Toronto Star, November 10, 2003

Barred - and they don't know why

Special education students victims of zero tolerance
Board says it has to balance teacher safety, student needs

TRISH CRAWFORD
LIFE WRITER

Amin Selaman spends his days in coffee shops, hanging around the park or playing computer games.

The 16-year-old would rather be in school but he's been home since the first week of September after an incident at his school, Monarch Park, when he was expelled under the Safe Schools Act.

The slender special education student, who has no concept of time and reads and writes at a kindergarten level, has been caught in the snare of legislation meant to curb thug violence and gang activity in schools.

Parents of special needs students across Ontario are angry that their children are sent home for hitting, swearing, pulling fire alarms, running away and a host of other behaviours associated with their disabilities.

Before 2000, when the provincial school safety law came into effect, schools dealt with these problems as best they could, says Linda Berenofsky, of the Toronto Family Network. Now, "zero tolerance" has meant suspensions for these students, some of whom have no concept that what they were doing was "bad."

Amin's mother, Igbal Habona, has been unable to work as a court interpreter since his suspension as he needs constant care. Amin has epileptic seizures, ranging from severe to minor, every day.

In order to fill his days with meaning, Habona takes Amin to the movies where he's likely to wander into the manager's office. In restaurants, he tries to go behind the counter. In the local Timothy's, the staff say, "Hey Amin, how come you're not in school?"

Habona says, "I explain to people that he is a special needs child and there is never any problem. Strangers treat my son better than the school."

The agonizing wait for permission to return to classes has lasted so many weeks, Habona fears Amin may miss his entire school year. "My son is being denied an education."

Brian Ellerker, central co-ordinating principal for the Toronto District School Board who is in charge of special education, says he is aware of Amin's situation and is working on finding a solution but refused to comment on why the student has been out of school so long.

Ironically, a teen involved in gang violence could find himself back in school much quicker than the hard-to-serve special education student, Ellerker says.

"Part of the problem of the special needs student is that there is no understanding of consequences. So staff face the same danger every day. With the gang member, you can deal in a cognitive way, they understand the consequences of crime and punishment."

Safety sleeves, which protect arms from bites, pinches and blows, are given to staff dealing with violent special needs children and other safety devices are being researched and distributed.

One reason for the lengthy suspensions is the need to have a safety plan in place before the student can return and this can be a lengthy process, says Ellerker, adding staff safety is a priority.

"Students with this level of need used to not be in school. Whatever we do has to be done safely. Staff in schools deserve to have a work environment that is safe."

The Toronto board, which has 37,000 special education students, has 2,000 educational assistants to support teachers and another 600 special needs assistants for children with severe needs. There is no data available on injury rates of special education staff and if it is higher than in regular classes.

David Ross, spokesperson for the Ontario Ministry of Education, points out the Safe Schools Act makes no reference to "zero tolerance" of violent incidents. As well, the legislation exempts students who don't understand the nature of their acts from suspensions, he says, but noting provinial data on suspensions doesn't break them down by category.

Ontario Human Rights Commissioner Keith Norton sounded the alarm earlier this year that there were an inordinate number of suspensions for students of colour and he questioned the propriety of suspending learning disabled students.

"I am sure the intent of the legislation was to deal with behaviour of students who had the capacity to know full well what they are doing," Norton said in an interview. "I don't quarrel with the principle that schools have to be a safe place. But I think it's a misinterpretation of the intent of the legislation when the behaviour is directly related to disability."

For instance, he is investigating two claims by parents of children with Tourette's Syndrome, who were suspended for swearing. Uncontrolled swearing is a facet of the illness. Norton is planning a full report on the suspension of disabled students within the year.

Stu Auty, president of Safe Schools Canada, says he has received complaints from parents "whose kids aren't being served" but he doesn't blame the legislation, which he championed.

"There is a lack of available programs. We can't expect teachers to be assaulted but we also can't expect students not to be served. We need to find the middle ground."

Parents of students with disabilities complain that their children are sent home after relatively minor incidents.

Rose Gelman, a real estate agent, was summoned to her son's York Region high school recently to pick him up in the middle of the day. She was told that Lorne, 16, who is developmentally delayed and uses a walker, had gotten into an altercation with his special education teaching assistant over his refusal to participate in recycling. She was also told he had an upset stomach and had diarrhea.

"When I got there, he was fine. But I didn't understand what they were sending him home for. I know he didn't want to do recycling and he can be stubborn, lash out and try to hit. Maybe she didn't duck in time."

Lorne, who functions at a Grade 1 level, was happy to go home and watch TV for the rest of the day.

"This is not a punishment for these kids. They like being home," says Gelman. The school has since drawn up a safety plan around her son's behaviour, so sending him home is not the first option that comes to mind, says Gelman, noting that it is still option number 3.

In London, parent Wendy Richardson says suspensions experienced by her son Nathan, who has autism - a communications disorder - make him frantic that he is falling behind. When lights start flickering, the class gets a substitute teacher, the battery goes on his calculator or someone starts tapping a pencil, Nathan, in Grade 11, and other children start to react to the stimulus, she says.

"A lot of what we are dealing with are people not knowing, people not trained," says Richardson, a stay-at-home mom with three other boys. She pays a friend of one of the older boys to take Nathan on outings. Students at the school do not mix with the kids with disabilities, she says.

She wishes there were more male teaching assistants (most are female) because children with disabilities can become quite big in high school. Her own son is 6 foot 2 and a "big boy." One of the factors of his disability is that he doesn't "read" people, says Richardson, so he doesn't pick up nuances of body language and facial expression. "He is in someone's face and they back off and he doesn't get it."

More training, to help staff find ways to prevent or divert negative reactions, is the key to making things better for Nathan, not repeated suspensions, she says. "He is suspended regularly and each time we say, `This isn't working.'"

A 7-year-old Grade 2 student with Down syndrome was suspended recently in York Region when he refused to leave the pencil sharpener and got into a shoving match with his teacher.

His father, who wished the family to remain anonymous, says it is easy to redirect his son and the incident might have been avoided if he'd been offered a chance to work on the computer or play with a toy.

The parents fought to have their son placed in a regular class as the school administration wanted him in a special education class, says the father. There is a teaching assistant in his class for only half the day and the father feels a full-time assistant would help keep his son on an even keel.

The boy is considered "high functioning" in that he can talk, feed himself, tie his shoes, is toilet trained and loves to sing and draw.

"I have a masters degree in engineering and, until I had my son, I didn't know people could be like this. He has given me a new perspective. He is so loving, he hugs people. Life is not only about competition. It is also about being inclusive."

The lengthy suspension of Amin has put his mother's life on hold.

"I am his mother, father, sister, brother, friend. I am all he has," she says. "Heaven forbid something should happen to me."

School is all there is in the lives of some children with severe disabilities, the only time they socialize with kids the same age, says Haboda. "Right now, he has nothing. And I don't understand why."