Hello Sierra Madre Families!
Bravo.
I would like to share with you what happened to my son at Sierra Madre Elementary School, and hope you will read it with an open, but critical mind. If you choose to pass judgement on me, or my child, I promise you won’t be the first.
I want to share our experience with you. I have lived in Sierra Madre for 20 years. With my hands, I rebuilt the house I live in. All three of my children were born here, and have lived here their entire lives. They all three had attended Sierra Madre Elementary.
I realize we may seem stand-offish. We don’t try to be this way. It is simply the way that we are wired, and we have no more control over that than we have over the color of our skin. If we were a different ethnicity, or a different culture, then perhaps we would have a special club at school, and we could be validated in some vague, unimportant, and superficial way. Alas we aren’t, and we don’t.
My youngest child began school at Sierra Madre when he was four years old. He had great potential. His speech was difficult to understand (“it’s developmental, it will improve”) but he had excellent intellectual abilities and a happy, outgoing personality. His speech, however, and his inability to recall names and retrieve words made simple communication difficult. He used the only tools in his toolbox- he poked people to get their attention to communicate.
We were hesitant to place into school, but were advised that this would be good for him. As a preschooler, however, his communication mode- the poking- was immediately identified as aggression. He was subjected to “time-outs.”
This was compounded by two more factors, the first is that he began to have increased difficulty with sensory regulation, and then his grandmother began the painful process that comes compliments of Stage 4 cancer. He began to withdraw as his grandmother became increasingly ill and died.
My son, who could not articulate what he was going through, began to hide under tables. This behavior was immediately treated with punishment. He was timed out in the bathroom, restrained in 3-4 point holds, and treated with indescriminate aversive and punitive consequences without the benefit of compassion, understanding, or appropriate behavior intervention. Yes, your principal knew. So did the District Office. And yes, there were witnesses, I saw it, and perhaps maybe even you did.
We were not passive, nor quiet. We were on the phone with specialists and administrators all the way up the ladder. We were fair. We wanted to believe the staff needed support. If it was your child, would you have called Child Protective Services? We didn’t. We called the PUSD special education providers, sent multiple emails, and demanded (yes, demanded) appropriate support. What we got instead, just like our son had gotten, was a label. Trouble-makers.
He managed to fumble through two years at Sierra Madre with a hodge-podge of services, none of them truly designed to meet his needs, and we were treated by the staff as pushy, demanding, and disatisfied with anything. My son held it together, but it became increasingly apparent that his autistic-spectrum-like needs were not being met, and the district’s inept programs were insufficient for meeting his needs outside of a blended, or parallel education program.
So what did they do?
In September, 2010, he was dumped into a straight Grade 2 classroom. No pre-meetings, no educating staff and parents, no disclosure of any information to us to help with transition. Nothing.
We had done everything we could to provide the staff with supports, and we notified the teacher to follow his program. I know that she did not. As his behavior began to escalate, we were told nothing but “Everything is fine.” In other words, “back off, we have it handled.” So, after two brush-offs from the teacher, I backed off.
At the beginning of October I brought my son to school. He resisted and began to run in circles. His aide brought him to a storage room, where he ran in circles for approximately 90 minutes as his aide tried to get ahold of a district support provider to take over for me. I waited, and I waited. And as I waited I realized that, “This is it, no doubt about it. He has autism.” The aide could see that I was pale and assured me it was OK to leave, which I would not do, and after 90 minutes, his RST finally arrived.
I walked home, laid down on my kitchen floor, fell asleep. And then I had a heart attack.
I did as the doctors suggested, and took it easy. I heard absolutely nothing from the school and I assumed that things were OK. I had been told of a couple of insignificant incidents, but no red flags- nothing that would cause me, a veteran teacher, any alarm.
Around the third week of October, however, things started getting odd. I was notified- by my son- that a police escort had been provided to take him to school, and then I was contacted directly regarding a police incident filed against my child. I sat, disbelieving, as a report was read to me, and then I was notified by the school principal that my child had been punished for this report, retroactively.
FOR HIS PROTECTION, I removed him from school the next day as events began to unfold. Some of these events have been verified by the Office of Civil Rights, and by PUSD. OCR has found insufficient evidence in my assertions in regards to the district’s knowledge of the evnts that transpired. I will, of course, file an appeal, and I will bring it to the Department of Justice. If this was your child, I hope you would do the same.
Fom the report of OCR, it is established that a group of parents met in the cafeteria to discuss my child. The district additionally received three letters from parents stating that their children had been physically hurt by my child. These letters were produced shortly after several parents had approached the principal expressing concern about the safety of their children. The District was aware that a public park was used by a group of parents to discuss my child. On October 21, a police report was filed, and this report alleged assault the prior day.
Wow.
So let’s recap, and call this what it is: an organized lynch mob, coordinated by parents at Sierra Madre School, against a 7 year old. Where I come from, this is called bullying.
Sometime in October, 2010, after I had a heart attack, my son allegedly began to escalate in negative behavior. Really? Ya think a 7 year old with autism and communication challenges might lose his mind just a little when his father is in the hospital, and could die- just like his grandmother did?
PUSD staff and administration did not provide us with a single incident until October 22, after police were involved- so we had no idea there was a problem. No meetings, no phone calls, nothing. If you were
Please note, the words that echoed through the notification I received on Friday, June 2, 2011 from OCR were these: SEVERAL parents, a GROUP of parents, MEETING at school, MEETING at park about student ...... do those sound like sewing circles to you?
We have knowledge of at LEAST two other meetings, one that took place on the second floor near the art room, and one in front of the school. The District/Principal forgot to mention those. A petition was circulated, and offered to a friend of ours to sign. A culture of fear- of you, and what happened to us- keeps that silent. The petition vanished. Poof!
We have the police report, and it was two, not one, complaints. Neither of the incidents indicated an assault took place, hover.
One involved a bloody nose; the result of my child and his sensory/motor challenges, standing up and bumping the boy slightly behind him with an elbow. It was an accident, and it was documented as one. The teacher? Well, she didn’t exactly see what happened. She received the report from the children. Oh, and that my child tore up a piece of his own artwork.
The other child? Well, didn’t he have a bloody nose weekly before, and has he had them since that day? Was it necessary to treat this bloody nose so much differently?
Maybe, just maybe, there was there an agenda? Something no one wants to think about. Something that would never happen in progressive, forward thinking inclusive Sierra Madre. Maybe. Maybe there was a parent that didn’t like a little boy being in the same class as her little boy. Maybe there was a parent..... discriminating against a boy she didn’t understand. Maybe she found some other parents to discuss it with- maybe people who felt the same way? Is that remotely possible, in a place like Sierra Madre?
Well. The report filed by the parent moved the incident OUT of the classroom, where the accident occurred, and over to the PLAYGROUND where she then called it a ”punch” in the nose after an outburst. She left out the part where they were on a field trip and couldn’t have been at the playground. Ooops. Someone may be passing on information she got somewhere else.
The second report, and this one always confused me- accused my child of three incidents, but then never explained what happened to HIS OWN child. He instead discussed my child’s behavior, and what he had heard was said by staff, other parents, and the principal.
The person who reported it should have known better than to accept hearsay, and should have checked the facts before falling prey to gossip and innuendo. The incident he related could not take place the school week reported. My son was absent two of the possible five days.
So why? Has this parent ever been wrongly accused of something? Has he ever been blamed for something he couldn’t have done, because he wasn’t there? Is he so removed from his own experience, that he forgot it could happen to someone else- maybe even a child?
And you? What did you hear? Did YOU share that with someone..... maybe gossip a little? Or are you above that?
Did you say something? Anything? Maybe, “It makes me uncomfortable to talk about another person’s child this way. I wouldn’t want someone to do that to me.”
Did you stand up to the bully? (Yes, gossip is a common bullying technique used generally by girls to tear down another girl.) Or were you passive, did you let it slide? (I don’t want to get involved. It could happen to my child next).
Did my child meltdown at school? Well, yes. He is autistic. That means there is a possibility that could happen. Did he do it all the time? Well, no. In fact, before this year he managed to have nearly three successful- though bumpy at the beginning of each- years at Sierra Madre- and two of those years without a behavior aide.
My child is at home, alone. Thanks for asking. Your empathy really shines through at these times. Yes, he’s fine. His childhood was stolen from him by a few, and it was accepted by the rest, but he’s learning a lesson about humanity he could never have learned at Sierra Madre Elementary School.
I hope the 800 API was worth your souls.
