Special Education

Non-Surprise of the Day

By Christina A. Samuels — May 29, 2008 1 min read
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The Florida teacher who asked her kindergarten students to vote a classmate with Asperger’s Syndrome out of the classroom has been reassigned.

According to a newspaper account, a police report filed after the incident explains that the decision to take a vote on 5-year-old Alex Barton was a part of a lesson that the children were learning on voting and tallying. The teacher, Wendy Portillo, also told police that the vote was to let Alex know how his behavior was affecting the class, and it was only intended to be for a day.

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 from the Port St. Lucie Police Department.

The incident did not meet the standards for emotional child abuse, according to the police, so no charges will be filed. But obviously, the story is not over for Alex, his family, or the teacher.

I’d really love to hear from my parent and teacher readers on this one.

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A version of this news article first appeared in the On Special Education blog.