Teachers: What do you think of this k5 child being voted out of class?

Question

FROM CBS NEWS:

A Port St. Lucie, Fla., mother is outraged and considering legal action after her son's kindergarten teacher led his classmates to vote him out of class.

Melissa Barton says Morningside Elementary teacher Wendy Portillo had her son's classmates say what they didn't like about 5-year-old Alex. She says the teacher then had the students vote, and voted Alex, who is being evaluated for Asperger's syndrome -- an autism spectrum disorder -- out of the class by a 14-2 margin.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/27/earlyshow/main4130288.shtml

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One of the things I find really disturbing is the teacher reportedly commented that she didn't think she did anything wrong.

Anyway, what do you current / former teachers think?

Answer 1

This will probably mar the student forever. What a horrible thing for that teacher to do.  There is no excuse. She should be fired, plain and simple, and have her teaching license revoked.

Answer 2

I think that the teacher in the story took her power way out of hand. I also think that the teacher should be FIRED.

Answer 3

This severely ticks me off. I think this teacher should have a permanat mark agains her charecter for any job she chooses in the future. Even if it is Burger King. She is suppose ot be teaching in a inclusision setting to teache children acceptance of differances and obviously she wasnt. So what did she do? She was training children to become judgemental and non compassionate.

Answer 4

I cannot add to the other writer's comments.  I want to record that I agree with them.  This was totally unprofessional and also cruel.  I hope the administrators removed this person from the classroom.

Answer 5

I hopes she's been fired! The mother of the abused child should absolutely pursue legal action against this woman!

What I don't understand is how she got the job in the first place!

Answer 6

this sounds like bullying.

Answer 7

This is really shameful.  How little training does this teacher have that she did NOT think that it was potentially devastatingly harmful to have Alex's classmates, one by one, share what they didn't like about him and then vote him out of the class?  Not only could it cause permanent damage to Alex, but I have to wonder about the effect on the other kids, who were put in this position of denouncing their classmate.  This woman should be removed from the classroom and not allowed to return unless she can prove that she has taken, and learned from, several developmental psychology classes!

I have taught at least one student with noticeable Asperger's syndrome in my college classroom, and I would be willing to bet that his classmates would have voted him out too.  It was up to me as the instructor, without breaching his privacy, to make it clear that this was not an option; that there were things they didn't understand about this student which would cause them to change their minds if they knew.  It IS difficult to deal with a severely disturbed kid in the classroom, regardless of the age of the student, but that is why teachers have to be well-trained.

I have to say, though, that I was nearly equally bothered by the fact that in the CBS News interview, the mother kept the child on her lap while talking about him and about the experience.  I felt that he was being used to gain sympathy in a manner that could cause yet further harm.