The Right, and the Fight, to Be Included
An autistic student (your autistic son or daughter) has a great talent for something and you seek for your child to go as far as possible, in full acknowledgement of his or her disability: Has this happened to you?
I have described a frustrating situation at our swimming pool: Charlie is only able to swim in the “family pool,” which is all of 3 1/2 feet deep and connected to a wading pool, and to a water slide and various water spraying toys. The “big pool” is reserved either for the swim team or for adult lap swimmers, and it is only open during the time that Charlie is in school. Charlie is a natural swimmer and it would be great for him to do laps and practice his swimming, neither of which he can do in the “family pool.” When I have mentioned this situation to any pool staff, the response is always to join the pool’s special needs swim class which is located at another, separate pool. Jim has been calling the pool director and has yet to get a response. I hope to sign Charlie up for the special needs class next season if it seems right and we’re trying to get him a teacher for 1:1 lessons but somehow it does not seem, or feel, quite right to have to pay extra just to get Charlie in the pool for a half-hour during the week.
I am guessing that this is something of what the parents of 16-year-old Corinne Morier, who has Asperger’s, felt on learning that their daughter had been “barred” from an advanced drama class at Skyline High School in Oakland, California. Morier had attended the 2,200 student high school and earned straight A’s in beginning drama. But she missed the audition for the advanced class (she did not know that it was required). Further, as the October 29th Inside Bay Area notes, the well-regarded drama teacher, Jan Hunter, thought that she “lacked the necessary skills,” such as social skills.
The clash between Skyline’s drama director, Jan Hunter, and Corinne’s parents, prominent special education advocates, resulted in a legal complaint and an ongoing district investigation into the alleged discrimination. Hunter said this week she might sue the family for defamation.
Various interpretations of the contentious affair, and of the aggressive advocacy efforts of Corinne’s family, have since circulated the campus, whose strong Asperger program has drawn students from across the city.
Hunter and some of her supporters characterize the conflict as a personal crusade by two parents against a hard-working teacher who is struggling to do her job with few resources. Others say the passion with which Corinne’s parents pursued the issue illustrates the lengths to which special needs families must sometimes go to make sure their kids have the same opportunities as their able-bodied peers.
But many agree the ordeal highlighted the need to better educate and support mainstream teachers, many of whom receive little formal special education training. As a result, Skyline will soon host sessions with a local nonprofit organization to promote a deeper understanding of what it means to go through life with a disability.
“It definitely shed some light on the situation,” said Heidi Green, Skyline’s principal, who adamantly disputes that discrimination occurred. “Some of the teachers are really struggling to help special needs students.”
Of coruse, some and many special needs students are struggling to be in school.
Morier is now attending the private Holy Names School and taking advanced drama. And we’re still calling the aquatics director of the pool.
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POSTED IN: Disability Rights, Drama, Education, Parenting, Water
14 opinions for The Right, and the Fight, to Be Included
amy
Oct 30, 2007 at 1:51 am
Kristina, let me get this straight: The pool is a public pool that is reserved for swim teams and adult lap swim, and it has a “family time” wading/slides area. There is another public pool that is open to non-swim-team kids for actual swimming? And it has a special-needs class?
This doesn’t sound like any kind of discrimination to me, if I’m getting it right — it sounds like some broad departmental policy putting different groups in different pools, and you just happen to be at the wrong pool. Is there some reason the groups are separated? Is there a budget or use reason they don’t open up the “big pool” during non-school hours?
s c
Oct 30, 2007 at 1:52 am
oh, yeah, the old separate but equal thang. we’ve experienced it as well. it seems it’s still A-OK in the good ole’ US of A to violate the civil rights of those on the spectrum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separate_but_equal
Kristina Chew, PhD
Oct 30, 2007 at 2:19 am
It’s not a public pool.
amy
Oct 30, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Then maybe another private pool would work better? I guess I’m not understanding — I mean I can see the frustration in seeing the marvelous empty pool and not being able to use it, especially if it’s part of some facility you use for other things and it’s convenient, like if it’s part of a gym or a Y. But it doesn’t sound like they’re discriminating on the basis of disability. All non-swim-team kids are out. It may be something as simple, frankly, as not wanting pee in the nice pool. Or maybe it’s a liability issue, I don’t know. (I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want the liability of kids horsing around in the pool either, if I was running a private pool.) But I just don’t see how this rises to the level of discrimination — and if it’s a private pool, then surely they’re entitled to set their own hours.
I mean if they end up being willing to accommodate you, that’s great, but I don’t see that they’ll have done wrong if they say no. If you really want to push it and it’s a private gym, I’d skip the aquatics director and talk to the owner. The owner is in a position to respond with fellow-feeling (the AqD is not), but if the answer is no, the owner will also probably give you less bullshit about why. If it’s a Y, maybe talk to (memory failing now) a regional director, explain why not being able to use the local pool is a burden, and see what the concerns are?
Kristina Chew, PhD
Oct 30, 2007 at 3:06 pm
It’s a good conversation that we are starting with the pool and I am glad to be able to have embarked on it.
Regan
Oct 30, 2007 at 4:23 pm
Kristina,
If you guys are playing phone tag on this, how about a nicely worded letter to the aquatics director cc:’d to the facility director?
I don’t know your local Y or how they operate, but if I was not getting a response on anything after a few weeks, I might try the above. I still find it weird that they don’t have any open rec time in the big pool beyond lap and swim team. Not even on weekends? :-/
Kristina Chew, PhD
Oct 30, 2007 at 4:56 pm
On weekends, yes. But I still would like to find out about weekdays and a letter is a great idea—thanks much!
Regan
Oct 30, 2007 at 5:16 pm
You’re welcome. I just hope it’s a helpful idea–I know how it might work at our family Y, and that is the route that we’ve taken on some questions.
I got interested in the events around Corrine Morrier, because it is a complicated situation given that Skyline has magnet Asperger’s services and that it does ask the question about whether there are lines in the sand, how are those determined and whether those should exist? It’s hard to tell the lay of the land when unfamiliar with the school, teacher, students or particular student. Is this an anomaly or common practice?
I thought that a little more detail might be helpful, and found this blog post with some interesting comments from Corrine’s mom and another parent from Skyline mentioned in the original BayInsider story.
Special education: Another form of segregation?
http://www.ibabuzz.com/education/?p=279
Nicole
Oct 30, 2007 at 5:43 pm
Kristina,
You haven’t explained why you’re suggesting that Charlie is being discriminated against because he has autism. I agree with Amy that it seems like this is a policy (the big pool is for adult lap swimmers or swim teams) and it has nothing to do with Charlie specifically or his disability. Could you explain your logic?
Kristina Chew, PhD
Oct 30, 2007 at 9:17 pm
Yes. There is no time in the pool schedule for a child like Charlie to swim—everything is very tightly scheduled, with regards to family swim for those able to swim before 3.30pm; swim team practice; adult lap swim. The pool does not provide any time for someone who is not in the category of “adult lap swimmer” or “swim team member” to swim at times that would be appropriate for a 10 year old.
I don’t think that any “discrimination” going on here is overt. What fascinates me is the fact that a swimmer like Charlie is not a swimmer that those who make up the pool schedule have even imagined. If one tells the pool staff that Charlie has autism, the answer is immediately “go to this special program at a separate pool.” So there is an assumption that an autistic child can only be in a special program; this response has been repeated to me numerous times.
It’s a fascinating case of how architecture and assumptions about what sorts of swimming opportunities might be allowed for the members of a community, contribute to making it not possible for all members of the community to swim. The pool staff has yet to indicate that they think that an autistic child can swim in anything but a special program—-the kind of swimmer that Charlie is, is something that is not so easily imagined, perhaps. Thanks for your good questions!
(I have written a few times about this situation, in case my references to it in this post seem less than clear; many regards.)
Jen
Oct 30, 2007 at 11:04 pm
So, if I understand this correctly, not only are kids like Charlie neglected in this schedule, but truly any school age child who might want to actually swim, but does not want to commit, or does not feel he or she is good enough, for a swim team, cannot swim during the week. Is there not enough pool usage by this group to warrant it, or might it be worth bringing up that a large segment of people are left out of this schedule?
Kristina Chew, PhD
Oct 30, 2007 at 11:21 pm
I think there may not be enough children in this situation to warrant it; children can use the 3 1/2 foot “family pool,” but the regular pools with the slides are reserved. It’s created an interesting situation for a family with a good swimmer who can’t be a on a swim team.
In our old town, we belonged to a pool that left one lane open for families with kids to use in the evening, while adults could swim laps. But if you had a child with an adult and the pool was not crowded, you and the child could take a lane and Charlie and I often did this—not for a very long time, but it was a good way to get him some more swimming.
I know this is not a life or death matter exactly. Perhaps it’s the response I’ve been getting that has made me raise an eyebrown, the constant (so far) “there’s this special program for special needs kids.” I understand where the assumptions are coming from, but they are assumptions!
amy
Oct 31, 2007 at 4:05 pm
Kristina, I understand the point about relegating autistic kids to “special needs” swimtime, or making the assumption that that’s appropriate. Yes, that’s a form of discrimination, though unless they actually refused to let Charlie swim with the other non-swim-team, non-special-needs kids, it’s really correctable ignorance, and nothing that’d rise to a legal definition of discrimination.
I still don’t feel ya on the “subtle discrimination” thing, though, in his not being allowed to use the handy pool. They have no idea Charlie’s autistic unless you bring it up; they’re saying no based on a much broader policy. And you’re saying that most of the other parents are probably fine with that. So if there’s any discrimination going on — and I don’t think there is — it’s about families whose schedules and needs don’t meet the private pool’s setup.
I belong to a synagogue in a Jewish community where nearly all the families involved are well-off, professional, two-parent families. Most of the people who run the place have grown children. It is absolutely not set up for low-income families or single-parent families. However, by no means do I believe that this is due to discrimination, overt or subtle. It’s to do with simple blindness — poverty and single parenthood don’t affect most members’ lives, so they don’t really think about it, and they hold some stereotyped views. And they don’t see immediately why their fixes don’t work — you can plead poverty, for instance, to get out of paying dues. The result is that single-parent families tend to stay away, feeling they’ve been treated poorly.
It took me exactly one email to start changing that. Do they understand yet what exactly I’m getting at? No. (One of the offers was to help me set up a regular meeting time & place for single parents; I had to explain that we don’t generally have the freedom to make that kind of commitment, and that this is part of the problem with inclusion). And I think I offended one woman, who, though a single mother, was also a lawyer, and makes some unrealistic assumptions about what other single parents can afford to do. But the board and Sisterhood understand they’ve inadvertantly shut people out, and in the next bulletin they ran a long and thoughtful apology. I got sent a zeroed-out dues statement, though as it happens I can afford to pay this year and will.
There’s no attempt to shut people out, in other words. They just didn’t think to hold the door.
(And you got that one for free, sister. Credit me where you can.)
Kristina Chew, PhD
Oct 31, 2007 at 4:34 pm
We’ll all have to keep trying to imagine! best wishes
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