I believe Alex.

After Ms. Portillo marched Alex to the front of the class and shortly before voting him out of the class by a 14 to 2 vote, the official police report released today states:

"I (reporting officer) asked Alex what the students said.... he said the students said he eats paper, picks boogers and eats them on top of of the table and bites his shoelaces," according to the report. The report then reads: "He (Alex) told me Mrs. Portillo said, 'I hate you right now. I don't like you today." The police officer asked Alex how it made him feel. "He said it made him feel sad."

"Portillo said she explained to them (the children in the class) that the students in class were all her priority and she would protect them like a 'bear defending her cubs'", according to the police report.

Portillo and the other children in the class said Alex was pushing a table up with his feet while he was under the table. According to the Suntimes, Portillo then got the school resource officer to remove Alex from the classroom. It was the second "discipline" referral for Alex that day, the report said.

To the left is what a school resource officer typically looks like. According to the National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO), the organization considers itself the first and most recognized organization for law enforcement officers in the schools. A resource officer isn't a "renta-cop", but a certified police officer with the power to affect arrest and custody. The main job of a school resource officer is to perform the lion's share of of the necessary law enforcement function on a campus. This function includes "proactive crime preventions, conducting criminal investigations, making arrests when necessary, developing intervention strategies and crisis planning." Does a 5 year old child pushing a table up with his legs require a police officer (a person with the power to arrest and imprison, whom is suppose to be investigating and preventing criminal acts on campus) to intervene? Ms. Portillo did not claim that she or the children were afraid of Alex's pushing the table with his legs. No mention was made in the police report that Alex was endangering himself or the other children in the class. No mention was made that Alex has in the past had a "criminal" record, been violent to other children or caused any child to be fearful of him. But apparently, the resource officer (who's main duties include a law enforcement function to protect the school and students from "crime...conducting criminal investigations and making arrests when necessary etc.") was required based on Ms. Portillo's judgement.

Simba vs. Scar

According to the police report: "When Alex returned to the class, Ms. Portillo said she and the class were not ready for HIM(my emphasis) to return." The police report then states that Portillo took Alex to the front of the class. "She said she then asked him to listen to what the children didn't like about the things he did, and she asked him how it made him feel," according again to the police report. "She said at this time, 'We polled the class to see how his peers felt about his return at that time." Ms. Portillo "polled" the class, after inciting fear in the other 5 year olds who had just seen their classmate dragged from the classroom by a real and certified police officer as well as Ms. Portillo telling the other children in the class that she was their "momma bear" only protecting her "cubs". Alex was voted out, 14 to 2.

It appears Ms. Portillo was using the children as a tool to address her frustration and inability to "deal with" Alex by playing on the visual images a typical 5 year old might ("Disney villains") have of momma's and cubs, its no wonder that the children voted Alex out. Ms. Portillo had painted Alex as "Scar" and the children as "Simba". What 5 year old would choose "Scar" over "Simba"?

Claims of physical abuse by Ms. Portillo

In a situation all too familiar to autistic adults and parents of autistics, the police reported that Alex told them that "Portillo scratched him, stepped on his shoelaces, grabbed his leg and pulled his shirt collar, but the report said Portillo and other children in the class refuted those allegations." According to almost all the scientific-peer reviewed literature, autistic children are incapable of lying. Its a developmental milestone many parents of autistics actually celebrate when their child can tell a lie.

The report states that after Ms. Barton talked to Portillo that day about the voting, Portillo "blocked the door for about five minutes to prevent me from leaving the classroom with my child, who was visibly shaken by the abuse."

Ms. Portillo calling the police on a 5 year old pushing a table with his legs is not in contention by any party. Having a vote to expel Alex from the classroom is not in contention. Ms. Portillo inviting other 5 year olds in the class to tell Alex how "they feel about him" is not in contention. Ms. Portillo manipulating Alex's classmates with visual imagery like "momma protecting her cubs" is not in contention. The fact that Ms. Portillo blocked Ms. Barton from leaving the classroom wasn't protested in the police report. Two different parties (the police and Ms. Barton) independently confirmed that Alex told them basically the same thing (i.e. classmates were instructed to bully him with derogatory descriptions and vote him out of the class). Ms. Portillo doesn't object to any of these allegations by deference to the police report. Ms. Barton was serving on an IEP team to get Alex additional services is not in contention. The only thing in contention seems to be that Ms. Portillo doesn't believe she did anything wrong and Ms. Barton does. Alex believes Ms. Portillo was mean to him. I believe Alex.

Supporting Alex and Ms. Barton is a question of civil rights and the law. Hundreds of thousands of children and adults were excluded from an education before a law called PL 94-142 (Now called the IDEA) was passed in 1975. Schools were under consent decrees in the beginning years of PL 94-142, including Florida. See:

Title VI and VII Civil Rights Act of 1964
Office of Civil Rights Memorandum (Standards for Title VI Compliance) of May 25, 1970
Requirements based on the Supreme Court decision in Lau v. Nichols, 1974
Equal Education Opportunities Act of 1974
Requirements of the Vocational Education Guidelines, 1979
Requirements based on the Fifth Circuit court decision in Castañeda v. Pickard, 1981
Requirements based on the Supreme Court decision in Plyler v. Doe, 1982
Americans with Disabilities Act (PL 94-142)
Florida Education Equity Act, 1984
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973

Before the enactment of Public Law 94-142, the fate of many individuals with disabilities was likely to be dim. Too many individuals lived in state institutions for persons with mental retardation or mental illness. In 1967, for example, state institutions were homes for almost 200,000 persons with disabilities. Many of these restrictive settings provided only minimal food, clothing, and shelter.

Public Law 94-142 guaranteed a free, appropriate public education to each child with a disability in every state and locality across the country.

The four purposes of the law articulated a compelling national mission to improve access to education for children with disabilities. Changes implicit in the law included efforts to improve how children with disabilities were identified and educated, to evaluate the success of these efforts, and to provide due process protections for children and families. In addition, the law authorized financial incentives to enable states and localities to comply with Public Law 94-142 (though this has never been fully funded).

Four Purposes of PL 94-142

"to assure that all children with disabilities have available to them…a free appropriate public education which emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet their unique needs"
"to assure that the rights of children with disabilities and their parents…are protected"
"to assist States and localities to provide for the education of all children with disabilities"
"to assess and assure the effectiveness of efforts to educate all children with disabilities"

Over the last several days and the weeding out of countless comments on my previous blog entry, it is quite clear to me that there are a large contingent of people in the United States that don't believe students with disabilities have any right to an education in a mainstream setting, despite the law.

How can one remain neutral or display only a passive support to the outrage of what happened to Alex? What kind of advocates are we if we are worried about social niceties or only report part of the story? Or that we are concerned about someone that would deny future generations the rights under PL 94-142 that so many autistic people and other disabled people never had the opportunity to benefit from? PL 94-142 is the codification of our rights to be included in the mainstream. Any attempt to dismantle that is a threat to future generations and I feel we have a responsibility to protect, preserve and expand it. I didn't benefit from PL 94-142 but my son will. Call it mob advocacy if you like. Make a completely illogical argument that there are already too many laws (as if we didn't need civil law protection) and that private schools will somehow open their doors and their classrooms to autistic children when those same private schools are under no obligation to abide by either PL 94-142 or the ADA.

Sometimes advocacy can look "ugly". I believe that sometimes "ugly" is what is called for.

I agree with what ABFH said when she wrote: "I'm glad that we live in more civilized times, but we shouldn't be afraid of hurting people's feelings that we fail to make strong statements when they are needed."

Comments

[Ed]

You have really followed this story well.I agree with what you have said about these laws especially.

I'm not sure how many people realize how often these laws that you mentioned are ignored for the sake of the officials that should be enforcing them and what effect this has on those who need for those laws to protect them.

When we allow public officials to ignore the laws we need them to enforce (in order to do what they believe provides for themselves and protects their position of authority) without questioning that when it needs to be questioned, we are allowing if not encouraging public officials to inflict a type of mob violence on us all.

[leo]

Are the NASRO security guards or actual police? It doesn't sound like they have much training at all. In Canada they have police that are visible in some High school's and are there to be mentors or get involved if there are weapons or serious cases.
My heart goes out to Ms Barton, she's not alone, she has all of us parents of children with and without disablities behind her. Ms. Portillo should have never been a teacher, especially that she can't handle Kindergartens!!!
Also, having a child with Aspergers, I couldn't imagine going through what the Barton family is going through.
Kent, keep doing what you are doing, we all need advocates like yourself, you've been a God send to myself also.

[thewildeman2]

Hello. You have followed this very well. I am a fellow advocate and I wanted to let you and others know that I did a video for Alex and in support of him. To let others know of his story. Would you pass this information along? The way to it is in the url, but if that doesn't work, my name on youtube is thewildeman2, I titled the video Teacher Bullies Student. You should also know that there is a support site for him on facebook with over a 1000 members. It's incredible. Have a great day.

[Cheryl]

Thank you for continuing to follow this terrible situation. http://www.alittlechaostheory.com/2008/05/31/autism-advocacy-a-call-to-activism/

[Amanda]

I'm not sure what your point was about whether or not Alex can lie. We are having a huge problem with my son, where he says other people did things that in fact he did, especially negative things. For example, if he spilled a drink, he would say, "Andy spilled it!"- often without being asked or prompted. One of his IEP goals is taking responsibility for his own actions. He's six years old. And better yet, he picked up this behavior from another autistic child in his class.

Autistic kids can lie. The question is: did he? And if he did, why? For my kid, and for many non-autistic kids I know, it is merely a flag that says "I'm uncomfortable, I'm upset"- the intention is not to get another person in trouble. Also, you never know how a child perceives things! The version given may well be how the child perceived it!

What I see here is a child so upset with what was happening, either he reported what happened, or reported it the way he understood it. And that is one VERY upset child, in a place where he should have felt safe and supported. Instead... he was actively degraded and tossed out.

-----------------------
Response

Amanda, your correct. Autistic children can lie. Take a look at the police report over at Slate.com. The way Alex describes the physical acts of Ms. Portillo is consistent with someone that may be frustrated with a child (ie "she pulled me up hard and placed me in the chair hard, she pulled me by the collar...etc.) The way Alex describes what Ms. Portillo's actions were is very consistent with how a frustrated adult, who didn't want to leave physical marks, might deal with their anger towards a child that was a bit rebellious. Its how I was dealt with as a child so it rings true to me. I agree with you though that autistic children can lie and I should disabuse anyone that I think differently. But in this instance, I still believe Alex.---CS

[Maddy]

I read the report too, however I didn't know that the resource officer is the equivalent of 'police.' That puts a very different slant on it for me.
Best wishes

[Bern]

This is the most repulsive thing I've ever heard a teacher say or do. I have a son with a life threating disorder called MMA. He has the most wonderful teachers and I feel so good knowing he is at school all day with people that love him. This poor Mom and poor baby (he's only 5, right?). What a real shame. This school really needs to take a closer eye on who they hire. Was this teacher really qualified? I think not. If I was a part of that school, she would never teach again. Shame, shame on her.

[Club 166]

Thanks for raising some important points. Florida is building up a bad history of criminalizing behaviors in school that can and should be handled within the school.

After reading your post I also decided to comment on my blog.

Joe