Comments on: Discrimination in School

By: Sharlyn Velazquez

Sharlyn Velazquez — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 08:37:37 +0000

Reading this brought tears to my eyes because right now I am going through the SAME EXACT THING with my 14 year old son. His principal stated my son is “another juvenile delinquent”, went as far as calling him stupid even threatened my son who has ADHD and ALL paper work (504,etc) is on record. My son was doing so good until this incident and has had a major emotional set back. I have noticed many people feel ADHD is over diagnosed and state parents use this diagnosis as “just an excuse” for a child with behavior and emotional issues. This is all just mess. I hope your son is well!

Sharlyn

By: sara

sara — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 22:59:36 +0000

I empathize with your situation my 5 year old son has has just started a new school as well last december 2011. I knew adjusting to a new envioroment is not easy but his new school never gave my son a chance from day one I recieved behavoiral charts in his home work, several phone call about his disruptive behavoir, with in the first week he got suspended for allegitally hitting another child.I say allegitly because i asked what happened and the teacher said out of no where with out provoking him he just got up and hit a student. i know my son he has never had any violent behavoir at any childcare or school before. I set a meeting with the principle and staff to see what can be done to help my child adjust and what they are doing to structurly educate him. They told me they need me to give them permission to be evualated for indivisual education program and until i sign the form he would be placed on half days. so i wrote the emailed the board of education dfirector of my jurisdiction who then emailed the schools principles supervisor. which i gues struct a nerve becuase today again my son was suspended for hitiing a child five days ago inwhich i was never notified about until today. i beleive not every one in education is passionate about there profession and are simply collecting a check if your child is not a miniture mature adult wraped in the size of a five year old these so called educator will use the power of the pin to assinate defensless children characfters and make it appear the problem is the child when infact it is this poor educational system that does not care for our children or their future.

By: dine

dine — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 13:58:41 +0000

we just moved into a new area, my 5 year old son seems to be having troubles adapting to his new environment. His teacher has been sending home notes about how my son shows “no remorse” and is “smirking” behind her back and is “physical” with other students.. the other day we had a conference and the school is insistent that we as parents are not doing enough and that we need to enforce discipline at home.. Everyday he goes to before and after care.. the teachers there adore him and never have any issues with him. We bring this up that he can behave and control himself under the right circumstances but the teacher is dead set on stating that “she knows 5 year olds” and apparently our son is not a normal 5 year old. I have NEVER had issues like this come home before. He is hyper and often impulsive but he can be guided into doing things correctly. So now the school is pushing an ADHD diagnosis. He is 5 years old and every clinician has told me that it is not recommended to medically treat a 5 year old.. we discussed this with the school counselor, the principle and his teacher. The priciple is firm on stating that it has nothing to do with the teacher, his argument is that because the superintendent has his daughter in her class that there is nothing wrong with the teacher. Yesterday she called my cell 2 times and because she got my answering machine she called my husband and not being able to talk to us immediately decided to write an email about how appalled she was with my sons behavior and now he is not able to participate in the thanksgiving party they are having, it is important to mention that the two weeks before that he had been working very hard and stayed on green for good behavior. So now he will have to sit at the principle while the rest of his class has a party, the kids in his class don’t like him, a little girl even told him that she was upset that he hadn’t gone to black when he was behaving well. I really feel like this teacher is creating an environment that would force my son to behave negatively so she has justification for removing him or something. She is completely irrational and doesn’t listen to anything we have to say. I don’t understand how she can justify speaking to other adults in the way she does and i don’t understand the schools reaction when I bring up her unjust behavior. I could really use some help here, this is really starting to turn into an issue of discrimination against a 5 year old.

By: DORA

DORA — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 02:34:27 +0000

my seven year old son is been having problems to concentrate in school,no fighting is just that he gets distracted very easy so they been having problems with him because of that,so they called me to have a teachers meeting and discus what we could do about this,it was myself and my son’s teacher and an few minutes later came the vice principal there he started complaining about my son but i felt as if he was referring to a criminal,he said that there’s was no more they could do about it and that it was so possible that my son need it medication,at that moment i told him that i already talked to a psychologist and that he has told me there were no need to give my son medication that he only need it therapy for his behavior,but still he keep complaining and then he said “WELL THERE HAD BEEN STUDIES THAT SHOW THAT SOME KIDS WHO LIVE IN HOUSING COMMUNITIES END UP BEEN BAD CITIZENS” that made me feel very very bad i am single mother trying to make a living for my 3 kids working full time trying my best to raise them.

By: patrick

patrick — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 13:02:28 +0000

well to day my little sister was serverly sick and i dont know what to do can someone help me

By: patrick

patrick — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 13:00:37 +0000

hi dana i am 15 years old and i have autism i know what your son must be feeling it stinks to know that the school board does not do any thing about discrimination hate and bullying. i think that all the people that get bullyeld should ban to gether to stop it if you belive in it you should start a rally thanks! for reading my comment.

By: Michele

Michele — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 03:25:48 +0000

My husband, my 6 yr old and I made the decision today to start homeschooling. My son’s teachers seem exasperated with him – I’ve told him that he’s under the care of a ped neurologist, but it takes time to manage ADHD, anxiety and OCD. I’ve asked them to be patient with him, but it’s obvious that these disorders make them uncomfortable. My son feels it, too. He no longer looks forward to school, cries and begs to be allowed to stay home. His self esteem has gone into the toilet. I’m only getting criticism from the school, no offers of help or working with him. So I’m pulling him out of school Monday to start homeschooling. He’s excited about it He’ll be starting his ADD and anxiety meds this fall, and hopefully homeschooling will allow him to adjust to them and relax a bit. He’s such a sweet little boy, off the charts bright but his teachers have killed his joy of learning. I’d like to slap them all. It is discriminatory, for sure.

By: Michele

Michele — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 03:14:13 +0000

I have been very creative my whole life. I was diagnosed with adult ADD 6 years ago after the birth of my son. I have been on meds for it ever since, and it hasn’t dampened my creativity one bit. I write for a living, and haven’t felt that the meds have diminished my flow or my skills. My son (also a very creative person) been diagnosed with ADHD, will begin meds this fall and I cannot wait to see how he responds to them. I hope that he feels the freedom of getting out of the mental quicksand that I did once I started my meds.

By: Outraged

Outraged — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 01:42:16 +0000

Each of these stories mirror my sons story of having ADHD and of my story as a parent who is so fed up with a system that is suppose to be here to support and teach our children to grow into educated, productive adults. They support and teach allright, they support an environment in which kids who are “different” are treated as if they are nothing in society, they teach other kids how to bully, harrass and exclude those who don’t fit the norm. I just don’t understand how these so called educators can be so ignorant, intolerant, and just downright cruel to these children who never asked to be born this way. To top it off they then sit on their high and mighty perches in judgement of us parents who are doing everything humanly possible to help, nuture, and love these children into adulthood when their very disorder makes it so difficult to do. It’s not only the kids who are judged to be “less than.” To everyone else it must be that we are not doing our jobs, or it is something that we did during pregnancy, or we aren’t strict enough at home, or we are too strict, or we dont feed them right, or we must have done drugs, alcohol, or have poor diets, and the list goes on and on. I have now read thousands of articles from all levels of academia and the stories are always the same when it comes to kids and ADHD so how can it be that these teachers and educators and administrators who are supposed to be “Educated” people still be so very ignorant to this problem? How can they still be so unwilling to help these kids? How can they still just want to pump them full of medications that “destroy” their brains not help them? My own son is living a nightmare caused by a school system who has abused him in every sense of the word. He has been taunted, teased, bullied, harrassed, excluded, demeaned, & punished, repeatedly because of his ADHD. I want to pull him back out and homeschool him again but he is determined to stay there inorder to play his sports and participate in the programs that are his passion but I am afraid for him and his future if he continues to do so. We too have a lawsuit filed but only after years of naive thinking, thinking that these people, my collegues, would help him. Thinking and believing that surely these Educators couldn’t possibly do such harm to a child. Boy was I wrong. We must all speak out, we must let the world know of the damage being done to these bright, intelligent, creative, big-hearted kids. We must work to come up with a better way to educate them, to not succumb to “thee” system. Surely there is a better way! I am a huge proponet of homeschooling these kids but not everyone is in a postion to do that so we have to come up with a better way. We can’t let this happen to anymore of our kids. This is a huge problem that isn’t going to go away overnight but there has got to be a better way!!!!

By: Dr. Kenny Handelman

Dr. Kenny Handelman — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 03:51:06 +0000

Jan,
That is a great question.
Having worked with many people with ADD/ADHD – my experience is that it really depends on the individual. For some people, the creativity is still there, and now they can act on it. For some, they can focus better, but the ‘spark’ is less. I have to say that the vast majority of people have the first situation, and only a small percentage have the dulling of creativity.