Respect my son!

author : Jeff Berryhill topic : special education students | public schools

by Jeff Berryhill

How a father is challenging the unfair treatment of special education students in our public schools

Colton Daline is a student with special needs who has attended a number of schools in the Puyallup School District. Like many students with such conditions, Colton’s school experience has been marked by numerous hardships. These include harassment from other students, a generic curriculum, inadequate time with specialists, and the failure on the part of the school to provide appropriate services and learning devices to enhance educational experience. In addition, the school has repeatedly failed to satisfy the wishes of his parents for developing his academic tools and kept a number of disturbing issues away from their awareness. This has included Colton’s participa-tion in a compulsory janitorial labor program, required of many students with special needs.

The following are excerpts from an interview I conducted with Colton’s father, Bernie. He has been a tireless advocate on behalf of his son and other students with spe-cial needs. Bernie and the entire family have been met with stiff resistance by the Puyallup School District in their struggle to improve the situation for their son. Neverthe-less, they are determined to continue their battle in the hopes that children with special needs will begin to be treated fairly and no family will have to endure the torment they have experienced thus far.

Let’s begin with a brief discussion about your son Colton. What are his areas of interests or hobbies?

He likes anything with art, working on the computer, really anything he can build. He likes to be creative, to invent things. As a child he always had the ability to fix broken toys, making new toys out of broken toys rather than throwing them away. He is a heck of an artist, loves to draw. He likes to develop animation scenes, putting them to-gether like story lines. He loves astronomy, anything about space and animals. Colton just loves science.

Were there adequate attempts made by the school to cultivate these talents?

No, none whatsoever. The school led us to believe that he was placed in an appropriate environment for his disability. However, they placed him in what is called a general developmentally delayed (DD) classroom. In these classrooms students are taught basic skills, like using the restroom, skills that are very elementary for functioning. Given that my son has difficulty speaking, a disability the school was unfamiliar with, this presented a number of complications. Placing him amongst students with a variety of needs and neglecting to pay attention to the specific needs he has proved insufficient. As a result of being placed in a setting that was not responsive to his needs, Colton began to mirror the range of behaviors exhibited in the classroom, ultimately stunting his academic development further. They did not provide an academically based cur-riculum for these kids, which resulted in a failure to find his areas of interest or to develop his skills as a student. In fact, we’ve suggested on a number of occasions that it would be helpful to our son if they could acquire some graphic arts computer programs and share them with our son to accentuate his talent in that area. But they ne-glected to do this.

Let’s talk about the conditions and circumstances Colton was subjected to. What were some of the activities and experiences he encountered?

Colton, much like other special needs students, got all insufficient amount of one-on-one specialist attention. This caused a number of struggles because direct attention in speech development could prove very helpful for our son. We had requested an increased level of speech therapy, and each time the school failed to satisfy our requests. In addition we often wondered why Colton never received any homework. His seventh grade teacher responded to such an inquiry by saying that she was unaware that he was capable of doing homework. The school failed to be attentive of the students’ specific needs, treating the students in a uniform fashion.

Our son also was the recipient of constant harassment and teasing. Prior to the eighth grade my wife had a meeting with the staff at the new junior high school where they promised they would supervise him continually and put an end to the harassment. The behavior nevertheless continued. We even found that another child had poured hot sauce on Colton. The school found that one of his classmates had targeted Colton from the beginning of the school year, yet we were not informed until several months into the school year about the recurring treatment and it appeared very little disciplinary action was being taken to solve the problem.

Another upsetting thing is that the special education students are required by the school to walk around the school grounds collecting trash. This includes used condoms, cigarette butts, and anything found on the school grounds. I approached the staff members at Puyallup High School and informed them that we did not want my son to par-ticipate in such activity. My son however, was involved in this activity, even though it was not included in his Individual Education Plan (IEP). They try to justify this program by saying it is a form of vocational training that prepares the students for future employment. This work includes weeding, washing tables and windows, emptying trash cans, cleaning moss from the sidewalk. The school is blind to the fact that this work is humiliating for the students, as general education students are only required to do this work as a part of disciplinary action. It is wrong to assume that these kids are incapable of doing work aside from collecting trash. What kind of lessons does this teach? Doesn’t this reinforce the assumption that special needs people will be responsible for cleaning up after people in the general population.

Colton soon developed outburst problems from his frustrations and neglect. Teachers often responded by locking him in the time-out room. They ignored his cries to go to the nurse or call home when he was feeling upset. All the specialists knew that ignoring a child with a condition like Colton’s would simply exacerbate his behavioral diffi-culties. In addition, it is against the law to punish a child for behavior associated with their disability. They have called security on him and have threatened to call the police on him in the past.

My son has developed an ulcer due to the anxiety he had about attending school. In addition, my son has required serious rehabilitation to remedy the physical and men-tal problems that have developed as a result of the torment he suffered. I feel some of the impacts will prove irreversible. This is extremely upsetting, especially when you consider the intelligence and promise of my son.

I understand the school failed to disclose serious information about Colton’s experiences and has attempted to keep other information from you as well. Would you like to discuss some of these instances?

At an IEP meeting, where parents and educators work together to construct an educational outlook plan for the student, the district is supposed to supply procedural safe-guards to ensure that if you don’t agree with the program developed for your child it can be changed. We were not given a copy of these safeguards for a number of years. When the issue arose about harassment, the school began to issue the procedural safeguard packet at the meetings, but the content was never explained in detail to us.

Colton once experienced what the school believed was a seizure and neither my wife nor I were informed about the matter. Essentially, there was a failure on behalf of the school to communicate with us about what was happening to our son at school, whether it was harassment, his curriculum, his behavior, or how he was treated.

I understand you’ve taken actions to challenge the situation. Do you want to talk about this for a moment?

We have just completed a due process hearing, where we reprtesented ourselves against the largest law firm in the state of Washington. We had fifteen days of hearings. The judge ruled in favor of the school district, in spite of the significant amount of evidence and witness testimony we produced. We have appealed the finding and have since hired a lawyer who specializes in these matters.

It appears the Puyallup School District has gone to extraordinary lengths to resist your efforts. What do you think this illustrates?

The district has seemingly unlimited resources to fight concerned parents and they bank on the fact that parents will give up and throw in the towel. But, someone has to put up a fight. For this fact numerous parents and students have vocalized their support for our efforts, saying they are unsure if they could endure a similar struggle, often fearing some sort of retaliation.

The school really took advantage of the ignorance of my wife and I on what the law is and what the rights of special education students are. We placed a lot of confi-dence in the schools that they would provide in the best interest of our son. If parents don’t know the law or their rights, we’ve learned the school will take advantage of this fact.

You mentioned you have been doing pickets or protests in front of the schools. What have these looked like and what kind of responses have you been receiving?

They’ve been wonderful. I would go down there during the morning traffic hours, take a break, and come back in time to catch the afternoon traffic. I have received tre-mendous positive feedback. Parents told me they had to remove their child from the school district after experiencing similar difficulties and students shared personal sto-ries.

I’m hoping this district will begin to take notice that children with special needs are deserving of support and have rights. So they are not the star football players or the star tennis player getting all the notoriety in the newspaper. The schools need to treat everybody fairly. Ultimately we’re trying to prevent that from happening to another child.

Do you have any advice or knowledge for people interested in aiding in your struggle and making sure this or similar types of injustices don’t continue at their schools or other schools?

It is important to research the law and gain an understanding of what rights students and parents have. There are a number of valuable sources of information available on the web. It is important to act fast. If there is an injustice in your child’s curriculum or education, file a complaint, or sign-up for a due process hearing. This is where poten-tial concerns gain the most attention. The hearing is very time consuming and can be costly for the school, so it is possible they may provide the services your child needs in a more timely manner. Don’t take for granted that the district is always working with your child’s best interest in mind, because they often do not. Also, look for advocacy groups, a number of them exist. They can provide valuable knowledge and assistance. Don’t give up. If you feel like your losing ground reach out to other people, you will often find support. Until we all get together on board to do this, nothing is going to change.

Jeff Berryhill is a community organizer and can be reached at j_bhill@hotmail.com