Suspended from school

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My son was issued an in-school suspension today. He was in the bathroom and a student reported that he was writing on the stall wall. Pop has vehemently denied it. The school is taking the other student's word and automatically issued a suspension. They decided on "where, how, and how long" all on their own. No conference, no disscussion and no mention of Pop's special needs.
Apparently his time in the bathroom was rooted in some avoidance of another punishment-something we were also unaware of. He was being made to write letter of apology to several teachers for "poor behavior".

Writing on the walls doesn't make sense, the boy regularly gets in trouble for NOT writing. The "witness" claims to have seen Pop but didn't know what he was using to write. The teacher says "they found pencils in his desk with the erasers taken off" that could have scratched the word into the paint. These are the mechanical pencils I send for him because regular pencils are too painful. I removed the erasers because he accidently shoved one up his nose a couple of months ago. Out of curiosity, we tested an eraserless pencil on our own walls, Husband doesn't think he could have done it-even if he tried.

Regardless if he did it or not, we don't know the sequence of events, if Pop even understands what it means.
To complicate issues, we have had problems with denial and mixing fantasy and reality in his stories. A lot of times we can get the truth out of Pop through some backdoor reasoning. This is one that he's firm on.
Since they were automatically going to place him in this suspension, we aren't sending him to school tomorrow.
'Tis the Season.

I'm really surprised that they would take this tactic. When I got in trouble (and denied what I did initially) I was interrogated by my parents first, then brought in to answer for it at school with the principal. After I admitted to it and apologized, I was given my suspension. Like in Pop's case, it was a student that snitched on me. So, I was given several opportunities to tell my side of the story. I didn't have the language problem my son has, but I did panic and deny it several times.
Why would they punish a student based on the word of another? and without a conference?

What!
Suspension for writing on the bog wall ---- What is the world coming to?

Hope he enjoys the holiday

KimJ, I am so sorry for your son, and you. Ethically, this is a harsh misjudgment, and he wasn't even given a chance. Your relating of this story brought tears to my eyes. Can your son know, or understand, that he's still good, just misunderstood?

He's so entrenched in denying the story, I don't know what he understands. I told him why either scenario is terrible. If he's lying then we'll have serious, serious problems in the future with his safety and other people's feelings towards him. If he's telling the truth, yet other people want to punish him, then his safety is in jeopardy. We kept repeating, Pop, the school doesn't care if you're telling the truth or not, they're punishing you anyways.
I tried to explain why we're keeping him home, but I don't know if he understands that either. He does know that it's "home school" day.
I think he is very confused.

Is your son AS? Just curious.

That is horrible if he is being punished for something he didn't do.

Autistic, I don't believe there is a qualitative difference between the two. Other than he has had significant speech delay, he still is behind in receptive language and displays a lot of mimicry and scripting. Academically he is at grade level.

I guessed autistic rather than aspie, there is a difference.

This is particularly important in cases like your son. An aspie would usually be able to avoid this sort of bad behaviour (if indeed he actually did it) an autistic child probably would not.

Assuming for a minute that he did do it - the school's response is completely wrong. You need to talk to them - particularly to special ed.

I was, I guess you could say, suspended, um... quite a few times in my school career, both the in school and the out of school variety. so I'll offer my perspective. And it all happened at the same school for me in 5th and 6th grade.

Out of the dozen or so odd suspensions I received I would say I only truly earned one or two of them, and the ones I earned happened when I had lost all respect for the system because I kept getting punished for nothing but the fact that the teachers didn't like teaching me because of my AS. My most serious one happened like the way it happened to your son, it was a one week out of school suspension when someone snitched on me for something I didn't do. To me, the out of school suspensions felt like a reward because I hated going to that school, no wonder their punishments didn't work. I was eventually expelled from that school and it was the best thing.

What I'm suggesting is that this is a bad sign and you might want to think about changing schools. One factor that is important is how old your son is. If he's not in high school then this really has no bearing on college. If he is in high school then this is really bad.

My advice is that if you're not sure that he did it, then don't punish him. I would have felt that I couldn't trust my parents if they couldn't trust me. Make sure that he doesn't gain the attitude that getting in trouble can get you out of school, unless you are willing to switch schools at some point. There's something wrong with a school that hands out in school suspensions for writing on bathroom walls.

gbollard~ i wouldn't make some sort of judgment about aspies being able to avoid such things..........my aspie son has gotten into trouble for such things.....hubby who's aspie also got into trouble when he was a kid too

Thanks for the replies.
He's 7 (2nd grade) and this school was picked by the school for its autism clinic. So, "changing school" is an unlikely option because this was their final offer last year when I pulled him out.
There are so many problems with this. My husband is going the "special ed" route, that the school is violating his rights based on his cognitive deficits. I'm still stuck on the procedural problems of punishing a child without the routine and mandatory elements of conference and investigation. Both problems are significant. Then the idea that his special ed teacher doesn't even back him up-she just parrots the policy of suspension.
My husband thinks it's all a set up. See, this is the kind of thinking you get into when you can't trust. A month ago, they tried to push him out of special ed. We persisted and kept him in. The teacher only followed up with one report. Now this.

Aside from the parental interrogation, we are not blaming him for the graffitti. We have explained that the past lying and denying is a problem and it's caused people to distrust him. We told him that we won't punish him, but if we find out that he's lying about this, then we will.

If they don't change their decision, we're not sending him back and we're going official (grievance). If they do change their decision, then we'll conference again about "what will we do" about follow-thru with Pop's IEP.

My son experienced several placement changes and/or proposed placement changes in his short public school career (kindergarten until October of 2nd grade). If it feels like they are building a case against your son, they probably are. That was my experience. At a certain point, school and admin types get more involved in case building than dealing with the behaviors with compassion. They need your kid to "fail" in current placement before proposing a new one.

Last stop for my son, was a proposed Day Program (which they couldn't even call a school). It was a place to sit from 7:30 AM until 2 PM and they were allowed to use physical restraint, even though my son came no where close to needing physical restraint. We started homeschooling and I pretty much resent the whole special ed, IEP process.

Good luck with your son. I hope they do right by him.

it's very demoralizing when you spell out what your child needs to succeed and they act like they understand and they don't. They don't follow through, they act like "they've seen it all" and they don't write down everything they say they will.
I've written this before but a good example of this nutty behavior: the special ed teacher showing me how dedicated and educated on the subject she is. She shows me this book that is "her curriculum". MOnths later when we're still dealing with age-old problems, she lends me these same books and then tells me that she hasn't read them through because the "rest of the team" doesn't want to use them.

Sorry, don't think I'm making a judgment/generalisation - I said would usually...



What I mean by that is that in many cases, I think aspies are a little more aware of what they're doing than autistic people. Particularly in cases where there is a certain degree of premeditation (ie: taking the writing instrument to the toilet with them).

Don't get me wrong, there are things in my childhood where I mostly "blanked". I knew I was doing something "naughty" just couldn't quite stop because the rules were forcing me to continue. Part of it is impulsiveness but there's more to it than that.

KimJ,

I'm sorry about what's happening.

If only I could clone our fantastic Special Ed teacher and send him around the world. He truly cares for our boys, and he bends rules etc to help them.

Helen

Caring is 3/4 the job, in my opinion.

The case building is a scary one. It suggests that staff working with your son no longer want to identify strategies to deal with him. .

Before suspension can be assigned, it must be determined that the infraction was not a result of your son's disablity. I suppose they can get around this one.

My son, too, was placed on restriction based on another student's words. It seems wrong. I agree.

Public school doesn't seem like a good fit for my son. I am stuck right now. I try to talk to him about it, openly, and let him know I understand, but that he still has to be respectful and follow rules in school or pay the consequences--this is the truth. I am his biggest advocate, his safety net, and I want him to know this. He tells me what goes on in school, I listen and discuss it with him. If he knows something was not just or was mishandled, he tells me. I think this helps, provides a buffer, instills in him a sense of inner strength.

equinn