Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD / ADHD) in Seattle Schools
Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD / ADHD) in Seattle Schools
The often repeated case of
- Student is diagnosed with ADD, but the School District does nothing to make accomodations.
- Student is identified as the problem when anything goes wrong.
- The child is excluded from activities available to all others.
- School and District staff work together to exclude the student on the basis of an in-house evaluation process designed to create evidence for moving the student to a restrictive environment.
The Organized Prejudice in Seattle
This is an opinion page dedicated to helping the educational community
deal with the reality of ADD. It was started by a long-time supporter of
public education, and parent of an ADD child. It is intended to be a living, changing website that supports parents of children with ADD/ADHD and tells their stories. Our focus is primarily in the Seattle School District, but many of the issues we find here may be driven by state law and policy.
Parents of ADD children this is your place to be heard!
We welcome your comments, information, and most of all, your long-maligned courage. We hope that we can provide a forum where our many experiences may gather.
During the life of this page, we will follow the story of Student A, who for the purpose of written language, we will identify as a kindergarten boy. We believe that Student A's experience, and that of his family, is illustrative of how the Seattle School District treats the condition of ADD/ADHD.
For too long, the Seattle School District has been refusing to
acknowledge the reality of ADD. This has been to the detriment of all of
the children in the classroom, to the ADD students, to the district, and
even the city as a whole, as families rip up their social ties and sell
their homes to move to neighboring districts which demonstrate more
willingness to educate their children, regardless of disability. By not
educating all staff in the proper methods of teaching these children,
the Seattle School District may have opened itself to charges of
negligence and violations of federally-created civil rights, and if so,
deserves to be recognized as being at odds with the will of the law of
the land.
At a time when medical science has said that it is reasonable to believe
that over 25% of the population is ADD, and that the number is rising,
we encourage the Seattle School District to begin focusing on educating
such children, instead of spending their resources bludgeoning families
into submission in required back room meetings. We also encourage the government of the State of Washington to specify ADD / ADHD as a
category of disability, to end the over reactive use of separate-but-equal classrooms, and to work to end the discrimination of districts who will not serve our children.
Your support in this effort is encouraged. As long as people throw up
their hands in disgust, the district will continue its arrogant course, and will be free to go on harming bright young children.
It is not the intention of this opinion page to harm any single
individual or program. Even more so, it is our intention that educators stop blaming the results of their negligence on innocent young children. To those administrators who would continue to harm our kids, we say:
"Pick on somebody your own size."
September 10, 1997
So much to tell. I'll have to come back and fill in some of the blanks later.
The district's strategy has worked well until now. Partially because I can see so much possible benefit in the classroom he has been assigned to - if it performs as billed. Part of me feels like I've been overpaid and that I should shut up and keep the change. What parent wouldn't kill for having 4 teachers to 9 kids? The rest of me howls with the neglignece, lies and injustice of the school district in getting him to this point. Part of me fears for my son in the company of violent children who can't get along anywhere else. This was increased when the teacher neglected to tell me that on the first day, one of the kids flipped his desk over and spent most of the day shouting. She only told me that my son told him that nobody liked him, and got in trouble for it. In such a setting, he will be a leader, but at what price? I must be prepared to pull him out. Today he came home strangely silent. I am alarmed, and will call his teacher in the morning.
At the third IEP meeting, back in June 1996, we signed in disagreement, not sure if it was the right thing for him. Then I lodged an administrative law complaint, but backed out in favor of getting more information.
In particular I was looking for a letter produced in the IEP meeting alleging my son of fondling an older girl. The teacher produced and discussed it, and the evaluator, a gaunt woman in her 60's, took the letter and placed it in her file. She now denies that it had any bearing on anything, but I strongly suspect that this is the reason that they FINALLY began the process of "helping" him, late in Spring. ADD advocates scoff at this as being a reason for moving a kindergardener who would be expected to be socially younger than his age group, but in the IEP meeting, the Principal had pointed to national press attention received by a young boy kissing a girl, and to how this had created a national firestorm about sexual harassment in grammar schools.
My feeling is that if the District had heeded his diagnosis from the beginning of his kindergarden year, and responded to our pleas for constant communication, and given him the support he needed, there wouldn't have been any such behavior. They destroyed all of the careful teaching, therapy and preparation we had poured into him in getting him ready for his first year in school, and then, after they had handed him one failure after another, they began the "evaluation" to prove their point.
I had requested and received my son's files, but not the accusing letter. My written request and calls about that missing document were not returned by the psychologists office, and when I threatened to bring my son to his old school on opening day, I got a letter from the lawyer acting like she had nothing to do with the delays and saying she had appointed a security monitor to the site.
The monitor and I had a great time together on Monday, and I told him that if he had to arrest me, I'd sit down and he'd have to drag me off. I told him not to be alarmed, that I didn't hold anything against him, and suggested that we laugh and have a good time with it so as not to alarm any kids.
Then I went back into the building, remembering that I had forgotten my daughter's lunch money, and ran into the head teacher, who was literally sweating, and who asked me to leave. I said that my family had had their rights stepped on enough and that I wasn't about to give up one iota more. He said it was his understanding that there was a restraining order on me, and I told him that I hadn't been served. I told him that I was there just like I had always been on the first day of school, with my cameras, and just like all of the other parents walking around the halls, I was going to visit my daughter now and would he like to come? He accompanied me and when we reached my daughter's room, the monitor showed up again, and said that the superintendent was touring the building!
I had a brief talk with him on a stairway landing. We sized each other up. I told him I felt that both programs were excellent. I said that I have major problems with the process of reassignment. He asked if the IEP process had been done wrongly. I said I did not feel it was available to me, since with 10 district people there, we only had 3 minutes to hear each speak, and little time to discuss what we thought, especially with a string of IEP meetings scheduled back-to-back that day. I said that I thought the principal was a good one, but that the process seemed to be more of a loss control effort than an educational one. He was not in touch with the details, of course, but now at least he knows who has been calling him. He said he wanted to assure me that the district did care about this student.I am sure that he saw the pain in my eyes as he spoke about caring for my son.
As I left the school I was thinking how far we had come in the area of integrating races, but how far we have to go to integrate even treatable disabilities. This is one of the district's flagship schools, known for its focus on cultural diversity. Here I was, talking to a black superintendent with a Japanese American principal about systemic abuse and discrimination against a young white boy with a treatable disability. How far we have come in some ways, and how far we have yet to go in others.
Meanwhile, my son had a doctor's appointment that morning, after which my wife was delivering him to the district-assigned school.
Student A is now in first grade.
My Favorite Links
CHADD's Page on ADD in the Classroom
View ADD SPECT scans from the Amen Clinic
Email: elano1@aol.com
