Crisis in Education for ASD Students
I am painfully reminded of the crisis in education that besets children with autism and Aspergers syndrome nationally by recent news articles depicting two families’ legal battles with their school districts.
Time Magazine’s September 17, 2006 story by Julie Rawe titled “Who Pays for Special Ed?” shows us a school district in Berthoud, Colorado willing to pay $191,000 in legal fees to challenge the Perkins family’s attempt to ensure that their autistic son is placed in a private school setting where he is safe and no longer suffering from the vacuum of knowledge in autism education that prevails in their educational community.
Similarly, the Patriot-News, on September 20, 2006, reports of a couple in Hampden Township, PA who are suing the Cumberland Valley School District for “a tragic and tortured account of gross negligence, deliberate indifference and unsympathetic discrimination by students and school personnel alike” in what amounts to several years of unremitting targeting and bullying, resulting in terrible emotional damage, of their son with Aspergers syndrome.
The special ed laws need to be reviewed and changed further in light of what we have learned over the last few years about the impact of a child's social and communication deficits resulting from even a mild form of ASD or Asperger's Syndrome. Attorney Lisa Krizman of Cherry Hill, NJ feels that the crux of the social issue for kids with ASDs in schools lies in the interpretation of LRE:
“Current efforts to situate HF ASD children in the public mainstream setting are well meaning,” says Krizman, “but based on a misguided interpretation of least restrictive environment. Preventing the unfortunately predictable social ostracism of HF ASD children by neurotypical peers cannot be regulated by legal presumption and well meaning educators. This resulting social isolation can make the mainstream class a more restrictive environment than a separate setting in which students have a real opportunity to participate.”
These “David and Goliath” battles over the safety of their autistic and Asperger children that families find themselves in with their school districts point to the alarming paucity of infrastructure, authentic programming, and real-world training of teachers and therapists in schools nationwide. Add to this the documented higher rates of diagnoses of children with ASDs, and I would say that we have reached a critical mass situation.
What will be the next step?
- A class action suit that brings home the fact that this is a national crisis in education for children on the autism spectrum?
- Federal funding that addresses, in a systemic way, the serious absence of programming for students on the autism spectrum, not to mention the contortions that administrators of public schools force themselves into as they rationalize discriminatory behavior toward their own students in order to stay within the steep bounds of their very limiting school budgets?
- Or will it be teachers’ unions that have the guts to take a stand on the failure of inclusion in public schools (as happened only months ago in the country of England) with demands that the problem be rectified through federal funding, training, additional staffing, and the development of specialized schools and programming both private and public?
For my part, I’d like to see all of this happen!
Truly, the humanity of a school is expressed in how it treats its students in the same way that the humanity of a country is expressed in how it treats its citizens.
Our thanks should go out to the Perkins family of Colorado and to the Bloschichak family of Pennsylvania. Without their courage, all parents of the autism community would be unheard and our children’s voices…silenced.
—Valerie Paradiz
Entered 700 days ago
2 Comments
Please note that the comments are posted as is and are not representative of the views of Valerie Paradiz, nor does she bear any responsibility for their content.
Cecilia Fasano wrote
698 days ago
What can we do to put pressure on the Federal Government? Right now they are only funding approx. 17% of the promised 40% for NCLB. Over burdened property owners are voting down school budgets left and right. What can we do?
Michelle L. Marigliano wrote
695 days ago
We are in a time of shift and the energy is building. This is an awesome time for the civil rights of all people on the spectrum to sit in its rightful place. With continued awareness and leadership, ease will set in for spectrumites, families, school environments and communities. With each day and each proactive effort we come closer to allowing society to settle in to what is rightfully ours, Living each day with ease connected to our souls work.
With continued support and praise that the effort of many will deepen an awareness of autism in a proactive and meaningful light.
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