May 14, 2010
Autistic Boy Charged with Making Terroristic Threats Over Stick Figure
There’s a story about a school disciplinary action from Sandy Springs, Georgia about an autistic student drew an objectionable sketch. The story is notable for the school’s excessive, over-reaching reaction. In Autistic Boy Charged With Making Terrorist Threats Over Stick-Figure Sketch, one learns that a fourteen-year old boy is
facing terrorist charges after a sketch he made in school.
The sketch shows two stick-figures. One of them is labeled ‘Me’ and is shown shooting a gun at another with a teacher’s name above it. Karen Finn says that her son, 8th grader Shane Finn, doesn’t understand why he is in trouble. She says the boy is autistic and has the mental capacity of a 3rd grader.
Officials at Ridgeview Charter School say the student will face a tribunal and is being charged with making terrorist threats.
Finn says she plans to fight the charges.
There’s also a news clip from a Fox television station that that describes Shane Finn’s actions. Absent additional information about the student’s conduct previous to drawing the sketch, this is just thin gruel.
Such cases often come about through the poor exercise of administrative discretion, and in its place the imposition of a rough-hewn, one-size-fits-all approach to student behavior. The teacher, or administrators decide that rules are rules, and that those rules must be applied the same way, each and every time.
This amounts to an over-reliance on the need for consistency at the expense of sound judgment through the application of rules to specific conditions.
If one had a dollar for every settle time an administrator worried excessively about assuring that everything was consistent, he or she could fund a good part of a school district’s budget.
May 13, 2010
Oakstone Academy Promotional Video
On Tuesday, I posted an Associated Press story about Oakstone Academy, an elementary and middle school with a mixture of autistic and non-autistic students. The story did not describe the proportion of each group, and neither does a promotional video from the school.
Still, the video is suggestive of a large number of autistic students.
Here it is, just under four minutes long:
May 11, 2010
Ohio School Mixes Autistics and Non-Autistics Together
There’s a very brief story from the Associated Press about Oakstone Academy in central Ohio. The school has reportedly become popular for its approach of mixing autistics and non-autistics in classrooms, with a significant portion of autistics.
Well worth learning more.
The story is available at Ohio School Mixes Autistics and Non-Autistics Together.
