School apologizes after autistic “wins” most annoying award

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An Indiana father says he was “blindsided” after a teacher gave his 11-year-old son, who has autism, an award for “most annoying male.”

Castejon said a special education teacher at Bailly Preparatory Academy in Gary handed out the awards in May during an annual end-of-year ceremony and luncheon for fifth-graders.

The Times reported that the parents attending the event at a Golden Corral restaurant became silent as the boy received the trophy.

Castejon told the paper he tried to leave the engraved trophy on a table, but the unidentified female teacher reminded him not to forget it, and acted like it was all in fun.

He said his son is non-verbal, sometimes rocks back and forth and is prone to becoming emotional. Castejon says he now sees the school’s calls during the academic year, asking how to handle his son, in a different light.

Castejon and his family are moving before the next school year begins, but he told The Times he’s speaking up so other families don’t go through a similar experience in Gary.

Peter Morikis, an emergency manager with the Gary Community School Corp., told The Times in a statement that they don’t condone the behavior and “extend our deepest apologies to the impacted student, the family and anyone else who takes offense to this unfortunate occurrence.

The Times is considering filing a Freedom of Information Act request to find out what disciplinary measures are taken against the teacher.

According to a statement released Friday by the school district, an internal investigation was launch after parents of a fifth grade student said their son was humiliated at an awards luncheon.

Akalis didn’t understand that the award was pointing out and making fun of his behavior, and was so proud he wanted to show his mother the trophy.

Friday the school issued a statement that said the investigation resulted in “in three teachers being served preliminary determination notice of contract cancellation. The school’s principal has been placed on administrative leave pending an additional investigation.”

The family says it plans to move to Valparaiso and into a new school district for the start of the next school year.

The Gary teacher who handed a fifth-grader with autism an award titled “Most Annoying Male” claims she is being made a scapegoat in the Gary Community School Corp.’s investigation of the May 23 incident.

Alexis Anderson-Harper, who taught fourth- and fifth-grade special education classes this year at Bailly Preparatory Academy, said Gary school officials have rushed to act under intense scrutiny brought by the story that has attracted national media attention since it was first reported by The Times on Monday.

A Gary schools spokeswoman confirmed Saturday that Anderson-Harper, along with Bailly fifth-grade teachers Bianca Jones and Crystal Beeks, has been served a preliminary determination notice of contract cancellation following an investigation led by Michelle Cooper, an education attorney with the law firm Lewis Kappes.

The three teachers will have the opportunity to appeal the school’s preliminary decision before contract cancellation is made final.

Bailly Preparatory Academy Principal Carlita Royal has been placed on administrative leave pending further investigation, according to a statement released Friday by Gary schools.

Royal, Jones and Beeks did not reply to requests for comment Saturday.

Both Castejon and Marlene Jones, whose daughter was also in Anderson-Harper’s class, said they saw the awarding of a second “Most Annoying” trophy to another student.

While Castejon said his son was not offended and did not understand the meaning of the trophy inscribed “BAILEY PREPARATORY ACADEMY 2018-2019 MOST ANNOYING MALE,” the father said the other student, not in his son’s special education class, was teased by other Bailly fifth-graders as he was called up to retrieve his trophy.

n separate interviews, both Castejon and Jones said teachers at the event placed the responsibility on students, telling the parents all Bailly fifth-graders took a vote for the class superlatives and teachers were simply there to hand out the awards.

Anderson-Harper confirmed this in an interview with The Times on Saturday, saying fifth-graders were given ballots for awards to be presented to one male and one female student.

The teacher characterized the superlatives as a “Students’ Choice Awards” celebration.

Descriptors were provided for each award category. The “Most Annoying” designation was defined on the ballot as “usually bothering, teasing, or disturbing others.”

Anderson-Harper, who said she’s been teaching with Gary schools for nearly 15 years, told The Times two other fifth-grade teachers on an awards lunch committee prepared the student voting ballots, which were brought to her classroom by a student runner, or assistant.

Anderson-Harper said her students recently had been learning in class about presidents and governments and that she saw the students’ opportunity to vote for the superlatives as a way to exercise the class standard.

The special education teacher said she discussed each category with her fifth-grade students who voted within her classroom on some of the categories such as “Most Scholarly,” “Most Positive,” “Most Funniest,” “Most Creative” and “Most Friendliest.”

She said when students finished voting, two in her class were nominated for “Most Annoying.” She then returned the ballots to the two organizing teachers, Anderson-Harper said.

The teacher said she did not realize any of her students were selected overall for the fifth-grade’s “Most Annoying” title until she was asked on the day of the awards lunch to hand trophies to the students as another teacher read the names of winners.

She said she did not know how the categories on the ballot were selected or how her students’ own votes were factored in to the totality of the fifth-grade voting system.

“I don’t know how it came about,” Anderson-Harper said. “In hindsight, I think they could’ve used different wording.”

This was adults failing across the board.