Alright – so, as I have written before and will continue to do so until this issue of disproportionately suspending minority children decreases. I have been reading like crazy and gathering data from Minnesota and nationwide. A letter from the U.S Department of Education in 2016 cited data that suggested not only were students with disabilities suspended at a higher rate, but students with disabilities who were minorities were even higher. No surprise there. As a black woman, I am not surprised – rather pissed because at some point this crap has to stop and people like Kelly Morris, Jaysen Anderson and Jennifer McIntyre from Jefferson High school who are deliberately suspending our children must be held accountable. Insanity is doing the same-thing and expecting different results.
Last week I went to see Sen. Abeler who is like a brother to me and has supported autism in the Somali community when no one else did. He is the chair of the health and human policy commitee in Minnesota Senate. He referred me to Sen. Hoffman who I don’t know well but he knew everything about Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE), Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Minnesota’s Pupil Fair Dismissal Act. I mean he was able to cite specific words and what page they were on – impressive. I went to the state legislature to see why there is a law that allows school districts to suspend children with disabilities up to five days even if their behavior is due to their disability like Bloomington school district did.
Here is what each said. Abeler said “clearly Bloomington school district did not have an idea of how to help my son whom they taught since elementary. By now they should’ve had his behaviors down and how to help him proactively”. No argument there, I already know Bloomington school district staff were incompetent and had no training in positive behavior support nor did principal Jaysen understand autism as he sadly admitted. Sen. Carla N said who chairs the education finance committee said – it will be hard to amend the current law but not impossible, and maybe schools need more training on how to support students with behavior disorders like autism similar to how police are now trained on mental health crises. Sen. Hoffman said ” Did Bloomington meet my son’s unique needs according to his disability and how it affects his education”. The short answer is no they did not meet his unique needs because they knew he is a routine oriented child, yet they disrupted his routine which caused a meltdown. Additionally, he said they did not provide him his communication device so he can tell them what he wanted thereby violating his civil rights. So what does this all mean now? well – maybe I can sue them, maybe I can complain to the Minnesota Department of Human Rights or office of civil rights or maybe I can file a complaint with Minnesota Department of Education. Maybe I will do all. The federal law clearly states “in the case of a child whose behavior impedes the child’s learning or that of others, the IEP Team must consider, and when necessary provide FAPE including IEP – the use of positive behavior support interventions and other strategies to address that behavior. 34 CRF 300.324(a)(2)(i) and (b)(2) and 300.320(a)(4). Did Bloomington fail my child – heck yes. Did they do it willfully and purposefully. Yes, without a doubt. His teacher nor the principal were trained in positive behavior support. Instead of getting the IEP team to help him, they suspended him knowing he didn’t understand the concept of suspension. I wonder what kind of human-being that makes them? Think about it – who picks on a vulnerable disabled nonverbal child? Only a monster.
However, what I am really interested now is to eliminate Bloomington school district having the opportunity to ever treat another child like they treated mine and this can only happen if the suspension policy is amended to say that students with disabilities can be suspended like students without disabilities if their behavior is not due to their disability and that the students IEP must document the child’s behaviors and how to support it proactively and positively. I know Bloomington failed my son and so many other children of color as well as students with disabilities, and I will not rest until they are no longer able to hurt any more child.
Above words do not reflect any committee, agency or candidate.
Idil – Autism Mom