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Sydney Bell

English 2010

Professor Brandon Alva

PEAR Paper

Special Perspectives on Special Education

When I was in second grade, my knowledge concerning special education students was

extremely limited. The most I knew was that a girl in my class sometimes got angry and we all

had to leave the classroom, but that just meant extra recess for me, and I never got bummed out

by that. In my eyes, this girl was actually really lucky. She got her own fancy beanbag in the

classroom, she always got to stay in her same seat (I had to sit by yucky boys), and she never

failed to make the other kids happy when they got extra recess. At least in my eyes, she had it

pretty good.

Some years passed, and I trudged awkwardly through my junior high experience until I

finally reached high school. I could never forget my first big, high school assembly. The

cheerleaders performed, the Madrigals choir sang, and a variety of students showed off their

talents. One boy with Down Syndrome did a dance to a Michael Jackson song and I remember

the audience going wild with applause. He was amazing and everyone told him so! This

experience further convinced me that the students with disabilities truly were lucky as can be.

Beanbag chairs and schoolwide fame? Who could want more?

I found a website called “Raising the Extraordinary” where Amy, a mother of two

children with special needs, talks about her experiences. One of her articles, “Blessings From My

Special Needs Daughter” talked about all the wonderful things she had gained from having a

daughter with special needs. She said, “Can I tell you a secret? Yes, raising a special need child
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is hard, really hard. But the blessings that have come from having a special needs child far

outweigh everything else.” I couldn’t help but agree! These special needs kids seemed like they

were fresh out of heaven itself. There was no way that they weren’t the most pure and innocent

population on the face of the earth.

As a senior in high school, my schedule was rather light. Since I was on track to graduate

and even had some extra free periods to fill, my school counselor put me into a special needs

class to be a peer tutor. Once again, it seemed that special education was the place to be! I helped

the students with simple math, we played games together, and we always had snacks. We

laughed together often, and I made lots of fun friends! The special education classrooms seemed

to me like heaven on earth, or at least that’s what I thought from the short hour and a half I spent

in them. It seemed to me that these sweet angels deserved absolutely everything. These special

students were so fun to be around, and I felt like they could never do anything wrong. Sure, they

had their grumpy days, and they weren’t always the most well-behaved, but I wouldn’t ever say

they deserved stern discipline or bullying. In fact, these kids were so innocent and pure, I wanted

them to be protected- at all costs even. Sure, I could see the importance of integrating them into

general education classes, but I didn’t want them to be hurt or harassed.

Those who are closest to students with special needs understand how difficult it can be

for them to function in school and in life. Parents shed many tears in hopes that their children

will be protected and treated fairly. I found an article in the Wall Street Journal titled, “Parents of

Disabled Students Push for Separate Classes” written by Robert Tomsho. This article talked

about how some parents desperately need their disabled children in separate classes so that they

can be protected and learn better. Tomsho relates the story of Mary Kaplowitz who has an

autistic son. She said, “his preschool classmates rarely played with him and he came home from
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summer camp asking why the nondisabled children laughed at him.” She continued, “They

shunned him and it broke my heart.” Although I knew that some students were truly kind to

special needs students, I was also very aware that they still faced a lot of discrimination and

hatred from their peers. After reading this article, I definitely believed that special education

students deserved more rights than ever to help protect them.

Because I felt so strongly to defend the special needs students, I researched what kinds of

laws are in place to help them. Currently, there are a variety of laws that support the special

needs population when it comes to education. Perhaps the most important law to protect the

disabled is the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) which federally prohibits discrimination

of people with disabilities. The Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) law states that all

students with disabilities have the right to a free, public education that is individualized to their

needs. The Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) is also important in ensuring equal

education opportunities for special needs students. These and many additional laws help this

important population be seen as equal and treated as such. Learning about these laws helped me

feel like the disabled population in the education system was being heard, recognized, and

protected.

It felt good to know that the special needs population was well taken care of, but it wasn’t

until much later in my life that I realized special needs students can be just as capable of

misconduct as other students. I got a job at Granger High School as a paraeducator for a special

needs’ classroom. I figured that my past experience with helping the special needs students as a

peer tutor had sufficiently trained me for the job. Unfortunately, I found myself to be very, very

wrong. Perhaps they weren’t always so innocent and pure after all. And maybe, just as any

egalitarian would say, they really are human too.

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It was a regular day in classroom K107. The students were working busily, and somewhat

noisily, on their math assignment. Well, most of them anyways. As some of them can be a bit

stubborn, it becomes necessary to prompt a few students to start working on occasion. Now, let it

be clear that this specific class was for learning-disabled students. Students who are behaviorally

disabled, or as the official label states, “emotionally disabled”, belonged in a different class. But

apparently that wasn’t so for this case, in this school district, in this school, on this day.

As the prompts came kindly, but repeatedly, for one particularly obdurate student, the

effects of such misplacement took effect. First flew the pencil. Then, the glasses. Next, the

notebook. The calculator. A chair. Panic started to sweep the other students and the teacher cried

out for a room clear. The other students ran out of the room, followed by the two paraeducators.

The teacher, Shylah Poirier, stopped me, saying I needed to stay in order to keep documentation

for reasons of legality. And with no other choice, I had to sit and watch silently as she was

violently beaten by the outraged student. Bruised and nearly broken completely, Shylah waited

desperately for backup to come. After several slow, agonizing minutes passed, the school officer

finally arrived and removed the student in handcuffs.

That brave teacher ended up with a surgery to fix the damage caused by this student. But

as for that student, well, he ended up back in our classroom the very next week. No charges, no

corrective action other than a two-day suspension, and no disciplinary consequences. Something

was terribly wrong with having a behaviorally disabled student in a learning-disabled class. But

it was when the student walked back through our classroom door that something was more than

wrong. It was unethical, immoral, and nearly unforgivable.

We weren’t the only ones facing such challenges with special education. Soon after our

episode, Channel 2 News showed a week-long program covering similar incidents in Utah
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schools with special education teachers being beaten by their students. According to Channel 2

News, in the three largest school districts in Utah, 70 percent of Worker Compensation claims

were from being attacked by special education students. This resulted in Worker’s Compensation

paying $900,000 total. The Channel 2 article, “Shortage of special ed teachers leaves school staff

vulnerable to violence” by Chris Jones and Nadia Pflaum explained the violent incidents of one

teacher, Jamie Moffitt, being attacked on a regular basis by special education students. It said,

“By her sixth month, Moffitt says she had been bitten more than 100 times, had her hair pulled

more than 100 times, had suffered three concussions, and had gone to the hospital three times as

well. During all of this, Moffitt says she never got any training, with the exception of sexual

harassment guidelines.” I just could not believe this. How could all of this be happening and no

one do anything about it?

It seemed that in the midst of protecting students, we had forgotten the teachers that play

such vital roles in their education. This experience led me to question the extent of special

education rights. Those sweet angels had quickly turned into the reasons for my traumatic

nightmares. See, this cruel assault on the teacher I worked with was not a result of this student’s

disability. No, I could see it in his eyes. This student was very aware of what was happening-

what he was doing to that teacher. It has become nearly impossible to find any special needs

student guilty of anything. This particular student had fourteen – let me emphasize that, fourteen

– charges that had all been previously dropped. The number fourteen does not indicate that a

person is not aware of what they are doing. In fact, it seems to show that they are completely

aware of what they are doing. And that they are also aware that they can get away with it as well.

Of course, I would never say that persons with special needs deserve any less than the average

person. However, teachers deserve rights to protect themselves, too.

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I decided to interview Shylah to better understand the effect that this student had on her. I

wanted to know what impact these types of experiences have on special education teachers. I

first asked her about her thoughts on having a behaviorally disabled student in our learning-

disabled class. She said, “The school district has been giving me behaviorally disabled students

all year long and it’s getting exhausting. I knew from the very beginning it would be a bad idea

to put those types of students in my learning-disabled unit, and time has only proved me right.

The most frustrating part of all of this is that there is a suitable classroom for those students in

this school, but the district won’t put them in there solely because of the teacher who runs that

class.” It turned out that the educator in charge of the behaviorally-disabled classroom rarely

filled out the necessary paperwork, so they put the tricky students in Shylah’s class because she

is more reliable with paperwork. When she told me this, I felt like I was going to pop. How could

someone (Shylah) be put in a life-threatening situation every day- due to violent students- simply

because someone else didn’t want to do their paperwork?! That was completely unfair! I asked

Shylah how she felt about this and she said, “It’s sad when someone else has so much impact on

you based on small decisions that they make. All of this mess was about paperwork. But I took

the beating for it. Literally. That small decision to just do the stupid paperwork could have saved

me that day.”

This eye-opening interview led me to question the funding behind the special education

program at this school. Had the special education teachers gotten paid more, perhaps the school

would find it easier to hire more competent teachers. Or, if the school district had more funding

to train teachers, perhaps Shylah would have been better able to handle the situation. With these

questions in mind, I started digging.

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It turns out, that according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, special educators in Granite

School District only make an average salary of $55,890 annually. However, general education

teachers make $57,280 on average. I thought that I couldn’t possibly face more disbelief than I

already had with this topic, but once again, I found myself with a dropped jaw and bulging eyes.

Not only did teachers get paid very little for the rigorous job they perform, special education

teachers get paid even less. This was almost too much.

Not only are teachers severely underpaid and special education funding is extremely

limited, but I found myself stuck in a very sticky middle ground. A part of me loved these

generally sweet special needs students, and I was very aware that they need extra help and care.

However, at the same time, I found myself truly wondering where the line was and how far we

can allow these students to go without being disciplined or reprimanded. It was then that I found

an article about a mother’s desire for her disabled child to be challenged in school. Margaret

Gilmour is the mother of a son who has a language-based learning disability. She has tried all

kinds of schools and programs, and she was never upset about people being unkind to her son, in

fact, she wanted him to be challenged more. In her NPR article, “My Son Is In Special Education

And I Want Him To Be Challenged”, she said, “Without any incentive to get students in special

education at, or near grade-level standards, though, minimal progress is acceptable…” However,

she believes that her son has far greater potential that is not being unlocked. She continued, “All

kids, despite their differences, are young aspirants and should be encouraged to reach their

optimal potential. Creative teaching methods and research-based programs must be coupled with

consistent and credible expectations to drive students, no matter what type of learner, to

advance...” In reading this, my mind went back to that violent student in my classroom. Because

he has been let off the hook so many times, he is being set up for failure. The lack of standards
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for his behavior not only hurts (literally) the teachers, but also hurts him. President George W.

Bush once gave a speech about education which I read about in the New York Times archives’

article, “Excerpts From Bush's Speech on Improving Education”. Bush said, “I want to start

where educational failure has had its highest price. I want to begin with disadvantaged children

in struggling schools, and the Federal role in helping them... No child in America should be

segregated by low expectations, imprisoned by illiteracy, abandoned to frustration and darkness

of self-doubt... Now some say it is unfair to hold disadvantaged children to rigorous standards. I

say it is discrimination to require anything less -- the soft bigotry of low expectations…” When

we allow students to fail, we ourselves become the greatest bigots of all.

My mindset then began to change. It would never be fair if special education students

were discriminated against. However, it would also be unfair if special education students

weren’t held accountable to some kind of standard. The lack of funds for special education was

also unfair to everyone. I have come to realize that perhaps we don’t need rights for either

students or teachers. Maybe we can protect students and teachers alike, and the way to do that is

by setting higher standards for special education students, creating better laws to protect special

education teachers, and better funding special education as a whole. Students who misbehave

outside of their disability coverage ought to be disciplined properly. Period. Students should be

placed in the correct classrooms that meet their disability needs. Teachers need proper training

and preparation for the jobs they are assigned to. And, we need to take a closer look at the

funding we provide for special education. Teachers need to be paid more and necessary

resources need to be provided. These changes would help students succeed while also keeping

teachers safe. Of course, special education is a risky business. There isn’t always a perfect

prediction for how students will act on any given day. However, better preparing teachers,
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expecting more of our students, and improving special education financing will help everyone

succeed to their highest potential. In fact, maybe that is the key to defeating discrimination and

beating bigotry in education altogether.

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References

Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) 2013, MSA: Salt Lake City, SOC Codes: 25-2011, 25-2012, 25-

2021, 25-2022, 25-2031, 27-2022, 25-3098, 25-9041

Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) 2013, MSA: Salt Lake City, SOC Codes: 25-2051, 25-2052, 25-

2053, 25-2054

“Excerpts From Bush's Speech on Improving Education.” The New York Times, The New York

Times, 3 Sept. 1999, www.nytimes.com/1999/09/03/us/excerpts-from-bush-s-speech-on-

improving-education.html.

Fenwick, Cody. “I Was a Special Education Teacher. Here's What I Wish People Understood about

My Students.” Vox, Vox, 2 Sept. 2015, www.vox.com/2015/9/2/9236713/special-education-

teacher.

Gilmour, Margaret. “My Son Is In Special Education And I Want Him To Be Challenged.” NPR,

NPR, 11 July 2017, www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/07/11/534787935/my-son-is-in-special-

education-and-i-want-him-to-be-challenged.

Jones, Chris, and Nadia Pflaum. “Shortage of Special Ed Teachers Leaves School Staff Vulnerable

to Violence.” KUTV, 6 Dec. 2018, kutv.com/news/beyond-the-books/shortage-of-special-ed-

teachers-leaves-school-staff-vulnerable-to-violence.
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Mattson, Amy. “Blessings From My Special Needs Daughter ~ Raising the Extraordinary.” Raising

the Extraordinary, 20 Sept. 2016, raisingtheextraordinary.com/blessings-from-special-needs-

child/.

McLaughlin, Mary. “What About the Teacher's Safety?” Teacher.org, 9 Feb. 2018,

www.teacher.org/daily/what-about-teachers-safety/.

Tomsho, Robert. “Parents of Disabled Students Push for Separate Classes.” The Wall Street Journal,

Dow Jones & Company, 28 Nov. 2007, www.wsj.com/articles/SB119610348432004184.