Why did Matthew miss 39 days of school?

SUSPENSIONS

Why did Matthew miss 39 days of school?
Apr 25, 2009 04:32 AM


Apr 25, 2009 04:32 AM
Comments on this story (22)
Andrea Gordon
Family issues reporter

Grade 7 has been a banner year for 12-year-old Matthew Leaton. His project on earthquakes was a winner of the science fair at his Brampton middle school. In February, he was chosen to make a presentation at the assembly honouring Black History Month.

And eight months into the school year, he has been suspended only once.

It's a big turnaround in a tumultuous school life. Matthew has been suspended "too many times for me to remember off the top of my head," says his mother, Nancy.

Matthew, a redhead with an infectious chuckle who loves to talk about maps and aeronautics, has Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism. He also has a learning disability and anxiety.

But over the four years it took to get a complete diagnosis, Matthew floundered in the public school system without appropriate supports. He has been in five schools with an array of teachers, in both regular classrooms and those for kids with behaviour problems. Frustrated and without tools, he sometimes exploded, talked back and got in fights; he was frequently disciplined.

During Grade 5, the family counted 39 missed days of school. Sometimes it was suspensions; other times, Nancy was called and asked to pick up her son or to keep him home. Matthew has been excluded from field trips and isolated from other kids in "time-out rooms."

His self-esteem plummeted. He told his mother, a retired teacher, that he was so bad, he wished he were dead.

Even when things were at their worst, "I still wanted to go to school," Matthew says. But he was constantly afraid he would do something wrong.

On a recent April evening, his blue eyes are bright as he shows a visitor his science fair display on structures built to withstand earthquakes. He chatters about the presentation he made during an assembly at Greenbriar Senior Public School about baseball legend Jackie Robinson and black hockey player Willie O'Ree, his twice-weekly evenings at Air Cadets and how he is learning to play drums.

Educators, advocates and many parents say Matthew's years of being bounced from one class to another, and punished, are not uncommon. Children with learning disabilities, mental health issues or neurological disorders like autism wait months, sometimes years, for assessments to identify their learning needs. Then they wait again to get supports they're legally entitled to.

In the meantime, they can't cope and may run away from classrooms, swear, hit or act out in other ways. They get disciplined or suspended, gain a rep as a "bad kid," feel marginalized, then the cycle repeats.

"There is significant frustration," says Martha Mackinnon, a former teacher and now lawyer and executive director of the non-profit legal aid clinic Justice for Children and Youth.

"School boards say they don't have the resources (to support special ed students) but their reaction is too often a disciplinary response, and too many kids end up getting suspended."

The deck is stacked against parents, who often feel too overwhelmed and stonewalled to fight back against the rules and bureaucracies of school boards, says Mackinnon, who trains and advises lawyers working on behalf of students and families.

School boards, meanwhile, are faced with balancing the rights of frustrated children in need of support – who may act out by hitting or threatening – "with rights of staff and other students to be in a safe learning and working environment," says Debra Krutila, superintendent of special education support services at Peel District School Board. Matthew has attended schools in the Peel board.

Tony Pontes, the board's superintendent of staff development and school support services, says practices have improved since safe schools legislation was amended a year ago, giving principals and teachers more discretion in handling student behaviour.

"We've seen a significant shift away from suspensions as automatic or mandated," Pontes says. Principals have discretion to consider alternatives, options for preventing and de-escalating situations, and mitigating circumstances such as whether a child is capable of self-control or of understanding his or her actions.

The previous legislation was based on a zero-tolerance approach to discipline. The Ontario Human Rights Commission found it was disproportionately punishing special needs students.

And, in fact, under zero tolerance, students at the Toronto District School Board who had been formally identified as needing special ed services – representing 10 per cent of all students – accounted for 23 per cent of suspensions in 2007/08.

Across Ontario, in 2006-07, students formally identified with special ed needs represented 9 per cent of the student population but accounted for 21 per cent of tudents who were suspended and 22 per cent of those expelled

And the problem is likely much worse than these numbers suggest. Students with unidentified learning problems and mental health issues account for many suspensions not formally linked to special needs. And advocates note suspension statistics don't include "off-the-books" disciplinary measures, when parents are requested to take children home or to agree to "voluntary suspensions" that don't go on the student record.

"I've never been so discouraged as by what I'm seeing now," says Georgina Rayner of Toronto, a volunteer who has spent 25 years advocating for families of special needs kids.

Rayner says discipline by punishment doesn't work for kids in crisis and particularly those with neurological disorders who don't easily grasp the connection between action and consequence.

"Behaviour is a form of communication. Something is wrong if a kid is acting out and we have to find out what it is. Instead, we have a system that says, `Until the kids behave, we don't want to (deal with) them.'"

Jeff Kugler, a former teacher and principal who is now executive director of the Centre for Urban Schooling at OISE/U of T, says lack of resources means the situation "couldn't be more dire" for many students.

He says the province needs to invest in more teachers with special ed training, educational assistants and aides, and child and youth workers. Without that, "teachers are put in the awful situation of having to support these kids, and they can't, and that's how the cycle unfolds."

Toronto psychologist and OISE professor Judith Weiner agrees.

"I work with parents of kids with ADHD. At the last workshop, we had a pile of parents in tears describing this type of situation."

One father works from home because he gets called every second day to pick up his child. In another case, a child needing support could only stay until recess each morning.

"I firmly believe we can't afford not to provide the supports," Weiner says. "It's not just in the interests of the child, but of society. Otherwise, these kids will grow up illiterate, they'll grow up with mental health issues or they'll end up in the criminal justice system."

Margot Nelles, founder of the Asperger's Society of Ontario, estimates she spends 85 per cent of her time helping parents whose kids are in crisis at school. "We're talking about kids who are emotionally traumatized," she says. "Our education system is failing these children."

Parents like Nancy Leaton – who also has two daughters in university – say they are viewed as "problem parents" because they fight hard for their kids' rights. Relationships can quickly turn antagonistic.

Kugler says that's when principals need to set a constructive tone – by conceding that resources are inadequate but vowing to do what they can anyway to help a struggling child, in partnership with parents.

He says Matthew's story is headed toward a happier ending than most. This year, the boy is one of 10 students in a class for kids with autism spectrum disorder. He also attends a social skills group through a local health centre.

His teacher, Carole Ann MacDonald, says he is thriving and joins regular classes for some of his subjects.

MacDonald, who understands her students because she also has autism, teaches them strategies for coping with frustration and conflict. They talk about triggers and learn through role-playing and drama.

Matthew says that sometimes, when he's been really mad, he has hit a classmate. "Usually what happens is, 20 minutes later, we're friends again."

But he lists off new coping skills: deep breaths; removing himself to the relaxation room just off his classroom; seeking out his special ed teacher to talk.

Learning is less stressful, too, now that Matthew has assistive technology such as an FM system so he can hear the teacher through headphones over the background noise, and a laptop for typing to accommodate his weak fine motor skills.

"It's really sad" when kids with special needs aren't given enough support and then get punished, MacDonald says. Especially because, with the right strategies and accommodations, many can succeed.

"I can't think of one of my students who doesn't have the ability to go to university one day," she says.

"We, as a society, need to be able to see that having a disability doesn't mean people can't do things. It just means doing them differently."

http://www.thestar.com/article/622139