet, then after the child calms down try talking to him? Getting into a shoving match with him is not the answer. You need to find yourself a good backup support system Pam because I hate to say this, but it will probably only get worse the higher in school he gets.
Sue

Jen, feel free to pass it on. It's a normal middle school; Michael's been mainstreamed since first grade. There's supposed to be support for him, or any other kid with an IEP, but it's mostly a school for "normal" kids.

ML, I am trying to hold my temper. Lashing out would be so, so satisfying... but I know it would just make everything worse. So I just rant to friends, and behave myself with the school.

Ann, you're right, what he did was unacceptable. Nobody deserves having papers shoved in their face, and if Michael were a "normal" kid we'd be reacting very differently. But he's got autism, and that influences so many things. Like Sue says, once a kid with autism is upset, there's no reasoning with them. They can't handle the frustration and verbal skills go right out the window. Talking to them makes everything worse.

We're frustrated that the teacher seemed not to know anything about autism and, deliberately or not, provoked him. It was the school's responsibility, both to Michael and to his teachers, to find a way to work with him effectively. The school set that teacher up for getting paper shoved in her face, by not teaching Michael ways to deal with things, and by not teaching her the best way to handle him. When they act as if they were innocent bystanders and it was all his fault, I see red.

Of course, when I'm infuriated, I can deal with it -- I have experience, I know clearly that losing my temper makes everything worse, I know how to vent to other people to release the tension. Even then, it's not easy, and I'm a lot better at it now than I was 10 years ago. But Michael hasn't got those advantages.

Discipline is sorely needed (training and consequences), but the usual sorts of discipline just don't work. It's almost like punishing a blind kid for not copying off the blackboard. Autism is a lot less obvious, but no less disabling.

By the way, that paper she refused to accept? She has since graded it; he got 80%.

PJ

I hope you get all of this straightened out, Pam. It's definitely unacceptable the way the school is treating this. And that's funny that the paper she said wasn't done got an 80. *shakes head*

The thing with Michael is that he's very very smart in a lot of ways. He's in 7th grade, taking 8th grade algebra, and if he passes the test at the end of the year, he'll get high school credit for it. But he also has a really hard time writing things down. He's got to actually think about so many things that we take for granted -- how much pressure to put on the pencil, how is each letter formed, how is each word spelled, how should the sentence be put together. For most of us, that's automatic. Right now, all I have to do is think of the word I want, and my fingers type it. But it's not automatic for him; he has to consider all those steps at once. Not to mention figure out what the right answer is. He can manage it, but it takes a whole lot of effort, which is totally invisible to most people.

It drove me nuts for years, before I understood the challenge. It'd be like me trying to write something in Russian or Chinese. With someone standing over me telling me to hurry up already. English is Michael's second language, really. But again, just looking at him and talking to him briefly, and none of that is even hinted at.

PJ

Pam, just to make everything clear - I definitely agree with you. The school needs to treat Michael with respect, accept his handicap, and find ways for both the teachers and Michael himself to work around it.

What I meant is that when I read what you wrote, I got the impression that no questions were asked of the teacher. Could she have acted differently? Can she and Michael come to an understanding?

Yes, Michael's behaviour was not acceptable, but neither is the school's attitude. And like you said, Micahel has got a disability. The school, hopefully, hasn't. I get the impression that the school is just blaming Michael for being unable to handle his frustrations. Did the school give him enough help to deal with his problems? Did it give him enough help to succeed academically? Is there any way that Michael could have been allowed to show what he knows without writing it down, if the writing in itself is difficult for him? For example, would it have been easier for him to use a computer? Or could he have an oral exam?

My impression is that your school is not trying to help Michael, just punish him for his failures, and that is NOT acceptable.

Yeah, that's the impression we've got, too. It was getting better this year (all six weeks of it); they've now got a "Behavior Support Teacher" who works with Michael (and other kids with various problems). She's got some good ideas about visual cues for him, and in general, if he's getting overwhelmed, he can excuse himself to her room, which is a quiet place he can get himself back together. She sometimes talks to him about what happened and how he could do it differently next time, which is good... but that approach requires him to fail before starting to teach him how to succeed. There are some obvious disadvantages to that method.

Despite all my whining, in a way I'm glad this happened this way. This incident is so self-evidently ridiculous, but it's illustrated a crying need to fix things. If this hadn't happened, we would probably have gone on until something more serious happened. Next time he might have actually assaulted a teacher, or a classmate. This was a useful wake-up call, with, hopefully, many good results and few bad ones.

PJ

Pam, I've been thinking about this since you first mentioned it, and I'm wondering - I don't know how things work in the US, or in your state, but here in Canada when people run into problems with government-run programs or services they go to their local political representative, who tends to make a couple of phone calls, bang some heads together and get a result. Yes, it's short-circuiting official procedures, which can piss people off a bit, but when official procedures are tying you in knots sometimes it's the only solution.

Would it be possible to contact your local state senator/congressperson/head of the school board (or whoever the appropriate representative might be)?


Wendy

That's an interesting idea, Wendy. Not sure who I'd contact but I can look into it. Thanks

PJ

Whatever happens with the court case, I am hoping your son can be placed in a different class. He needs a more flexible teacher.

Some teachers should not work with autistic kids. These teachers are not bad people, they may just be new or inexperienced or incapable of giving the extra effort.

There might also be something about that particular class that just isn't a good fit for him. Many years ago I was very upset that my son, who was diagnosed with ADHD, was expelled from a wonderful day care program. But I eventually realized that no matter how excellent the program, it was not a good program for him. Although the conventional wisdom was that ADHD kids need structure, we placed him into a more relaxed day care environment and it was a success.

I had reason to remember this last year, when an inexperienced friend of mine grabbed an autistic student by the arms to keep him from running out the door. Another adult had just told him he could not do what he wanted to do, and he was frustrated. He attacked my friend and severely scratched her face. Because this was an optional program, not school, he was asked to leave for violating the behavioral contract.

I had been working with the same student, and I have a little more experience with autistic kids. (One of my friends has a husband with Asperger's, and all her kids have it to some degree.) I don't think the situation was really the child's fault; I think the real problem was that the program was not appropriate for his cognitive level and the amount of stimulation that he needed. Everyone tried with the best of intentions, but it was the wrong placement for him.

It is possible that this class was not the right fit for your son, and no one wanted to admit it--it would make the teacher look bad if she brought it up. Now, with the disciplinary action, she can make sure any "blame" is pushed onto someone else--your son. For her, it's a matter of surviving the bureaucracy. It is for you, too, but you need to know the game that you are playing. And it helps to have someone who knows the game to guide you through. That's why I recommended a disability lawyer.

Pam, I wonder if there are resources here you haven't found yet: Yellow Pages for Kids with Disabilities in North Carolina. There are advocacy groups and lawyers there, among other organisations. I wonder if you'd be able to find a lawyer who might agree to help pro bono or on a reduced-fee basis?

I haven't read the whole listing, but this organisation looks interesting (not sure how close you are to Charlotte):

Council for Children's Rights
Brett Loftis
601 East 5th Street, Suite 510
Charlotte, NC 28202
(704) 372-7961; (704) 372-5941 (fax)
Email: info@cfcrights.org
Web: http://www.cfcrights.org
Non-profit legal and advocacy organization for children. Areas: Special Education, School Discipline, Mental Health, Custody, Delinquency, Abuse/ Neglect. Primarily serving Charlotte metro area.


And this:

Disability Rights NC
Intake Specialist
2626 Glenwood Ave., Suite 550
Raleigh, NC 27608
(877) 235-4210; (919) 856-2195; (919) 856-2244 (fax)
Email: info@disabilityrightsnc.org
Web: http://www.disabilityrightsnc.org/
Protection /Advocacy Agency evaluates and accepts cases free of charge based on current priorities in areas of special education, abuse/neglect and community inclusion.

- accepts cases free of charge looks promising!


Wendy