This is a transcript of Sharon daVanport’s interview with Melissa Barton for the Asperger Women’s Association. Melissa’s son Alex was voted out of his kindergarten class Survivor-style by his teacher, Wendy Portillo, in May 2008; Alex has Asperger Syndrome. The Bartons have recently filed a federal lawsuit.

Sharon daVanport: Hello, everyone, and welcome to AWA Radio. I am your host Sharon DaVanport and today is Monday, Oct. 26. Just a couple of announcements before we get started. First, I wanna remind everyone that next week on Monday, November 2, we will be having our monthly drawing for the AudioSedation sound system which is provided by our sponsor, b-Calm Sound. And b-Calm Sound has actually developed a very wonderful…It’s just wonderful. Everyone I’ve talked to that’s tried their Sedation sound system just absolutely loves it.

It has been developed as they worked with parents and teachers and adults on the spectrum, and who also have ADD and ADHD to develop this interevention system. And it’s just been something that’s worked really well for many, many people, and I know that our winners from last month have just spoken about the sound system that they got, they just really really like it. So I just wanted to remind everyone that if you are registered and you’re in our chatroom, your name automatically gets put in for the drawing. And I wanna give their website, too. It’s b-calmsound.com. So just hop on over there and see what they have to offer.

And now to get on with our show. I just want to let everyone know that on AWA Radio, we’ve had some pretty heavy hitters on. We’ve had Dr. Tony Attwood on a couple of times, we’ve had John Elder Robison on a couple times. But we have received so much feedback on our guest tonight, Melissa Barton. Her son Alex was voted out of his kindergarten class last year in 2008 and it’s really made the headlines. They’ve been all over the news stations and CNN and FOX and it’s just been all over. And there’s some really big things happening because of this case, and what happened with Alex, because he was soon after diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome.

So I’m gonna bring Melissa on now and let her tell about this, because we’ve had a lot of people who are interested, and I know that our switchboard, it looks like a lot of people are listening on our switchboard, too, this evening. So I want her to be able to tell this story. Are you with us, Melissa?

Melissa Barton: I sure am. How are you?

Sharon daVanport: I’m well, thank you. Thank you for being with us tonight.

Melissa Barton: Absolutely.

Sharon daVanport: Yes. I wanted you to take us back. This happened May 21 of ‘08, is that correct?

Melissa Barton: That’s right.

Sharon daVanport: Okay. And Alex was 5?

Melissa Barton: Yeah, he was 5. Alex has an August birthday.

Sharon daVanport: Okay.

Melissa Barton: So in May of ‘08, he was 5. He’s 7 now. A lot of people get confused: “What happened to that extra year?” But really his birthday’s in the middle of the summer, so that’s what happened with it.

May 21, 2008 started out a normal day just like any other day—dropping my 2 children off at the same school. My oldest child attended the Morningside gifted program at the time, and Alex was in kindergarten in Wendy Portillo’s classroom. And nothing unusual. No behavior problems in the morning, just a typical day. Dropped off the boys, went to work, no phone calls, nothing. No indication that anything had been taking place at school. I didn’t need to pick him up from school because of behavior issues. Nothing. Nothing out of the ordinary.

And then at 3:00 I did happen to take off work early that day and went into the school’s cafeteria to pick up both my boys, and Alex arrived first. He came to me and I could immediately tell by his demeanor, watching him walk down the hallway that something was wrong. And whenever he got close enough to me, I could see his face was really red and he had looked like he’d been crying.

Sharon daVanport: Aw.

Melissa Barton: And so I told Alex: “Hey, what’s going on?” and he said: “14 kids voed me out of my class.”

Sharon daVanport: Oh, he even knew the number then. He said 14. Wow.

Melissa Barton: He knew the number because Wendy Portillo knew he needed a visual for learning, so she decided to tally the votes on the board for him.

Sharon daVanport: Oh, wow.

Melissa Barton: She knew he needed a visual because I’d provided a packet from CARD, the Center for Autism and Related Disabilities from FAU, which is an organization that helps out in classrooms. I provided her with a teaching packet the month before, so she knew a visual would work best for him. And that’s the one thing he did recall immediately, was the 14 to 2 vote.

And as a mom or anybody, you hear that and you think: “Okay. It’s the end of the school year, there’s not a class presidency thing going on. Now what is he talking about?”

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: So I held hands and I walked up to the office, and in the office were a few of the administration staff members and a nurse. And I knew the nurse and I asked her: “What is he referring to, this vote?” And her demeanor just absolutely changed now that she’s seen me, and she got real nervous and she pointed to the classroom across the hallway and she said: “You need to talk to the teacher about this.” So I became scared myself when she said that.

Sharon daVanport: So they obviously knew at that point, in the office. They already knew what was going on then.

Melissa Barton: They knew.

Sharon daVanport: Oh, wow. Okay.

Melissa Barton: So I went out to the hallway, and Wendy Portillo was sticking to another student. And so I waited for her to get done and I addressed her, and she quickly took me into her classroom, and now this is getting kind of scary. You can tell if one’s demeanor is different than it typically is, and so I sat down at this little kindergarten chair and a big circle table, because they didn’t have desks. They had big tables. And she sat on one side, and I sat with Alex on the other and I asked her to explain to me what happened. And she did. She went into detail. And she was very [verseful?] about it.

Sharon daVanport: So, tell us: how did she explain this to you? What did she say? What were the words that you heard, Melissa? [exasperated laughter] I wanna hear this.

Melissa Barton: Let’s start with, this was her way of “fixing” Alex. And when I addressed the fact that, no, we were in the process of developing an IEP for services, we had a Student Assessment Team, and we all knew that he very likely had autism and more specifically Asperger Syndrome. This was real well-known and I addressed this with her, and she said to me that this was her form of psychology, and this was how she was going to magically heal my child.

Sharon daVanport: Okay, now say that again: it’s her form of psychology. This is how she was gonna “heal” him or “fix” him.

Melissa Barton: Right. This was her way of “fixing” him. Exactly.

Sharon daVanport: Okay. Got it.

Melissa Barton: I’m sitting here, I’m thinking: “Are you crazy?” [laughter]

Sharon daVanport: Yeah.

Melissa Barton: That’s all you can think, and I asked her a few more questions, and she went into detail. And I turned to Alex and I said to him: “How did this make you feel?” And he leaned over to me and he said: “It made me feel sad, Mom,” in a real soft little voice, but enough she could hear it. And she slammed her hand down on the table which made it into a fist, and she brought it up pointing at him and she said to him: “No, it didn’t!”

And I got really upset, and I wanted to make sure that I left before I did anything wrong. And I took his hand, and I stood up, and started walking toward the door. At that time, she got up and she blocked my exit from the classroom.

Sharon daVanport: She blocked you from leaving. Wow.

Melissa Barton: Yeah, exactly. We couldn’t leave. But I’m a small person and she’s a much bigger person than I am, and so I was physically intimidated at that point in time, and I really didn’t know how I was gonna get myself and my son out of the situation. So I listened to her ramble on a little bit more and talk about all these issues that she was having, although we were working with the Student Assessment Team and even the principal was involved in trying to get something developed.

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: And she…I don’t know. I couldn’t believe what was going on. I think I was in complete and total shock. I finally said real stern to her that we were leaving. And she did get out of my way after some coaxing. And I was walking toward the door and she made it out just after me. I guess it was just behind me, because as I went into the office across the hallway, I could feel her on my back.

And I walked into othe office and I asked for the principal, and she [Portillo] said to me that she wasn’t here, and she got real belligerent. I was in tears at this point, trying to hide it from Alex. I didn’t want to upset him any more than he was already upset. I just took him and I went out the other side of the office and waited for my oldest child. When I got into my car, I was already on the phone dialing 411 trying to get the number for the superintendent’s office.

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: You just start dialing as many numbers as you can to get some help with what was going on. I wasn’t really getting anywhere. I was kind of stuck leaving messages.

Sharon daVanport: Now, Melissa, when you say that she explained to you everything, did she at that point tell you how she facilitated this vote? Alex had been sent to the office a couple times before, so was it while he was out of the room? And then she announced it to him when he came back? How did that part take place?

Melissa Barton: Oh, no no. He was in the room.

Sharon daVanport: Oh.

Melissa Barton: What I understand from documents and testimony at this point is: That day, there was a play. So he had a disruption in his morning and got a little bit off task. I’m not real clear if he got to join the play or didn’t get to join the play. My understanding from some testimony [is] that he did. He was watching the play—I think it was the fifth grade play—and after that, he was under the table kicking the leg of the table. Now, these are big tables, and I’ve heard comments, people saying that he threw the table. He’s not He-Man.

He’s kicking the table, and he was chewing on the crayons—Alex has pica—and so he was having a little bit of anxiety, and he was chewing on the crayons, and apparently this upset her.

Sharon daVanport: Okay.

Melissa Barton: She got him out from under the table. Alex has told me now that in the past, to get him out from under the table, she would actually dig her nails into his leg or his arm, and pull him out.

Sharon daVanport: [gasp] Ohhh.

Melissa Barton: I’m under the impression that the school police were called in to remove a 5-year-old from under the table. They came in and removed him from under the table. He was sent to the office.

Sharon daVanport: Oh my goodness. [This is?] ridiculous.

Melissa Barton: He was sent to the office. Alex I guess started off the day kind of sad, because Alex likes to wear his shoes on the opposite feet. It’s a sensory issue.

Sharon daVanport: Okay.

Melissa Barton: I guess he was sitting in class before all this craziness took place and he had his shoes on the wrong feet, and she really got on to him. He wasn’t making any noise; he wasn’t doing anything wrong. Just had his shoes on the wrong feet.

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: And she made a big act of it, and made sure he changed that. So I think that probably sent him in the wrong direction.

Sharon daVanport: Well, yeah. See, just these little things that you’re describing, Melissa, about her response when Alex said to you: “It made me feel sad,” and then she tries to tell him how he did feel or did not feel. She says: “No, it didn’t.” And she said that it didn’t make him feel that way and shook her hand, didn’t you say?

Melissa Barton: Yeah.

Sharon daVanport: She’s trying to say how he feels, she’s not working with the sensory issues. It seems like one thing is just leading up to another. It almost doesn’t sound like she’s a teacher, like she’s even got her degree in teaching. This is just unreal.

Melissa Barton: I don’t really feel like she had her head on straight for at least that day. I was definitely concerned. But I was intimidated. I’m an adult and a parent. Sitting in that room with her, yelling and just…I don’t know. I can’t even explain the behavior. But I was intimidated.

Sharon daVanport: Oh my gosh.

Melissa Barton: So I can imagine what 5- and 6-year-old children feel. ‘Cause I felt nervous myself.

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: But he was sent to the office, and the assistant principal, Patricia [Lastname], apparently tucked in his shirt and he promised that he wouldn’t misbehave any more that day.

Sharon daVanport: Wow.

Melissa Barton: And he said to her that he wanted to apologize to Mrs. Portillo for getting under the table.

Sharon daVanport: Aw.

Melissa Barton: So the vice principal said: “Okay. You go ahead and go apologize, and that’s the right thing to do.” And when he walked back into the room is when she decided she’d have her vote. He wanted to express that he was apologetic, and she didn’t even give him the opportunity to do so.

Sharon daVanport: Aw.

Melissa Barton: So she brought him up to the front of the class and she started asking the kids how they felt about Alex and things of that nature. Now, there’s already a negative environment going on. And it’s my understanding that at the same time that they were casting the votes, she would point to a child, for example, and say: “Do you want Alex to stay or go?” The child would say: “I want him to go,” and she’d say: “Now express what you don”t like about Alex.”

Sharon daVanport: [gasp] Oh!

Melissa Barton: “Tell Alex why you hate Alex” is what Alex told me, and I believe Alex more than anybody. So she would do this, and each child would say something negative, and Alex had one really good friend in the classroom—sweet little boy. And this little boy was so patient with Alex and was just a great kid. And I know that when it got to this child’s turn that Alex felt that he had an ally in the classroom. That somebody was gonna stand up for him.

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: And this little boy tried to, in fact. He said that he wanted to keep Alex in the class—

Sharon daVanport: Aw.

Melissa Barton: —and she made the child change his vote. She yelled at him and made him actually change the vote that he had, because he became intimidated of her. And she also forced him to say something negative about Alex on top of everything else.

Sharon daVanport: So she’s reminding each student after they cast their vote that they at that point have to make a statement as to what they don’t like about Alex.

Melissa Barton: Right.

Sharon daVanport: That’s what you’re saying. Oh, my gosh!

Melissa Barton: [unknown] and the documented ones that are really just related to Asperger Syndrome are pica.

Sharon daVanport: [sigh] Oh.

Melissa Barton: And it wasn’t that Alex was mean, Alex is never mean to anybody.

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: He’s always very, very sweet to people.

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: He’s a verbal-nonverbal is what I call it, ’cause he’s not expressive with his language. He cam speak very well, has a great vocabulary, but when it comes to his emotions he doesn’t express them very well. And I understand that after the vote took place, he was asked how it made him feel by her, and he said he felt sad. And she yelled at him—I guess the time I was present was the second time she yelled at him that day and told him that he didn’t feel sad about it.

Sharon daVanport: [sigh] Oh.

Melissa Barton: And he doesn’t know how to express how he feels. So he was sent out of the office—and this was before lunchtime—and it’s my understanding that he didn’t even get to eat lunch the day that this happened; that he sat in the office, in the nurse’s office, and in front of the vice principal.

Sharon daVanport: [sarcastically] Well, that oughtta help his sensory issues a lot, now, wouldn’t it? Just have the child go hungry. No one even realized that he wasn’t taken down for lunch?

Melissa Barton: I don’t think they did.

Sharon daVanport: [sigh]

Melissa Barton: I don’t know why they did it, or why no one checked, but he says to me that he did not eat lunch that day and he has a pretty good memory.

Sharon daVanport: Ohhh.

Melissa Barton: My question has always been: Why didn’t somebody call me? These people in the office, I thought they were my allies and I would go on field trips and I would sit in the office and wait for them, the class events. I was very involved. I felt like these people knew me and were always so nice to me when I walked in the office and always a smile on their face.

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: But that day, they were not there. They wanted to stay away from me.

Sharon daVanport: Now, Melissa, what time of day did the vote happen and he was sent to the office because he was voted out of class?

Melissa Barton: It’s my understanding about 10:00 or so.

Sharon daVanport: So he sat in the office all day until you came and got him at 3:00 because he was voted out?

Melissa Barton: All day long.

Sharon daVanport: So that means the administration in the office agreed with the teacher’s behavior if they allowed him to sit in there because he was voted out.

Melissa Barton: Nobody called me.

Sharon daVanport: Wow.

Melissa Barton: [unknown] is the vice principal left the building. She found out what happened, got in her car and left. How do you leave this person in a classroom? You know what she did, and you’re so nervous you leave?

Sharon daVanport: [sigh] Oh.

Melissa Barton: You leave her in the classroom with the other children? This is so disturbing to me.

Sharon daVanport: Did you ever get an explanation at all, Melissa, from the administration?

Melissa Barton: No. No.

Sharon daVanport: I know you said that Wendy Portillo has not made an apology or anything to you guys. But the administration hasn’t even said why they just allowed him to sit in the office all day without calling you? That he was voted out? [sigh]

Melissa Barton: Of course not. I’ve been in marketing for a very long time, in advertising for a very long time, and that day I contacted a mentor of mine who happens to own a marketing firm, and he said: “You get the superintendent on the phone.”

Sharon daVanport: [sigh]

Melissa Barton: I gave the superintendent three days to return my phone call before I went to the media. I was not getting answered.

Sharon daVanport: Oh, wow.

Melissa Barton: And so I knew that they would have to answer me if I had media involved. That’s why I turned to the media in the first place because I did not get answered. To this day, the only answers I have come from depositions, come from testimony, things of that nature. No one has ever called me up and said: “Hi, this is what’s going on.” I’ve never had that courtesy.

Sharon daVanport: Wow.

Melissa Barton: And I wouldn’t [expect it?] either.

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: I really feel like people were hiding behind what happened. What we know comes from their own acts and admissions. All of the people who were involved have admitted to violations of the Constitutional and statutory common laws and the rights of Alex, his civil rights.

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: This is something that’s been admitted and very well-documented. It’s just so dumbfounding.

Sharon daVanport: I know. It’s just so shocking. It’s almost like you can’t hardly believe. I remember when I first read the story. It was hard for me to even process the fact that this actually happened to a 5-year-old, and that it was an adult who facilitated this entire event.

Melissa Barton: Yeah.

Sharon daVanport: It’s not like it was some other kid that was bullying him and saying: “We don’t want you in our class,” and got all these kids to pick on him and say things about him. That’s bullying.

Melissa Barton: Yeah.

Sharon daVanport: It’s actually against the law in most states now. They have bullying policies, that you can’t instigate. One child can’t get another child to pick on another child, and this is exactly what Wendy Portillo was doing. She was going one by one in that classroom, having them tell Alex as he stood up in front of this class exactly what they didn’t like about him. Wow. That blows my mind, Melissa.

Melissa Barton: She’s marking it on the board.

Sharon daVanport: Marking it on the board. Unbelievable.

Melissa Barton: And there’s nothing wrong with this behavior?

Sharon daVanport: [sigh] I can’t even begin to say how many things are wrong with that behavior. And you know what? They know it, Melissa. They’re just scared to admit it because they know any admission, or if they don’t back her…this is what I want you to get to next. I want you to tell our listeners how outrageous the school district has been to you, even though she was told she couldn’t teach for a year and so many things happened. I’ll let you explain that, aboutg how they still refuse to…they’re still backing her. Why don’t you tell us what happened?

Melissa Barton: Before I do that, I’d also like to talk a little about the other stuff that went on, that [unknown] to parents all day long. They just don’t know it.

Sharon daVanport: Okay.

Melissa Barton: Alex entered a different school district before this took place, and we moved, and so we moved schools, unfortunately. Biggest mistake of my life. But we moved to what was an A plus school, and thia and that, the good schools.

Anyway, before moving to this district, we were in another district who decided that something was definitely going on with Alex, and asked me to sign to have him evaluated, to start the process of IEP.

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: I did; I signed that October 3 of 2007. I received an IEP for Alex in the beginning of March 2009.

Sharon daVanport: Oh, wow.

Melissa Barton: You have to think about it. The school district by law has 60 days to put an IEP in place.

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: There were so many IDEA law violations, just one after another.

Sharon daVanport: Oh my goodness.

Melissa Barton: I think many parents face that. I think that happens everyday. So if I have a piece of advice about that IDEA law, it’s: Learn it and understand it.

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: When you have a child in a public school, you need to know what your child’s rights are. You need to be your child’s advocate, because I really did not know my rights. I was not given my rights by the school like I was supposed to be, so I didn’t know them. And I was in the dark, really. I kept calling and trying to get things to go a lot faster, and I wasn’t getting anywhere. And this is all pre-vote.

Sharon daVanport: See, a lot of parents don’t know that there is a law that says that they are required to have the IEP in place after X amount of days. If you don’t know that, then you don’t know to enforce that, and they won’t offer that information to you. They won’t say that when you submit a request for an IEP, they won’t say: “We’ll make sure that we have this done in X amount of days. It’s against the law if we don’t.” [laughter] They’re not going to say that. Wow.

Melissa Barton: Yes, absolutely. I just wanna make sure that the people are aware that violations take place every single day.

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: It’s probably happening to you if you’re a child in a public school district somewhere. If you don’t know the law, I can almost guarantee you it’s been happening to you.

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: So make sure that you’re well-informed, and that you know what’s going on in your child’s classroom. Moving beyond the vote, after the vote took place and I contacted the media and it was so exposed. It wasn’t just exposed on a national level, it was on an international level. We received letters and cards from New Zealand, from Japan, from all kinds of places. It was very much exposed, this case was.

Sharon daVanport: Wow.

Melissa Barton: And the school district did not like that, because on a daily basis they were receiving hundreds of phone calls, e-mails, countless faxes, things of that nature saying: “What is going on in your school district?”

Sharon daVanport: Uh-huh.

Melissa Barton: And: “Fire this teacher.” There were petitions out there with over 10,000 signatures on them, the ones I can find that are totalling. They’re complaining. The public stood up for my son and said: “This is the wrong thing. This is not what our country is about. We cannot allow this to take place.

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: The school district looked as if they were going to do something. May went with the vote, June went and July went by, all these dates and not a whole lot of action. And then came August, when I sent my oldest child back to school, back to Morningside. He’s in the gifted program, so I had no other choice. I’ve had to send him to Morningside elementary school.

Sharon daVanport: And now this is where it happened to Alex is Morningside, correct?

Melissa Barton: It’s where the vote took place, and I was incredibly uncomfortable sending him there. Almost immediately, the school and staff at the school started to retaliate against our family.

Sharon daVanport: In what way?

Melissa Barton: Oh, my gosh. The first time in his educational career, he was making Cs and my legal team had to address the issue. Then all the sudden, his grades went up 10 points in 2 or 3 days.

Sharon daVanport: Oh wow.

Melissa Barton: My son was apparently truant, although he only missed a handful of days with letters. I had a truancy officer, which is really serious in our state, call my home. They were gonna put me through a truancy process, which I did not deserve, [shocked laughter] because my son attended school the days he was supposed to.

I witnessed the vice principal physically push my oldest child who was in 4th grade at the time. I just happened to be in a car riding along, and it was a whole situation that took place and I did file a [police?] report on. Nothing, of course, happened to her because of that. Then again he said that she pushed [him] while she was in the school, physically. Apparently, nobody wants to help out. [shocked laughter]

Sharon daVanport: Wow.

Melissa Barton: I file my police report again with the police officers who are the school resource officers, not police officers for the city, but for the school.

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: So here I am filing a document against themselves, and it doesn’t do you any justice [unknown].

Sharon daVanport: Aw.

Melissa Barton: I tried everything I could to make something happen and nobody would do anything about the physical abuse that was taking place. And then an article came out before Wendy Portillo’s appeal. That night that the article came out, I received 6 phone calls from the school to my cell phone that had the school phone number come up that were just like breathing and hanging up. It was just so bizarre. I had to turn off my phone, which was also my work phone at the time.

Sharon daVanport: This is adults doing this!

Melissa Barton: This is adults doing this.

Sharon daVanport: You’d think that you were dealing with 10-year-olds.

Melissa Barton: Yeah. Hormonal teenagers, at least. And then it gets to the point to where I was 6 months pregnant—I just had a baby 6 weeks ago—and I was attending the honor roll service for my oldest child. As required in our home, he made the honor role every quarter. I had a parent and a self-proclaimed friend of Wendy Portillo come to me and threaten me with violence. Here I am pregnant, and this woman is threatening me that she’s going to physically attack me in the parking lot.

So that was another situation. By the way, the police officer said I did not appear to be pregnant once he took the police report from that incident. But I was. About 2 weeks later, I was going to pick Kyle up from school—I had Alex with me—and as soon as I pull up, I got this weird feeling. I see this woman, and as I drove closer I realize it’s the woman who threatened me holding a big sign. And they were picketing us. I’m driving up to the school, and on the school property—

Sharon daVanport: You’re child’s a student there and they’re picketing you.

Melissa Barton: The PTA members of the school are actually picketing me. Not only during school hours but on school property. I whipped out my cell phone, ’cause that’s all I had with me at the time, and I started snapping photographs of this picket. They’re saying things like: “Peace at Morningside,” but then [how?] really hostile they are toward us.

So I drive up and I get my oldest child, and as I’m driving up to the car rider line, there’s a sidewalk where the kids wait. The picketers are on this sidewalk, and they are taunting Alex and myself as we drive through. These are people that I had never even seen before, some adults that I don’t think belonged at the school at all.

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: They’re making faces and things of that nature. Alex got really nervous and upset and he hid in the floorboards and my oldest child gets in the car, and he had been crying. He was real upset.

Sharon daVanport: Aw.

Melissa Barton: He said: “Mom, they’re saying these horrible things,” and I said: “It’s okay. Don’t cry about it.”

Sharon daVanport: Were they chanting things when he was walking out of the school?

Melissa Barton: Yes. He had to stand behind these picketers for however long he had to stand there—maybe 10 minutes.

Sharon daVanport: How unprofessional. The principal had no control over his teachers. That principal could’ve stopped that and not allowed that to happen.

Melissa Barton: He had teachers standing right next to him as this is taking place and they’re doing nothing. They see him clearly upset and they’re doing nothing. The ESE coordinator at the school is a huge supporter of Wendy Portillo. Huge supporter of her. She is standing within feet of my son allowing this to take place.

Sharon daVanport: Oh, wow.

Melissa Barton: My son gets in the car totally upset and I’m trying to dial the superintendent’s office, I’m dialing the media control person with the school district, and everybody I could think of. I’m not really sure what took place after I left. I can only go by what they say. They claim they made everybody leave, but the damage is done. Both of my children were very intimidated by this moment. We were picketed. For what?

Sharon daVanport: Melissa, I have a question from the chatroom. Trisha’s wanting to know what did the signs say and what were the picketers saying?

Melissa Barton: The signs were saying different things, most of which were like: “Peace at Morningside” and “We support our teachers” and things like that. If there had been no events and they weren’t making negative remarks toward my oldest child who was standing there and making their little notions of us as we were driving up, it would seem like a real positive thing to do for your school, but it wasn’t.

Sharon daVanport: Right. It seems to me that they could’ve watched their own back, and when they saw a teacher doing wrong, stood up for a child. At this point, it seems to me like more heads need to roll than Wendy Portillo’s. All these people who are backing her, things that she did that were against the law. It just seems so outrageous that these other teachers and the administration especially, they need to be held responsible for allowing all of these events afterwards to take place. That you guys were harassed and bullied for you protecting your child. For you standing up for your child and saying: “No, this won’t happen.” Then they turn up the heat. Instead of backing off and trying to work things out and apologizing, they continue to harass you guys. Unbelievable.

Melissa Barton: Right. Unfortunately it gets much worse than that.

Sharon daVanport: I can’t believe it gets worse than that!

Melissa Barton: During this entire time, I was fighting for an IEP for my son, throughout this entire period of last year. And the first IEP they put in my face to have me sign was ridiculous. I said: “You know what? This is not the services that he requires in the classroom, and I’m not signing it. Point blank, I will not sign it.”

Several IEP meetings that lasted 6 hours long with my attorney and Alex’s doctors on my dime, we did eventually come to an agreement on what an IEP would loook like for my son.

Now, he was to enter back into the classroom I believe the beginning of March. That date in March came and went. I went to the district about what school he’d go to and I met with a bunch of different principals, and there was one principal in particular who I really liked. He was a very good principal and you could see it.

I talked to him a little bit. He knew the situation, and one of the first things he said to me was: “I would never allow Wendy Portillo in my school.” Here’ he is, he’s working for the same district and I have this head of ESE [sitting?] in the same meeting. And all the rest of the principals were really afraid to say anything to me. This guy was point blank honest.

Sharon daVanport: Good for him.

Melissa Barton: What a great principal, right? When you [talk about?] some of the programs he created for children on the spectrum and in particular, Asperger’s children [unknown], they ran a fire drill, they did all kinds of things in his school. He was telling about some of the other things in his class that he developed for childtren on the spectrum. He had a volleyball team that he created for them, and he really loved the kids.

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: He wanted Alex in his school, and I wanted Alex to attend that school. So when that date came, that was in the IEP that said that he was going to attend this particular school. I had him all ready to go, and we went walking up to school.

Now, I kept asking the head of ESE: “What’s going on? Why is nobody returning my calls? Why can’t I drop my child off at school? He’s supposed to begin very slowly to get him transitioned back into school. What is going on?” And I was getting no answers, my attorneys were getting absolutely no answers.

I went into the school, physically myself with Alex to do a re-enrollment process, to get the paperwork. I was told very kindly, a very nice lady at the office said that I could not enroll Alex into the school, although it was in my zone, it was on my IEP, but I was not given a reason. I don’t think she knew the reason.

Sharon daVanport: But it was in his IEP. You guys had agreed upon this school, and then he was rejected. Wow.

Melissa Barton: Yes. I brought the IEP with me. She didn’t understand it, and I knew she wouldn’t, so I took Alex. I asked her before I left: “You see that screen right there that says he can’t attend? Can you please print that off and let me have it?” And sure she did. I brought it with me.

Sharon daVanport: Good for you. Keep that paper trail.

Melissa Barton: I still couldn’t figure out what the heck was going on. It turned out in depositions and if you read the actual [federal?] filing that we’ve recently filed, it will tell you. What we’ve learned throughout this process of discovery, getting documents and through depositions is that the union actually blocked Alex from returning to school.

Sharon daVanport: The teachers’ union?

Melissa Barton: The teacher’s union.

Sharon daVanport: Wow.

Melissa Barton: Now Ms. Portillo, to my knowledge, was not a union teacher. The teachers’ union apparently, and according to what we’ve discovered and to what depositions say, referred to Alex as an “unwanted child.”

Sharon daVanport: “Unwanted child.” [sarcastically] Great. Unbelievable.

Melissa Barton: “Unwanted.” And this is all due to him having Asperger’s Syndrome.

Sharon daVanport: Wow.

Melissa Barton: Teachers were threatening to call the media if my child was enrolled in the school. They said Alex and other “unwanted” children.

Sharon daVanport: Other “unwanted.” So they had a list of other children that they considered unwanted?

Melissa Barton: “Wanted” and “unwanted.”

Sharon daVanport: That were on the spectrum as well?

Melissa Barton: Exactly. That’s my understanding.

Sharon daVanport: Woah. And you did get document proof of this, right, did you not?

Melissa Barton: We have everything, yes. We have depositions that also…I could sit here and talk to you, but reading something in black and white that your child is unwanted in school due to his disability, or ability, I refer to it as. That due to this, due to him having this special ability, he cannot attend a classroom.

Sharon daVanport: This is unreal.

Melissa Barton: What this is is history repeating itself. That’s exactly what this is. As a parent, as a mother—and I’m a strong mom, don’t get me wrong—but as a mother you see this, and you don’t know if you should scream and cry or if you should hurt somebody.

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: You don’t know which way to go. So he was not allowed to go back into the school.

Sharon daVanport: Aw.

Melissa Barton: He never ever attended the public school system again, and he was completely blocked out of attending the school. The vote is horrendous. It’s unbelievable and it’s completely disgusting.

Sharon daVanport: It really is.

Melissa Barton: But the events afterward, the retaliation, is just shocking.

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: I anticipated some form of respect for the situation we were going through, and we received the complete opposite of that.

Sharon daVanport: You know how much I’m sorry, and in repremanding that teacher, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.

Melissa Barton: Had I received a phone call. Something. But nothing. In November of ‘08, the school board had a vote on Wendy Portillo—everything revolves around votes in this county. I don’t understand why—but Wendy Portillo, regarding her punishment. The first time they did this, they decided that she was gonna lose her teaching job for a year. She was also going to lose her tenure. Tenure is really important.

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: A lot of great teachers deserve the tenure they have, ’cause they did good work for so long, and they put in some good years into the district. This is who it’s for.

Sharon daVanport: Now, the school board voted on this?

Melissa Barton: The school board voted on this. It was recommended by the superintendent that she lose the tenure and lose a year of working. And they voted unanimously for her to lose her tenure and not go back to school for a year. That was November 18 of last year.

Now, she appealed this decision. All these documents are online at the [DOAH]](http://www.doah.state.fl.us/internet/ “State of Florida Division of Administrative Hearings”) website. ([Ms. Portillo's docket sheet] (http://tinyurl.com/ybooeyp” “St. Lucie County School Board vs. Wendy Portillo”), with documents as PDF files). She appealed it before a judge, and the judge agreed with the school district. In fact, I was there when he said that she should really be fired, but [unknown] can’t make that decision.

Sharon daVanport: Wow.

Melissa Barton: All these videos are online. (Warning: videos not captioned). It was recorded by the media as well, so it’s all very accessible. So she lost this appeal. I felt like there’s a little bit of vindication.

Sharon daVanport: Well, yeah.

Melissa Barton: Then in May of ‘09 I received a phone call from a reporter that I frequently talk to and he said to me: “How do you feel abut the [unknown] taking place tonight?” “What are you talking about?” Apparently, there was a meeting, and I refer to it as a secret meeting, because I was not told this by the school district, nor invited to this meeting, on a reversal of her punishment, for lack of a better word.

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: The school board had informed her apparently 12 other people, 2 of which are her own children, that they had the opportunity to speak on her behalf on why she should receive herf tenure back. They did. 12 people stood up and told the school district that she was a spectacular person and how great of a person she was. They said: “Okay, well then, you get your tenure back.”

Sharon daVanport: [sadly] Oh.

Melissa Barton: She has her tenure, and she will be returning to the classroom the 18th of next month.

Sharon daVanport: Oh my goodness. Now this gets to the part that I just cringe. I cannot believe…I’m all about reform, and had Wendy Portillo stood up, took responsibility for what she did, agreed to take some continuing education classes on students with disabilities, some sensitivity training. Had they really implemented the right kinds of consequences and she followed through with it and was very humble about it, I’m all about giving someone something back. Her job. If she earned it back.

Melissa Barton: Mm-hm. [Yes]

Sharon daVanport: But for someone to be handed something back when they don’t even apologize for what they’ve done, and in fact they have done nothing but continue to harass and bully you guys? This is unbelievable to me!

Melissa Barton: We had to move to an unknown location and provide a PO Box. We have had to actually leave the district. I remember when all of this started. I had parents contacting me saying: “You will be retaliated against.” I kinda thought: “Yeah, they’ll give me some dirty looks,” right? No.

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: If you stand up for your child, and in this district in particular, I am a perfect example. You will be retaliated against. Mark my words. That’s why parents don’t stick up for their kids as often as they should, because they’re so afraid. The few who have have had to pack up everything they have, leave their home, leave their job, leave everything they have and just move.

Sharon daVanport: I want you to tell our listeners though, Melissa….This is how much the district intimidates other people. You have had support from other teachers and people who have actually helped you along the way with support and things, however they do it in secret, don’t they? They will not do it openly, because they’re scared.

Melissa Barton: Right. They’re terrified. I’ve had several of the teachers actually contact me and I know their names, but that’s not something I’m willing to share with anybody. They have let me know that they have gone through certain situations or they’ve seen certain situations take place, just to make me aware.

A lot of this stuff I can’t do anything about. I really can’t. There’s nothing I can do about past cases. Statute of limitations is, like, 2 years and if a parent doesn’t immediately get on something and file a complaint, it doesn’t matter. It didn’t happen. But there are other things I have reported to other agencies and hopefully somthing will take place.

And this comes from teachers. There are good teachers out there. There are good teachers hiding in [unknown] county. The trouble is, they’re so scared to really step up to the plate and do something. They’re afraid that they’re gonna lose their job or they’re gonna be marked with a number.

Sharon daVanport: Melissa, something I don’t understand, and maybe you can explain this to me. If Wendy Portillo went to a judge and filed an appeal to try to get this judge to reverse the school board’s original decision, and the judge upheld it, why is his decision still not able to supercede them having a secret meeting? Because she appealed above them to a court. Why is that not able to happen? I don’t get that.

Melissa Barton: Because it’s a DOAH court. They do not have the power over the school district. The school board basically has final say.

Sharon daVanport: Okay. Well they do, but that’s why you filed a federal suit.

Melissa Barton: Yeah. Hopefully we have some response from the government. I’m hoping that eventually laws will be changed and policy to be in order that will make sure these sort of actions never happen again, and if it does happen again, my hope is that the teacher will immediately be fired.

Sharon daVanport: Do you have any names where we can tell our listeners to write to anyone at the US Justice Department. Do you have anyone at all that you can give as a contact person that we can keep this out there in the public and say: “We’re supporting the lawsuit that you have filed.” If I just wanted to send an e-mail and say: “I support this lawsuit” and make my opinion be known, who do I contact?

Melissa Barton: You would contact the Office of Civil Rights, and the US Department of Justice. Send them an e-mail and let them know how you feel about a certain situation, and any situations that you can place in your own home or your own school. The Office of Civil Rights you can file a complaint with.

Sharon daVanport: I’m asking our listners right now. I”ll post it on Facebook, I’ll post it on Twitter. I’m gonna find this address where we need to write to and send an e-mail to. All of us need to keep this out there, especially now. Didn’t you just recently file the federal suit? You have to legally wait a year, is that true? You guys just now filed it?

Melissa Barton: Right. You have to wait a year, and so we did just now file it in August. Actually during the press conference, if you happen across any of the video, I was in labor.

Sharon daVanport: Oh, wow!

Melissa Barton: And I was asked by one of the members of the media: “Why are you here? You’re in labor.” I was there for a reason. If I don’t show up to protect my children’s life, who will?

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: And my baby who was unborn at that time, I was protecting her rights as well as my child’s rights, because little by little, we seem to lose our rights.We seem to give them away so easily. It’s just wrong. [Unknown] survivors and this country was built on people who wanted to make a beautiful nation, which we do have. If we just let that go, and little by little—

Sharon daVanport: Now, Wendy Portillo’s going back to Morningside elementary school?

Melissa Barton: I don’t know that.

Sharon daVanport: You don’t know that?

Melissa Barton: Nobody I know can find that information out. Reporters are trying to find out.

Sharon daVanport: Oh, they’ll find out. And then we’ll all find out, and we’ll just have to keep on everything. It’s gonna take our entire community, and I would hope that parents…This isn’t just an autism crisis here. This isn’t just something that happened to the autism community. This is something that parents in general need to realize: how much power these schoolboards have. And how much that they can say or can be done or not done that’s going to affect all of our children’s education. And then when you take the more vulnerable children, I mean, children are vulnerable anyway and then you add a disability or you add something on top of that, this is just outrageous. It just makes me sick to know that this has happened to you guys, Melissa. I’m just so sorry. Can you share with us what the lawsuit is requesting? Is it saying that you expect certain things to be done and laws to be changed? How is the federal lawsuit worded? Tell us how it is. The basic thing.

Melissa Barton: There’s nothing in particular that I can really discuss as far as [the specifics?] of this lawsuit, but I can tell you that a federal lawsuit works completely different than a [unknown] common lawsuit. And I’m not an attorney by no means, believe me. When I’m asked legal questions, I always just say: “Address it with my attorney,” because I really don’t understand a lot of terminology when it comes to filing lawsuits. I just know that the only way to really change things is to follow through with what you do, and I believe in that.

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: In my heart of hearts, I know that we’re doing the right thing.

Sharon daVanport: You really are, Melissa. I’m gonna bring a caller on. Oh, I’m sorry. Go ahead.

Melissa Barton: This is not about money, and I wanna make that really clear. This is about preventing this from ever happening to another child for as long as the St. Lucie County school district exists.

Sharon daVanport: Oh, I believe it. I believe you.

Melissa Barton: With what we’ve been through, it’s been horrible, and I wanna make sure that it never, ever takes place again.

Sharon daVanport: Well, it shouldn’t. It should’ve never happened. How is Alex doing? Before I bring the caller on, I wanna ask: How is he doing now? Does he talk about it still?

Melissa Barton: We have a huge team of professionals that just works with Alex, and it’s amazing the difference a good teacher can make.

Sharon daVanport: Good. I saw you guys on FOX just a few days ago, actually. I like the way when the newscaster asked him: “Was it the classmates that made him feel bad, or that did this?” and he was like: “No. It was the teacher.” [laugher] You know, I love that. I thought: “There it goes.” He knew that it was the teacher.

Melissa Barton: He knew it was her. And Alex is very smart as well. Alex has a gifted IQ. For some reason, in the county of St. Lucie I couldn’t get gifted included on his IEP, but Alex is very, very intelligent and understands things on a very deep level.

Sharon daVanport: [sadly] Aw.

Melissa Barton: And we have tried to work so hard…we have put so much into helping him understand that these kids were put in just as bad a situation as he was.

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: I know it affects him, and it will continue to affect him for the rest of his life. His doctors feel strongly about that. But how do you tell a child that, yes, these kids sat there and said something horrible about you, but they were forced to do it. None of the other children were at fault. They were all good kids, and they were not at fault for anything that she did.

Sharon daVanport: What did these parents think? If I was a parent of a child in that classroom, I would’ve been outraged. I would’ve been so mad that my child had to vote another child out.

Melissa Barton: There were a few that were very vocal, and unfortunately, whenever it’s not your child, it seems to not matter until it is.

Sharon daVanport: [sadly] Aw.

Melissa Barton: I’ve experienced that myself, so I’m not one to judge. But I can just explain to you that that seems to be the situation a lot of times.

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: And there were some that were very vocal and very upset about it, but time goes on and you have a job, you have other things to do. You can’t focus on what happened to somebody else’s child. And I understand that.

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: I put no blame on those parents. I place absolutely no blame on those wonderful little kids that were in that class.

Sharon daVanport: Well maybe, if we just keep the story out there, we can just continue putting our words in and our support towards all of this, because something has got to change. It really does. I wanna bring a caller on, though. I’ve got a couple callers waiting.

Savannah: This is Savannah

Sharon daVanport: Hi, Savannah. How are you?

Savannah: I’m okay. I wanted to know if the statewide family network for her state has helped her at all.

Melissa Barton: The statewide family network? No, I’m not familiar with anybody in the statewide family network. Are you referring to a child protective services?

Savannah: No. Statewide family network gets SAMSHA grants to provide a list of resources and advocacy groups by state. I’m kinda suprised that Florida’s didn’t help you at all. That resource is out there, and it’s supposed to help parents that have gotten into situations like this.

Melissa Barton: No, I’m not familiar with them at all.

Sharon daVanport: What kind of resources and services to they provide, Savannah? You’re in Pennsylvania, so you’re affiliated with them through Pennsylvania, correct?

Savannah: Yeah. Yes I am. My mother and I are both on the board for Pennsylvania’s statewide family network. Mostly what it does is it helps find resources that might be hard to find. For example, our state has a database that we’re putting together of all the people that provide services, government and not, any advocates that might be out there that wanna have their listing up, [providers?] that specialize in issues that might come up for families that have children with special needs. All of that stuff.

Sharon daVanport: That might be a good thing for you to tap into, Melissa, because maybe they have some advocacy services out there to help you guys through this whole legal process, just as a support.

Melissa Barton: I definitely [unknown]. I have some local advocates. I have family advocacy resources, Randy Sullivan who has been amazing throughout this whole thing, and ADA and a few others who have really helped me out as much as they possibly can. I’ve been quite fortunate with that.

My attorney [unknown] who’s out of West Palm Beach Florida is an amazing attorney. He’s just so compassionate and really, really cares about the kids, and truly believes that he can prevent this from ever happening again. He’s an excellent advocate for Alex as well. So I am lucky in a lot of ways, but I’m always open to new sources of advocacy and any way I can help as well. So that’s excellent. I’ll definitely check them out. Thank you.

Sharon daVanport: Yes, thank you, Savannah. I want to look into that, too, and maybe we can start posting that link. Is that the link your were talking about in the e-mail earlier today, too? The one you were talking about getting posted on the Pennsylvania website for AWA?

Savannah: I’m not sure. I’ll look stuff up. [unknown] I’ll let y’all go, you guys.

Sharon daVanport: All right. Well, thanks for calling in, Savannah.

Savannah: Yep.

Sharon daVanport: Okay. Talk to you later.

Savannah: Okay, bye.

Sharon daVanport: That’s good to know. It’s just little things like that, like you were saying earlier, Melissa, that you just don’t always get offered, these resources. You just don’t always know that they’re there. If you don’t know, then you don’t know to ask for it.

Melissa Barton: And we were so new into learning about Asperger’s Syndrome. We were so new into it, and we had only known about Alex having Asperger’s since about January-Februrary when the principal called me and told me to check into it. She believed Alex had it.

Sharon daVanport: So the school first identified it, and they’re the ones who ended up treating him this way. Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

Melissa Barton: Yes. She pointed out Asperger Syndrome in particular and told me to do the research over the weekend. I did. And it was the first time I had heard the word. You hear “autism” and you wanna just fall apart. You really do. I didn’t have a moment of grief. I was [focused on?] doing all this research until all the sudden, holy cow! My son has been put into this horrible situation. And that’s what I’ve been focusing on.

Sharon daVanport: Sure.

Melissa Barton: I wasn’t [aware?] of any of the groups, or any of their political backings, or any Who’s Whos after the event. One group in particular was horrendous and the absolute opposite of helpful.

Sharon daVanport: Maybe we should know who. Can you say?

Melissa Barton: You know, I”d rather not. They already have a horrible reputation.

Sharon daVanport: Okay.

Melissa Barton: I always let people show me their true colors. I don’t judge. I’d rather see it for myself. I’d rather have people do the same. But at a particular even that was set up just because of my son, I was not permitted to speak or say anything. But the lead sponsor whom I knew from my business career stood up and actually said something about him. And it was “too political a situation” for this particular empathy, and it did get a little [unknown] I was quite shocked, actually.

Sharon daVanport: Well, that’s what it’s come down to, hasn’t it, Melissa? They’ve totally lost sight about what this is really about. This was about a child, an innocent 5-year-old child, and something that an adult did that was inappropriate. They totally lost sight of that, and they turned it into something that it shouldn’t even have been. That’s the whole disgrace in all of this.

Melissa Barton: Exactly. And if there’s ever been an example of someone going from villain to victim, this is it. This is the case. I watched Wendy Portillo on the news, and the clips out there on the Internet. I watched her after she got her tenure back. The reporter said: “How have you made it through this whole thing?” And she referenced God. And I thought, I don’t know where maybe she stands religiously, but, for me, that’s the wrong time to do something like that. Because she is not a victim here.

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: She is not a victim. She’s a villain. If you didn’t know Wendy Portillo, if she never did this to my son, you would never hear my name or see my face. I can guarantee you that, ’cause what I do is not a glamorous job. Defending your child and having people claim that they are related to you or they know you and write letters to your editor and things like that, it becaomes an [interrupting?] situation and it’s no fun, believe me.

Sharon daVanport: Right. Right. Well, I commend you for all of this. I wanna go to the switchboard, ’cause we have several calls in queue here. You still have time to take a couple more calls?

Melissa Barton: Oh, absolutely. Sure.

Dr. Fuentes:Hello?

Sharon daVanport: Hi.

Dr. Fuentes: Hello, this is Dr. Fuentes.

Sharon daVanport: Hi, Dr. Fuentes. How are you?

Dr. Fuentes: Oh, just fine. Basically I wanted to say congratulations to Melissa following through pursuit with that situation. Because it almost makes me cry, but I want to get this out to you, is that I’m a computer teacher. And I’ve been in situations, especially ones where I had to judge upon myself of how I wanted to deal with something. But I was in a situation once, and it was in a Catholic school, and I was teaching kids how to read even further and bring up their skills, kinda helping out the language teacher.

I guess I was a threat, because I was overextending myself, as you say. But I had already asked this teacher could I help her out, because I could see that when they were in my computer class, they were reading kinda slow. And I thought maybe I could help out. She said: “Fine.” So I got the okay, and even from the principal. Now, I’m just telling you what it’s like to be a teacher in shoes of going into a school where there’s a clique. There’s teachers that’s part of a clique, and I’m on the outside of it.

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: Um-hm. [Yes]

Dr. Fuentes: So a lot of times we’re looking into, because we have children, ’cause I have children, but a lot of times you don’t see what it’s like to be a teacher in a system where there’s a clique. And I was in a situation—I’ll never forget this—and I’ll try to say this real quickly.

I was going to lunch. Let me tell you. This teacher was so upset with me, I was standing outside the teacher’s lounge. I was looking at the board or looking on the wall at some of the things that the students had done, and I thought was so cute. I was just having a nice breezy, breezy day. And I overheard conversations about the kids. These teachers were in there laughing, lolly-gagging, and insulting children. Calling them by their names, talking about some of them are “retarded,” some of them are just too slow. “I cannot do this.” I could not believe what I was hearing. And it hurt me so bad that I stood there and listened to the whole conversation, and then I heard them say something about me. And I stood there. And I couldn’t hold it in, ’cause it was too much.

So I opened up the door, real fast, walked in on the teacher, and addressed her. And said: “That was not right. What if I was a student out there?” I caught her off guard, and you know what I ended up doing? Quitting. After I told her off, I addressed it to the principal and said: “I’m leaving.”

Sharon daVanport: Right.

Melissa Barton: And they lost a good teacher.

Dr. Fuentes: And that’s what you’re supposed to do. I’m not saying everyone should quit, but you’re supposed to address that.

Sharon daVanport: Right. Well, you know, and that’s the sad thing in all of this is that you would think that other teachers would realize that they’re really on the wrong side here. This is really something that has affected a child. No matter how you may feel about the teacher, if you were really that teacher’s friend, and I wanna say this to Wendy Portillo: These teachers are thinking they’re looking out for something a little bit different. It’s all become political to them.

Dr. Fuentes: Right. It is political.

Sharon daVanport: Political allies to people aren’t their friends, so Wendy Portillo needs to just get off this act that these people are her friends. They thinkk they’re doing something to protect their job. It’s all become political to them. They think if they don’t back her, then what’s gonna happen to them? What’s gonna happen next time that a student does this? It’s all political. They’re not her friends. If she thinks for a second that these teachers had chosen the “right” side, no, it’s a selfih think that these teachers are doing, looking out for their other side.

Dr. Fuentes: It is.

Sharon daVanport: It’s wrong, too. It’s morally wrong. It’s just disgusting to me, it really is.

Dr. Fuentes: But I wanted to get that out, because I want you to understand that there are some situations where the teachers are very clique-ish. I’m not about that. I don’t get into groups like that. I see something I don’t like, I will address it. Then I make a decision if I want to be a part of it or get away from it.

Melissa Barton: Good for you. You sound like my kind of teacher.

[Laughter]

Sharon daVanport: And you know what, Melissa? Dr. Fuentes has a son that’s on the spectrum as well. How old is he now?

Dr. Fuentes: He’s 22 now.

Sharon daVanport: 22. Wow.

Dr. Fuentes: And I fought for him, so imagine the same attitude that I had when I was trying to teach, imagine what I did with my own child.

Melissa Barton: I know a teacher like that as well. I know a teacher who has walked in your shoes that is a person who is…I don’t give any names, but this person has been in your position and has said some of the same stuff that you’re saying tonight: that they do break out in factions and if you go against them, it could be horrible. And you could be intimidated, they could do horrible things to you, they could start turning parents against you. I understand what you’re saying, ’cause I’ve heard this before. I’m glad I’m not in that position, and good for you for standing up for yourself.

Dr. Fuentes: Well, thank you. I did leave the job, so [laughter] but what I did was I waited on another one, and then I was into another school. But it does take for you to take a strong stand. To stand up and just say: “Okay, I need the job, but is it really worth this?”

Sharon daVanport: I know, Dr. Fuentes. Isn’t Melissa awesome to just follow through with this and file this federal lawsuit, and to hold them accountable? Because she’s doing this for all the kids. This federal lawsuit, this has the potential of doing something great within our educational system.

Dr. Fuentes: Yes. Congrats to you. [Unknown] I wanted to get that out, and I wanted to thank you, okay? All right. Have a great day.

Sharon daVanport: That’s really nice when you hear things like that, isn’t it, Melissa?

Melissa Barton: It is. There are some excellent teachers out there. Alex’s teacher now, she’s incredible. And the teacher we had coming into our home—what a kindred spirit. She has actually taken Alex to her horse farm on the weekends and shown him the horse and little cows and things like that. There are some excellent people out there, and unfortunately, a very intimidating politicial system. And it’s a monster.

Sharon daVanport: Right. I’m gonna take one last call before we wrap things up. I believe it’s Yvonne, our executive director for the AWA. Hello, Yvonne?

Yvonne: Hello? Can you hear me?

Sharon daVanport: Hi.[laughter]

Yvonne: Hi, Melissa. Melissa, I am so proud of you. I want the AWA to keep up on this case because, as a parent myself—my daughter’s 27 now—I have gone through the school district, similar to what you did. There are great teachers out there, but they leave. They’re not paid enough to do the work that they do, when the other teachers are sitting in lounges talking about people instead of studying and improving themselves.

I have to say, as a person who taught in college, I will be very honest. My poorest students were usually elementary ed teachers. What they told one of my colleagues was: “It doesn’t matter what you teach us. We’re gonna do what our mothers tell us to do.”

Sharon daVanport: Mmm.

Melissa Barton: Oh, my gosh.

Yvonne: So they’re basically going from their upbringing, and it could be a very bad upbringing. They just dismiss anything that’s taught in the college. I have taught also special classes in the summer for them. We’ve had a challenge with one teacher, who…Well, a friend of mine has a PhD in education, and he was hired by a school district here to clean it out. It was so bad with nepotism and cliques. The parents that were coming in were new from out of state, and they wanted something done. So they hired him and they got rid of one of the principals and everyone he was hiring, which was related to him.

Melissa Barton: Oh my.

Sharon daVanport: Mmm.

Melissa Barton: Oh, my gosh.

Yvonne: So they’re basically going from their upbringing, and it could be a very bad upbringing. They just dismiss anything that’s taught in the college. I have taught also special classes in the summer for them. We’ve had a challenge with one teacher, who…Well, a friend of mine has a PhD in education, and he was hired by a school district here to clean it out. It was so bad with nepotism and cliques. The parents that were coming in were new from out of state, and they wanted something done. So they hired him and they got rid of one of the principals and everyone he was hiring, which was related to him.

Melissa Barton: Oh my.

Yvonne: These were all cronies. And this happens a lot in smaller cities and smaller towns in particular, where they can have complete control over a niche. Also, when they go to the colleges, I hear from some of my other colleagues, when the teacher may take a summer course and she will say: “Ugh. I don’t have to learn this. I know this all.” They don’t. They have some of the poorest background in some of the materials that they do.

It’s all about the cliques. It’s all about protecting their job and ego. Until we pay more, and until we keep the good teachers in that are spending all their time studying, this is gonna continue to happen.

Sharon daVanport: Like you said earlier, Melissa, a lot of the parents, they just get intimidated and they just don’t have the desire to follow through, because it gets so exhausting. That is why I think that…like, what Yvonne said. She’s proud of you. We’re all just so proud.

Yvonne: Melissa, I have walked in your shoes, where people were intimidating my daughter in a situation where another teacher was being picked on. It was a book burning situation. And a couple of, I would say, children who set [the teacher?] up. She was using a rubber chicken, and they thought that was pornographic.

Melissa Barton: Oh, my gosh.

Yvonne: It was just to toss up in the air, some game with music. And it got very, very bad, and we won that case. But I will tell you, the teachers and parents went on a divide. I have never seen such horrific behavior with people I had known. Like you, I stuck by that teacher, though. ‘Cause she was really an excellent teacher. She would faint when she was walking down the hall and I would have to hold her up. And some parents, like you said, didn’t want to get involved. One sent her flowers, and was a friend of mine. I said: “Alice, why did you send her flowers? And you did it before class so she wouldn’t know who it was.” What kind of support is that?

Melissa Barton: Ugh. And I have had parents do that. I have had parents do that. With children on the spectrum. I have had parents do that to me. My thought is: “You have to stand up too. I’m here to fight for my son. I don’t represent anybody but my child. If I can change the future for other children, I will.

Yvonne: Melissa, you’re doing it for every child. Something like this does not need to exist.

Melissa Barton: Hopefully. And I have had parents: “You don’t represent me.” I have had parents say to me: “You don’t represent my child.” And you’re right. You represent your child. That child was born to you, not me. You represent your child. I have had the same anonymous support, but I’ve had spectacular support as well. I’ve had people who are willing to go to the end of the earth to prevent the teacher from ever teaching again.

I’ve always kept my husband out of the media, because he’s a very shy person and he has a very public job. But clients of his have been talking about the case, and he would say: “That’s my wife.” They’d follow up with him and they’d say: “I was a principal for X amount of years” or this or that, and they make sure that they check on the case and they do as much as they can to support us. People wanna want to put together pickets and go back to St. Lucie County. This is gonna change St. Lucie County, its policies and procedures.

Sharon daVanport: Exactly.

Melissa Barton: And the government stepping in. That’s what’s gonna change. We don’t need hostility. I could’ve had pickets organized all year long, but we need to have some intelligent change and some true change. That’s what I’m going for.

Sharon daVanport: Good for you, Melissa.

Yvonne: Good for you. I’ll let you go now, but we are very proud and please keep us updated on everything.

Melissa Barton: Of course. Of course.

Sharon daVanport: Thanks for calling in, Yvonne. I’ll talk to you in a little bit.

Yvonne: Bye-bye.

Sharon daVanport: Well, Melissa, this has been just such a great show, and we’re almost out of time, and I just want to thank you so much again for coming on and sharing your story. It must get exhausting. Do you get tired sometimes just talking about this?

Melissa Barton: I get very tired. Working with the media is incredibly exhausting. It’s a whole ‘nother show. A lot of people my whole life I’ve heard say: “Well, the media’s horrible! They lie,” this and that. They really don’t. I have had one newspaper and TCPalm, their opinion editor, they’ve just been horrible to me and saying some really nasty things. His name is Anthony Westbury. Almost from the get-go he’s written really nasty articles.

But that’s about it. Out of all the reporters I’ve worked with, that’s it. Everyone else has been so supportive and they’ve really looked for the truth and they’ve really dug and found the truth. Every time, they say to me: “I cannot believe this is happening in our day and age.” And they do everything they can to make it a fair story, and to make it from all angles.

It’s exhausting working with the media. It’s incredibly exhausting. They’ll call you and they’ll [unknown] to be in New York tomorrow morning, and it’s 9:00 at night. It’s exhausting. That’s my only sounding board, but the only way people are going to listen is if a lot of people know what’s going on. I will continue to talk to media for as long as I possibly can do.

Sharon daVanport: Well, you know, Melissa, I wanna thank you personally as someone, I’m on the spectrum, I have a son who is in high school who’s on the spectrum and he has an IEP. I wanna thank you personally for following through with this. I wanna tell everyone that there’s a group over on Facebook that supports the situation that happened with Alex.

Melissa Barton: And I’m on Facebook, too.

Sharon daVanport: Right. So I want everybody to get over there. I’ve noticed that you post things and updates whenever anything happens that’s eventful, you guys keep it posted and keep it out there. I’m gonna keep in touch with you. I want you to be able to come back on and share with us updates as you get them, even if it’s just a small update or something. If you can just come on and keep us posted this entire process, because I really want to be able to not just show our support, but give you a way to be able to tell everyone in the autism community and other people who listen what’s going on.f

Melissa Barton: Another thing you guys can do is just take the time to read the blog. I hadn’t been until it was pointed out last week to sit down and read the blog. There are some really negative, horrible people out there. My son made the honor roll and people are talking negatively about it. I want you to understand the mentality that takes place, and understand that this is against the children who are on the spectrum.

And this is against parents who want to stand up for their children. Read it. They’ve actually gotten so bad that TCPalm turned off the blogs. I obviously can’t go on to any blog and say anything, because it’s not appropriate and it’s not the right thing to do during our case, but I just want you to read it. Take time to read it, to see the mentality of the people I’m dealing with.

Sharon daVanport: All right. All of us bloggers out there, we need to start going to the blogs and find out what they’re saying about Alex for making the honor roll this year. It’s almost like, something good happens and the people who are not supporting you moving forward with this, they’ve gotta have something bad to say. So we just need to get out there and make sure that we’re following these blogs, and putting in our opinions as well.

Thank you so much, Melissa, for being with us. You’ll come back and keep us updated, right?

Melissa Barton: Call me any time you want to.

Sharon daVanport: All right. Thank you, Melissa. You take care, and give Alex a hug from everyone, okay?

Melissa Barton: I will. I will. Good night.

Sharon daVanport: Good night. All right, everyone, that’s gonna do it for AWA tonight. I just wanna remind everyone, please keep up with this case, go over to Facebook,find Melissa Barton on Facebook, she’s on my page. I follow the group that is in support of Alex over on Facbook. There’s a lot of good information, and you can find all the links to the different appearances and the different places where they’ve had these stories posted.

Something I learned at the very beginning of the show: Melissa was saying that you can go on to Youtube (Warning: videos not captioned) and you can Google a lot of this stuff. A lot of the meetings and different things have been taped. They’ve been filmed. So we can really catch up with all of this and make for sure that we understand that what Melissa’s doing has a potential to really help change the educational system.

So, that’s going to do it for us at AWA Radio. Thank you guys so much over in the chat room. You guys have been awesome. I’ve gotten everybody’s name put down for the drawing next week, so if you were in the chatroom and you were signed in, you automatically are entered for the drawing next week. I will see you guys then, or at least talk to you guys then. Have a great week!

I wanted to pull one quote from Melissa Barton on this post titled; Who Is My Competition?; 

 ..looking at yourself from the perspective of a consumer. 

Your business may be in the B2C or B2B space, it does not matter.

Look at your business from the outside in. Look through the lens of your customers, and walk a mile in their shoes.

Once you have done that, only then can you answer;

Do you make it drop dead simple to business with you?

One click, or one phone call and done?

Or is it a frustrating round of telephone tag, faxes, e-mails and the like?

And, are you using IT to help you focus on your customers?

You can subscribe to this blog by clicking the RSS icon on the Home Page!

TimeLine Theatre announces “Race in America: A Discussion With No Walls,” a panel discussion open to the public on Tuesday, December 2, 2008, from 6 – 8 pm. The event will be held at the International House at the University of Chicago (map). Admission is free but reservations are encouraged; call (773) 281-8463 x24.

“A House With No Walls is a provocative and innovative play that addresses not only race relations in this country, but also the challenges that come from trying to even discuss race relations,” said TimeLine Artistic Director PJ Powers. “Honestly, it’s not a conversation we’ve had enough at TimeLine, and we’re very much looking forward to engaging in that dialogue with a diverse audience from around Chicago at this special event.”

The discussion panel will include Dr. Harvette Grey, Dr. Eric Arnesen, Melissa Barton, Dr. Valerie Johnson and Dawn Turner Trice.

“A Discussion With No Walls” is inspired by and presented in conjunction with TimeLine Theatre’s Chicago premiere of Thomas Gibbons’ A House With No Walls, now playing through December 21.

Well, I did it again my response to a post has grown into a post of its own.. This started out as a response to Elfninosmom’s piece about a Wendy Portillo, kindergarten teacher, at Morningside Elementary School in Port St. Lucie, Florida who encouraged her students to excommunicate 5 year-old Alex Barton from their classroom. This is my reaction to the incident and I am not discussing the details of the incident. I want to discuss my reaction from three perspectives.

First as an educator.

What the Portillo did is inexcusable. She is supposedly a college educated intelligent adult. It is her responsibility to create an environment where are all children are accepted. Yet she is little more than an overgrown classroom bully.

My experiences as a learning facilitator taught me that some teachers have little tolerance for any child who is not “normal”. In the old days special needs children were often excluded from school. That was until the 1970’s and “Education for All Handicapped Children” (now IDEA) was passed and special education became mandatory. That means that schools do not have to provide advanced classes, sports or other extra-curricular but are required to provide services for special needs children. For many years special needs children were shipped off to special classes or resource rooms for part or all day. In the 1980’s and 1990’s inclusion and content mastery became the “in thing” students were only removed from classes for extra help or not at all. Today especially with budget cuts inclusion is more popular than ever. So, what is my point? Well, the Portillo looks like she has been teaching for a few years. I’m sure that  this is not her 1st experience with a disabled youngster or difficult child. Of course, she may be the kind of teacher who believes all children must fit her mold.

I understand that some children with Asperger’s Syndrome can be challenging to teach especially if you have other children in the classroom. Over the years I have had several students with some form of Autism and most did well in my class. As a professional educator it is one’s responsibility to help all students succeed in the classroom especially in the lower grades. My policy was that any student who desired to pass and was willing to work for the grade would pass.

Finally, this is the last week of May all students are going to be a little rowdy and even the good ones act like hellions. Couldn’t the Portillo make it one more week? Maybe she is just a very mean and vindictive individual. Her behavior was extremely unprofessional. In the very least the teacher should be censured and loose her teaching credentials permanently.

As someone who has a learning disability.

One of my teachers in elementary school had zero tolerance for my learning disabilities. To be successful in school I required only minor accommodations due to my severe dysgraphia. It is still painful to think about the teacher’s action. It was emotionally damaging for me as a child to be publicly humiliated. It was embarrassing when she would dump my desk on the floor and encourage other children to laugh at me and call me stupid. From that time until high school graduation my nickname was “Stupid ” or “Dummy“.

As a human

I am appalled that an adult is so insensitive that she would have no problem torturing an 5 year-old. Is this woman some sort of monster or does she have absolutely no conscience? This precious little boy was created in God’s image. Alex deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.

What kind of example is Portillo modeling for impressionable young children? In effect she is saying that it is acceptable to treat those with special needs as less than human.

My Suggestions for Dealing with Portillo

The Port St. Lucie Police Department have decided not to file child abuse charges against Portillo. It really isn’t surprising that no charges have been filed. She poses no future threat to Alex.

Portillio’s teaching career should be over permanently. Further, her teaching certification should be revoked. While I think she should never teach, I think mandatory community service working with disabled children might not be bad.

I think it would also be good for Portillio to get a dose of her own medicine. Maybe have her stand in front of the school or other public building holding a sign stating I pick on 5-year-olds. Also, I think Melissa Barton, Alex’s mom should be given an oportunity to make a victim’s impact statement to Portillio.

A Port St. Lucie, Florida kindergarten teacher Wendy Portillo left us dumbfounded this week, leaving us to ask “why?” If it wasn’t for consistency’s sake This Week’s Top Scrooge would be crowned This Year’s Bonehead.

This Week’s Top Scrooge – May 30, 2008

By ALEXANDER

Prompted by Portillo, Alex Barton’s Morningside Elementary School classmates were allowed to say what they didn’t like about him and take a vote about whether they wanted him in class or not. By a 14 to 2 margin, 5-year-old Alex lost.

Alex is being evaluated for Asperger’s syndrome — an autism spectrum disorder. Guess how Portillo thought it best to deal with an apparently very trying day with Alex…not just send him out of the classroom to school aides, but to have his classmates rag on him when he came back.

Why? The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

“Portillo said she did this as she felt that if (Alex) heard from his classmates how his behavior affected them that it would make a bigger difference to him, rather than just hearing it from adults,” according to a report released Thursday morning by the Port St. Lucie Police Department.

For a video interview with Alex’s mom, Melissa Barton with Alex, go to the story at cbsnews.com.

More from the Sun-Times:

Alex told the officer Portillo called his classmates’ names out and they said “disgusting” things about him.

“I asked (Alex) what the students said, and he said the students said he eats paper, picks boogers and eats them on top of the table and bites his shoelaces,” the report said. “He told me Mrs. Portillo said, ‘I hate you right now. I don’t like you today’.”

The officer asked Alex how the incident made him feel.

“He said it made him feel sad,” Alex said according to the report.

Today’s children face challenges of unprecedented nature. Biblically speaking, a fallen world seems to be falling faster. A kindergarten teacher need not introduce and fascilitate additional negative forces into children’s lives.

I pray for the speedy recovery of all those involved…the classmates, their families, the teacher, Alex’s family, and of course, little Alex.
_______________

Not Special: Support Alex Barton includes a full list of contact and support information. Go there!

_______________

MORE FEATURE STORIES FROM: This Week’s Top Scrooge

DIGG story

Should Wendy Portillo be fired?

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Fire-teacher-for-unprofessional-conduct

or:  http://urlet.com/fund.streaks

CBS News reports that a Port St. Lucie, Fla., kindergarten teacher led her students in a vote on whether or not to let a classmate continue in the class. Key quote:

Melissa Barton says Morningside Elementary teacher Wendy Portillo had her son’s classmates say what they didn’t like about 5-year-old Alex. She says the teacher then had the students vote, and voted Alex, who is being evaluated for Asperger’s syndrome — an autism spectrum disorder — out of the class by a 14-2 margin.

If this story is true, this teacher ought to be out of a job and allowed nowhere near impressionable young students. My God, a tribal council for kindergarteners?

A mother in Port St. Lucie, FL is outraged and considering legal action after her son’s kindergarten teacher led his classmates to vote him out of class.

The student, Alex Barton is being evaluated for autism.

However Morningside Elementary teacher Wendy Portillo, felt it was appropriate to have Alex’s classmates say what they didn’t like about 5-year-old Alex. The teacher then had the students vote Alex out of class by a 14-2 margin.

Hmmm - sounds kind of like Survivor doesn’t it? Of course I wouldn’t know first hand, because I’ve never watched one episode…ever.

Alex’s mother, Melissa Barton, filed a complaint with Morningside’s school resource officer. The school spokeswoman, Janice Karst, said the district is investigating the incident, but could not make any further comment.

Typical.

The state attorney’s office concluded the matter did not meet the criteria for emotional child abuse, so no criminal charges will be filed. 

Yeah, but it meets my standard of – My God, I can’t believe how much of an ignoramous you are!

This teacher should be flogged.

As a parent of two special needs kids, there are some things you don’t do. One of those things is – you don’t try to start your own half-ass reality show in your classroom. Here’s another, kindergarten classrooms aren’t Democractic forums. They are places where little children glue cotton balls on paper rabbits and learn how to interact with others (I’m a teacher by the way).

This is just another sad example of a low intellect, under-qualified, ignorant teacher trying to pass herself off as an educator. She’d be better off parking herself in front of the boob tube, and devoting the rest of her useless days as a Nielson rater for brain-dead re-tread reality T.V.

Her actions were disgusting and outrageous. She should be fired immediately, or at the very least, buried up to her neck in frog shit for three days.

I ask Wendy Portillo this – What did your students learn that day?????

Read related article here…here…

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When poets get angry, they write. I suggest you read this and this to understand the following.

-Nicole

—————————————————————-
in the animal kingdom it’s not uncommon
to seen bared teeth and sharpened claws
in the brief pause
before the pack kills a weaker member

it seems that we humans
instead of killing a weaker member
simply dismember
him by voting him out of our pack

then we wipe our consciences clean
with a foul
filthy towel
assuaging ourselves with excuses and lies –

disgusting -

and we have little playground boys and girls
standing spiritually stark naked
stripped of dignity
holding the expired end of a match
after being burned by
vicious fires of hatred

now ain’t this just grand
twenty-first century progress
we are so advanced and sophisticated
that instead of ripping little children to shreds
leaving them with raw wounds that never close
now we can simply vote them out of class

Written 5/28/08
© 2008 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.

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Alex Barton and Melissa Barton Interview VIDEO

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