Are you going to sign the petition against Wendy Portillo, who treated a 5 year old autistic boy inhumanely?

Question

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

Wendy Portillo, a Florida Kindergarten teacher, somehow thought it would be a good idea to invite her students, one by one, to tell one of their 5-year old classmates why they didn't like him. "A.B." has behavioural issues, and has been sent to the principal's office on occassion. After one such visit, Ms. Portillo held a vote on whether the students wanted to keep A.B. in their class. A.B. is in the process of being tested for Asperger's Syndrome, a form of Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Whether this child has a disability or not, NO CHILD should be humiliated in such a fashion. If you think that this teacher deserves to be fired for such blatantly unprofessional and discriminatory behaviour, please sign this petition!

I signed it. Will you?

Answer 1

You said it noone should be made fun of for have a disablity they can't help it, she needs to be fired and never allowed to work anywhere were there are kids again

Answer 2

YES.   For those that wanted more to the story.....

http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/33586

Answer 3

As a former teacher of Autistic children, I will be happy to sign it!  The children I taught were delightful, and I miss them all.  When my son (now 21) was in the 5th grade, he was asked by his principal to work with an Autistic child.  My son did so, and attended the Special Olympics with him as well.  He sent me the news article, but had not seen the petition.  I'll send it to him as well, and he will also sign it.  He attended Morningside Elementary for 3 years, and was so upset when he read the article.  This teacher should have her license permanently revoked!

This is no internet rumor.  According to the local paper, the teacher admitted to doing this.

Answer 4

I will sign it.  However, incidents happen like this every day.  Children with disabilities are one of the last minority groups and our system is very broken.  As a parent advocate (and a parent of a child with autism) I have personally witnessed terrible and disgusting things done to these children by school districts.  Unless you have tens of thousands of dollars for attorneys, there really is not much you can do other than file a complaint with the US Department of Education Office for Civil Rights.  But then the family will most likely experience terrible retaliation.  I can speak of this first-hand.  I feel for this family since my child has been through similar humilating experiences and our school district was found to have discriminated against him by the US Dept of Ed Office for Civil Rights.  But it is a double-edged sword.  Ever since we filed that complaint and won, our family (and friends that stood with us) have experienced and continue to experience acts of retaliation that would blow your mind.  I get emails from families all over the country about similar experiences.  The real question is, how do we fix it?  The worst cases are with minority and low-income children.  These parents don't have the time and energy to wage such a battle.  To make matters worse, educators are put in situations every day that they must choose between their jobs and feeding their families or risk it all by fighting for the child.  I see it every day.  We need an easier method of filing complaints with independent agencies that understand the law...and protection for educators that lay it on the line for our kids!

Answer 5

i already did

Answer 6

I did. I have relatives & friends with Asperger's. Neither they, nor anyone else, deserves such treatment.

Answer 7

Their's more to the story than what the parent has said.  I'd love to hear more.  I'd also like for everyone to realize that teachers and parents do a lot worse than this to children on a daily basis and nothing is ever done.   This situation is an internet rumor nightmare!!

Answer 8

Of course...my 8 year old son has Asperger's and that woman has no business teaching!  I was fortunate enough that his teacher cared enough about him to find him the help he needed and include him not exclude him.  This woman is a pitiful excuse for a human being!

Answer 9

yes, I'll sign it. She is an awful person. How would she feel if someone treated her kid like that she should never be allowed to teach again

Answer 10

Yes I signed it, and I also had something to say about what happened to this 5 year old child, and the other children who were instructed to participate in the hideous act this teacher was responsible for. How do we teach children to be tolerant of others when we have a teaching professional doing something like this? She also traumatized the other children by having them to participate in the disgusting act.

I asked for criminal charges of child abuse and for her teaching certification to be taken from her.

Answer 11

FIRE THE ***** !!!!! stop her from teaching ever again

Answer 12

I agree that what the teacher did was wrong, no child should be treated in that manner. However, I would like to hear her side of it before I form an opinion about her. Where can I read more about this situation?

Answer 13

YES!  I signed.  It is completely inappropriate what she did.  It is abusive, she should lose her license and be criminally charged.  We don't need these kind of teachers.  They should not be allowed to teach or even breed for that matter, they belong in jail!   I have had experiences that rival this myself.  In Delaware the RPILC thought it was a good idea to tape sad faces written in red marker complete with tears on an 8X11 paper tape it to his chest and make my son walk around with it all day he was 4yrs old.  My complaints fell on deaf ears, I promptly removed him from the school.  They told me that I didn't understand the behavior modification system

Answer 14

This teacher was already removed from her position because of how she chose to handle the situation. She could have worked with the child and his parents closely because of the fact he has Aspergers to help him however she chose not to.

If the teacher never has experienced this sort of issue, it does not justify how she responded to the situation. The matter should have been handled by school administration through guidance and training rather than the child being removed from the classroom. That's my opinion anyway. As I said though, the school administration felt it was best to remove the teacher from her job. I heard that on Fox News Channel this afternoon.

Answer 15

Yes...I did. I wrote:

I think she should NOT ONLY lose her license, but also be charged for doing this..to show LOUD & CLEAR this is VERY wrong, and very BAD judgement. She is plain out stupid!!! I am out raged that knowing she went to schooling to be a kindergarden teacher, that she still made a choice like this. BAR her, CHARGE her and NEVER let her be in ANY type of child supervision again.

Thank-YOu for bringing this to America's attention.

Answer 16

I signed it a few days ago. Does anyone know if there are updates on this situation??

What gripes my butt is that the teacher just made him leave class, didn't tell him where to go. He must have been scared out of his mind.

The mother picked him up after school in the nurses office.

NO ONE at the school even BOTHERED to call the mother as soon as this happened!

I bet a million dollars that if this boy didn't tell his mother what happened, NO ONE woudl have.

I HATE SCHOOLS !!!!!!!!!!!!!