Autistic students at center of schools battle

Emily Gersema - Mar. 14, 2008 Phoenix, AZ

A 5-year-old autistic boy has been physically restrained four times this school year at Settler's Point Elementary in Gilbert, despite his mother's repeated requests for the staff to stop it.

The mother, Amy Eddy, told the Gilbert Republic she has asked the district to stop sharing sensitive, extended family medical history that is in her son's student file in spite of federal health privacy laws. In an e-mail response, officials refused.

Another Gilbert parent, Juliet Chapman, complains that Finley Farms Elementary in Gilbert continually assigns her autistic son to occupational therapy to teach him skills such as tying his shoes even though he already has tested out of it. She adds that the school also continues to ignore her suggestions to set higher goals for her son in his Individual Education Plan.

Eddy and Chapman are among about a dozen parents of autistic children in various Gilbert Public Schools who are demanding that the district provide better training to staff to help address their concerns and ensure their kids can succeed.

Some parents are afraid to speak publicly because they fear that the school staff or administrators will retaliate against their children, placing them in self-contained classrooms where they'll be isolated from typical children and denied the opportunity to develop the social skills they lack as part of their disorder.

Parents of autistic children have been raising these concerns with the Gilbert district for more than a year, according to district e-mails and documents and interviews with the Republic. Some are so frustrated they've formed a local support group, Supporting Autism Now through Education, which also has been lobbying at the Statehouse for better coverage of health problems related to autism.

District officials complain that the parents are involved in an organized effort against GPSchool.

But the parents say they wouldn't have come together if they weren't experiencing similar problems that persist despite their efforts to work with staff and administrators to address their children's individual struggles in the classroom. They've even offered to pool their money to pay for teacher training.

Melissa Van Hook and Holly Reycraft are two parents who have filed formal complaints for which state education officials found there were no violations.

Reycraft is a former special-education teacher for GPS. Among her allegations is that the school district failed to ensure she and her ex-husband were both present at the planning meeting for her son Hunter, then 10.

Van Hook had a similar complaint, saying that she and her husband were not given the opportunity to provide input on their son's plan. Their son is a fifth-grader at Ashland Ranch Elementary.

She later filed a notice of claim through an attorney, essentially a placeholder that leaves her the option of filing a civil rights complaint against the district.

Both women say they took the step of making a formal complaint because they got nowhere with district officials. After several meetings with staff, and then administrators, Van Hook says she and other parents who've tried to work with the district have felt treated like they're troublemakers.

And now, membership in their organization, SANE, is increasing as more parents come to them for help with their problems.

"I don't understand why it has to be so adversarial," said Van Hook, who has two boys with autism disorders. "Why can't they listen to these parents and get a clue that maybe they have some merit?"

The district launched an investigation into parents' complaints about special education, hiring Mesa attorney Richard Lyons to interview Van Hook, Reycraft and others about their concerns.
He was paid through a special insurance program retained by the school. His report refers to their complaints as "the conspiracy." Van Hook says the investigation seemed biased to start with. Lyons has represented school districts in civil rights complaints. Despite Lyons' ties to school districts, Dave Allison, GPS associate superintendent, says he believes the report was fair.

Reycraft says she feels the district needs some sort of representation of families with special-needs children, and has applied for the board seat left open by Traci Klein, who resigned last month without explanation.