According to Sheryll Vinson, her grandson, Isaiah Gonzalez, has special needs. Vinson said his doctor diagnosed him as autistic with a chromosome abnormality. Vinson said her daughter, Ladonna Gonzalez, has been searching 12 years trying to find out what’s wrong with her son. While taking care of an autistic child comes with its own challenges, the latest Vinson and her daughter faced was getting Isaiah in school.
Vinson said originally, it appeared Isaiah would attend Hobbs Middle School, but found out due to zoning, he would need to attend King Middle School. Vinson discovered, she said, King handles students with special needs by including them in classes with non special needs students. “They call it inclusion,” she said, and felt he was being thrown to the wolves.
Vinson said they believed Hobbs was a better choice for Isaiah, but school district denied their request. While he couldn’t comment directly on the case, David Gunter, director of middle school education in Santa Rosa County, said, “With any request, there has to be seats available.” Like many other schools in the county, he said, Hobbs had no availability. SRC Superintendant Tim Wyrosdick said, “This is a growth year. We had to add 18 teaching units across the county.” Wyrosdick said he attributes the growth to a great school system and parents, and business bringing more families to the county.
While the family may not be entirely pleased with the result, Vinson said King made concessions to meet Isaiah’s needs. One worry early on, she said, was the distance between classes. Vinson said Isaiah may not be able to focus well enough to make it across campus. “His classes are all in one area now,” she said. She also said he has a modified physical education program where he doesn’t have to change his clothes. Still, she said he’s having difficulty with his homework. “It takes hours for him to complete it,” she said.
Laura O’Brien, founder of the Spectrum House in 2010 and a Florida certified special educator and mother of three boys on the Autism Spectrum, said, “The state is pushing inclusion. The state is tying the hands of schools,” she said, but also said inclusion isn’t bad in itself. Schools are having to do one of two things she said, either get teachers certified in Exceptional Student Education (ESE) or include an ESE teacher in the classroom.
The problem with the first method, O’Brien said, is the endorsement means passing a test through common sense alone. “They’re not really ESE teachers. They just did well on a test,” she said. The second method she said presents distractions for students with two teachers trying to work with each other.
However, O’Brien said, “I do find kids pushed out of the nest can get regular degrees.” O’Brien said one of her autistic children is capable of making it through a regular class, though he gets distracted more than other students. She said she’d rather him get a standard diploma over a special needs one.
“The main picture idea,” O’Brien said, “is that every child be exposed to a regular curriculum.” O’Brien had not spoken with Vinson, but said the family and the teacher need to work together to come up with a plan to work with how Isaiah learns.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Autistic students included in mainstream studies