Category — Special Education

Marshall High

Joseph began at Marshall High on November 8th, 2000. He was to be assigned an aide, I guess to prevent him from beating people up. The District didn’t get it together to find an alternative location for him to receive academics, so we reluctantly agreed he would get these needs attended to at Marshall along with life skills training. At this point we had very little faith that he would be educated in Portland Public schools, but we had nowhere else to send him that wasn’t too expensive. We managed to get him a keyboarding class and a Title I math class, but there wasn’t much else they were willing to do.

An aide finally entered the picture during the week of December 4th. He left the picture the next day and a new aide was brought on board. He jumped overboard a week later, and another aide was enlisted. If you don’t know anything about autism, this is probably the most accurate fact you need to know… People with autism need consistency. Especially Joseph. The aide that stuck with him during his 2 cups of coffee at Marshall is the son of the Director of Special Ed.’s assistant. In early January he wrote in Joseph’s communication log that he realized we were new to Joseph’s situation. He’s gonna tell me I’m new to my nephew’s “situation” who I’ve known from birth? Enough about the aides.

Let’s talk about their attorney instead. She began showing up on cc lists within the District in November. I’m not sure if this was an attempt at intimidating us, but the result was that it really pissed us off. By the end of November we were gaining confidence that this school/situation wasn’t going to work out either. Very few of the agreements they made were coming to fruition, even though they were written into Joseph’s ISP. Tension was constantly in the air whenever we dealt with them. By the end of November we decided to look for our own attorney to go after them in Due Process. We found someone who took care of the paper work in filing. She had good intentions, but there was 1 problem. She thought we should settle with them out of court. We weren’t interested in settling. Beside the way these players had denied our nephew a free appropriate public education (FAPE), they were likely to do the same to other kids unless we exposed what they had done.

Joseph continued to be under educated at Marshall until we could no longer watch his time being wasted. He had learned more at home than in the schools he attended here, so we pulled him out and home schooled him until PPS showed a REAL desire to educate him. We’d experienced tampering with documents, lies, sneakiness, and blatant incompetence. I believe some of it was due to fear and insecurity, but I also believe some of it was a result of our taking PPS to court.

Before I move on to the second part of this story about my nephew’s Special Ed. experience, I need to straighten something out. He transferred to Grant High in October, not November.

Grant High
Joseph started at Grant High on October 18th, 2000. We had a good feeling about this change. His new teacher had begun to revise his IEP to include some very positive educational goals, and he now had a vocational gig at the Red Cross detailing cars. He’d started there when school resumed and was doing well by all reports. That changed in the blink of an eye with a phone call on the 22nd.

The call came from the Vocational Coordinator at Grant telling me there had been an incident at Red Cross that same morning. I was told that Joseph had “charged” at his supervisor and injured the guy’s hand. A few things need to be mentioned here. Joseph has always been a very gentle fellow. In fact, when he first arrived here we had to work with him on not hugging people all the time or kissing women’s hands. Secondly, his supervisor was this burly big man, who I definitely would not want to meet up with in a dark alley. To this day, this is the ONLY act of aggression he’s ever been accused of in the 8 years he’s lived in Portland. Anyway, the vice principal suspended him from school. The 20th and 21st had been a weekend, so he was suspended on his 3rd day at Grant. As they say in the big leagues, he was there for a cup of coffee.

We received no communication from Grant about the length of the suspension or the disciplinary level that was being applied. We did attend what is called a Manifestation Determination meeting which decides the fates of disabled students who have aggression problems. At the beginning of this meeting the vice principal who suspended Joseph proclaimed; “I just want to lay my cards up front: it doesn’t matter what is decided at this meeting, Joe will no longer be allowed to attend Grant.” Suzanne and I asked “Why not?” He then said; “The decision has already been made. Joe can’t attend Grant.” To which I replied; “Then I will sue you.” By now we were learning Special Ed. law, and knew what he was doing was illegal. We later found out that on the same day of the meeting the VP had signed a transfer slip (not expulsion) to transfer Joseph to “another placement.” Kinda like; “Not in our neighborhood.”

That afternoon Suzanne called the Principal at Grant. She asked if the Principal was in agreement with this decision. She said she didn’t know anything that was said at a meeting she didn’t attend. Her answers to all of Suzanne’s questions were vague, and evasive. Suzanne asked her if an Expulsion Hearing was scheduled and she said it was. We decided that seeing how it was Joseph’s disability that caused this behavior (or not) that we weren’t going to participate in any such hearing. We never did receive the results of this hearing because we don’t believe it ever took place. On November 3rd we were sent a letter from the Area Supervisor saying Joseph was still a student at Grant, but he couldn’t return there. Figure that one out.

There was another meeting on November 6th which included the Director of Special Education, her assistant, the Grant principal, the Area Supervisor, and the teacher from Grant. We were told the school district’s Attorney would be there, but she didn’t show up (yet). By now we knew we needed witnesses at these meetings, and had 2 education activists from the Education Crisis Team with us. The Director asked us where we thought an appropriate setting for Joseph was and we answered “Grant.” That didn’t seem to be an option so we asked her what she thought. She told us that Eastside Education Center might be a good option. She also suggested Marshall High and Madison High. We agreed to check these out and get back to her.

The next day I checked out Marshall and Madison. Of the 2, Marshall seemed less bad, so we decided to send Joseph there, where he would work on life skills. We were looking at Eastside for academics but couldn’t get in to see them. I finally got in on November 29th to talk to the folks there. No one on their staff had ever worked with students having autism. That’s probably because it was a school for juvenile delinquents and kids with serious emotional/mental illness. We came to the conclusion that the Director of Special Education either didn’t know what she was doing, or she was trying to set Joseph up with a profile of a very troubled person. On December 11th we formally filed for Due Process.

To Be Continued…

I’ve decided to write the story of my nephew’s adventures in Portland Public Schools Special Education. As I told another writer this morning, the general public seems to be under the impression that because a child or adult with a disability is receiving supports in the community, they MUST be doing ok. I believe it’s the JOB of those of us who know the real skinny to educate folks on the reality of life in a dysfunctional system. This is a long story that I’m going to break up into smaller segments. Sort of like a sitcom, which is what this experience was like any way. This first part will be called:

Jefferson High

My sister died at the age of 44, leaving behind a 16 year old Autistic son. Prior to her death there was much family discussion as to what would be best for him once she was gone. It was decided that he’d move to Oregon from California to live with my wife and I. After all, I’d been working with folks having disabilities for the previous 13 years, and had a good idea how to best assist him in making the transition from boyhood to manhood. That’s the promise I made my sis as she lay on her death bed.

This happened back in December of 1999. He flew into Sea-Tac Airport with a friend of his mom’s on December 23rd. I remember the first look we had of him. He was sitting on the floor with a blue blanket, rocking and looking totally freaked out. I turned to Suzanne and whispered; “we have our work cut out for us.”

I’d already done most of the up front work of getting him enrolled in school before he arrived. I’d met with school officials to discuss his individualized needs, and they decided it would be best to place him in a Life Skills Special Education classroom. I figured that they were the experts and went along with their recommendation. He started at Jefferson High right after the Winter break.

It took a bit of time to get all his paperwork from the Cali. School, but by March we received his Individualized Education Plan. As we looked it over, we were amazed at the difference between what he’d been doing at Alameda High and what he was doing at Jeff. He’d been doing pre Algebra (he has a real knack with numbers), was being taught to read, was manning a nacho cart with assistance, and was doing some courier work around the school on his own. Here he was counting plastic pennies, identifying signs (like “Stop” and “Men’s Room”), was participating in what seemed like weekly cupcake parties, and had 30 minutes of Speech and Language therapy weekly. This was what was decided as “appropriate” for a student whose biggest barrier was communication We shared this document with his teacher, but she didn’t seem overly concerned.

We decided that if we were going to get this kid educated we’d need to be more proactive and insistent. We began meeting with the Special Ed. Folks on a fairly regular basis. We set him up with a communication log that went back and forth between home and school each day. They’d write in it what he did that day, and we’d provide input, ask questions, or comment on his progress (or lack thereof). We figured a paper trail might come in handy some day. It wasn’t going well.

By the end of the school year we were on the cusp of disgust. He continued being entertained but not educated, and our frustration with the school was no secret. Following assurances that the next school year would be better, he started back in September following Summer school. Of course, very little was different, and our pleas to have them work off his old IEP fell on deaf ears. By November we’d had it. We met with Administrators and had him transferred over to Grant High.

To Be Continued…

David McDonald is a disabilities activist in Portland, Oregon.  His blog can be found at http://dawgoregon.blogspot.com/ .