Teacher Who Humiliated Autistic Kindergartener Is 'Reassigned'
May 28th, 2008 by Glenn Sacks, MA for Fathers & Families
From St. Lucie teacher has students vote on whether 5-year-old can stay in class (TCPalm.com, 5/23/08):
"Melissa Barton said she is considering legal action after her son's kindergarten teacher led his classmates to vote him out of class.
"After each classmate was allowed to say what they didn't like about Barton's 5-year-old son, Alex (pictured), his Morningside Elementary teacher said they were going to take a vote, Barton said.
"By a 14 to 2 margin, the class voted him out of the class.
"Barton said her son is in the process of being diagnosed with Aspberger's, a type of high-functioning autism...
"Alex has had disciplinary issues because of his disabilities, Barton said. The school and district has met with Barton and her son to create an individual education plan, she said. His teacher, Wendy Portillo, has attended these meetings, she said...
"'He was incredibly upset,' Barton said. 'The only friend he has ever made in his life was forced to do this.'"
In my recent blog post on the subject, Teacher Forces 'the Only Friend the Five-Year-Old Boy Has Ever Made' to Denounce Him Publicly, I wrote:
"As a former teacher, I certainly know the challenges that teachers often face, and I also realize how incidents which seem innocent and humorous in the classroom can sound ominous or harmful when relayed second or third or fourth hand to administrators or parents. That being said, if this news article is accurate, there's no defense of what Wendy Portillo did in humiliating this little boy...
"Sometimes a child will act up or act very strangely in class and the teacher may get in trouble later for disciplining the child or mishandling the situation because the child, unbeknownst to the teacher, had special needs or special issues. In this case, however, Wendy Portillo knew all about the special problems this boy had-- she had attended meetings where the boy's disability was discussed and plans were made on how to help him...
"It is true that teachers are human like anybody else and can lose their temper in a difficult situation like anybody else. However, what Wendy Portillo did went far, far beyond losing her temper. This was hardly a short, quickly regretted outburst, but instead prolonged psychological abuse of the little boy."
Apparently teacher, Wendy Portillo, has now been reassigned. According to St. Lucie teacher reassigned after student 'voted out' of class (TCPalm.com, 5/27/08):
"Morningside Elementary kindergarten teacher Wendy Portillo has been reassigned until further action may be determined, according to St. Lucie County School District spokeswoman Janice Karst...Portillo was reassigned out of the classroom at the district offices on Friday, as soon as Schools Superintendent Michael Lannon heard about the incident, Karst said. She said it could be up to two weeks before the district's investigation on the matter is concluded.
"Portillo has been a St. Lucie County teacher for 12 years, and at Morningside Elementary for nine, Karst said."
The mother thinks Portillo should be fired, saying, "She has no business being near children at all" and that Portillo's reassignment is "a slap in the face."
MSNBC has a video on the case--Autistic Boy Voted out of Class. It'll be interesting to see how the case is resolved, and also to see if and how the teachers' union gets involved.
Thanks to Ana, a reader, for sending the new story.
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May 28th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Due to teacher's unions it's difficult to simply fire a teacher, even in the face of the most serious matters. It's more than likely this woman's teaching career is over, as it should be, but the investigation must at least go through the motions first.
May 28th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Honestly, I agree with the mother. This teacher should be fired. Reassigning her simply gives her another chance to subject children to this kind of emotional abuse. School officials should be cautious about letting this kind of thing slide. What happens if this woman does this to an older child? We all have heard of instances in which kids humiliated in school have turned to violence, self-harm and even suicide. While these may be extreme examples, I do not think it is worth the risk to allow Portillo to continue to teach given that she apparently lacks the forethought and sense to realize the potential damage her actions could have on a kid.
May 28th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
I agree with Mrs. Barton, the boy's mother. Wendy Portillo has no business being allowed near children at all. I hope Mrs. Barton vigorously pursues her lawsuit and prevails. I can't help but compare this to the recent situation where a man was thrown in jail on $100,000 bail for talking to a child, because it "creeped out" a woman.
May 28th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Reassigning her "out of the classroom" (which I take to mean not teaching, rather than just out of that particular classroom) pending a full hearing is the sensible thing to do. If this happened the way it's been reported I agree she should never teach again and should probably be in jail, but the school has to make sure it's got the facts right before it takes permanent action.
May 28th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
I hope the mother sues the teacher for every penny she has..... It is about time a revolution happened...first of all stop voting for the DEM'S and REP'S, start up mens rights political party's the two party system must go, same here in Australia, Labor/Libs, viva the revolution.This rubbish will not stop
untill men by the million strike.
I still think men should all have a year of work, an international strike, tens of millions of men forgetting to set the clock before they go to bed.
May 28th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
This item will get news coverage and be corrected because a MOM is upset. My guess is that if Alex had only a single dad behind him, there would be no news coverage and Glenn would not have heard about this.
May 28th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
@Mark: John Stossel's book "Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity" has a good entry on public education and has a nice flowchart on the process of firing a teacher.
*Spoiler* The flowchart is 2 pages long and has only 3 conclusions: Take the teacher out of the classroom and stick in the lounge (basically paid leave), don't do anything, or lawyer up.
May 28th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Clearly, all of America has voted Ms. Portillo out of class -- permanently.
Maybe her titular bosses at St. Lucie County School District ought to wake up to this fact.
Maybe if she gets a job in the Florida prison system she can dump crippled men out of their wheelchairs like her seeming kindred sister whose cruelty was also was featured in this blog not long ago.
May 28th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Funny, the last two TV clips I have viewed are:
1. NASA's control engineers cheering among themselves at the successful Mars probe landing, and
2. the report of this "teacher" having emotionally brutalized a 5 year-old boy using an array of psychological cruelty which is hard to even imagine a human being inventing, let alone applying it to a disabled 5 year old.
But also, it occurred to me that in the NASA clip, I saw many, many males, but not a single female.
The men seemed so happy to have achieved this truly significant objective, one apparently relating to determining the ability of Mars to support life.
Maybe they were so happy because they are secretly planning to move all men to Mars where they can be safe from the absurd treatment being accorded males of all ages.
One can only what women when left on Earth might do?
My guess is that they would start blaming each other for chasing all the men away.
And they'd be right.
May 28th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
This teacher should be 'reassigned'... to the janitorial department.
May 28th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
Again, here is another story about a kingergarten teacher being abusive. This time, the kid caught her on recorder:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-in-suspendedteacher,0,2810240.story
May 29th, 2008 at 1:00 am
Phil Leigh,
What you said above is true. As I've always said, nothing's ever a problem until it affects women (or a woman).
May 29th, 2008 at 1:32 am
Come on people! you all know that a bureaucracy protects its own kind. It will probably take another 12 years for the teacher to be determined to be abusive and then be fired after a couple more. And the teachers "unions" (more like mafia) will protect her inspite of her behavior
May 29th, 2008 at 8:57 am
I substitute teach, and I was at a middle school yesterday where this case was brought up in the teacher's lounge, and everybody agreed that this teacher should be fired for this.
May 29th, 2008 at 9:09 am
told my mother about that story(who was a kindergarten teacher retired 2 weeks ago) and she was shocked. She relayed stories about a kid like that in her class. she would send him to the office on a fools errand and talk to the group he was working in, that they had to include him and be nice, that everyone is different and being different isn't bad.
we really need to get rid of the teachers union and double teachers pay so that better candidates become teachers.
May 29th, 2008 at 9:38 am
Another example of sugar and spice and everything nice.
May 29th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Pankaj Says:
"And the teachers "unions" (more like mafia) will protect her inspite of her behavior."
The union is obligated to protect her for the same reason we give people who are guilty lawyers to defend them in court.
It isn't that the union is protecting her in spite of her behavior... they have no choice in the matter because she has paid union dues since the moment she started working.
It would be the equivalent of the court saying "we think your alleged crime is so heinous that we are revoking your right to a court supplied attorney.... even before we have dermined your guilt through due process"
Prada Says:
"we really need to get rid of the teachers union and double teachers pay so that better candidates become teachers."
This makes no sense.
If you double the salary of teachers, the starting salary for a teacher right out of college would be approximately 70,000.
Maximum pay in some regions would be over 250,000.
That sort of pay increase is hardly warrented when the starting salary and final salary of those who are required to attend graduate school is typically less.
In fact they would be paid more than college professors... how does that seem fair?... an elementary school teacher getting higher pay than the average college professor?... seems crazy if you ask me since one earned an undergraduate degree and the other had to earn a PhD.
Getting rid of unions is also a poor idea because they serve many valuable functions in terms of regulating how and why school scheduals can be altered, how on the job injuries are to be handled (this includes situations where teachers are physically assaulted by students), etc...
Keep in mind that the contracts that are established between a union and the municipality are a two way street, they require teachers to perform a certain way and require that administrators perform a certain way.
Reforming the way unions work might be useful, but getting rid of them entirely doesn't strike me as being positive.
I personally don't think the problem with attracting good teachers has as much to do with pay as it does to do with community respect and regard. People don't view the teaching profession as being noble anymore... students spit on, yell at, push, and intimidate teachers on a daily basis... this sort of thing never used to happen.
May 29th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Here is the video Days of Broken Arrow mentioned. It is not clear from the segments played what preceded the teacher's comments, but based on what she said to a five-year-old I do no think she should ever be allowed to teach again.
May 29th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
As an educator, I'm outraged that this teacher will most likely be "reassigned." It is appalling that she could do this type of damage to this young boy. I've dealt with these types of problems as a teacher, but with her training and experience, surely she could have come up with something better than standing him up in front of a class and having the students just break him down. Does she know the type of emotional and psychological damage that can cause?
When I was in third grade, I was subjected to a teacher who dumped my desk routinely, shouted at me, and at one point, even grabbed my ear in a forceful manner. Needless to say, that was not a fun year, and although I'm successful now, there is still a part of me that would love to beat this woman within an inch of her life, as it has haunted me over the years. I'm over it now, but teachers like this need to go. What's to stop her from doing something similar to another child? She should be ashamed.
May 29th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Well said Craig.