Squats at School Flagpole: Mother's Protest Resumes

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Squats at School Flagpole: Mother's Protest Resumes/ School

Gets an 'A'

FEAT DAILY NEWSLETTER Sacramento, California http://www.feat.org

" Healing Autism: No Finer a Cause on the Planet "

______________________________________________________

September 8, 2000

Also: * Autistic Boys' Parents Give School an 'A'

* Motion Processing in Autism: Research Abstract

Squats at School Flagpole: Mother's Protest Resumes

[shades of Forrest Gump (mother takes unusual, heroic measures to get

to her child services, you may recall). By Mckinney

Kmckinney@... In The Observer-Reporter, Washington, Pa.

The reporting of this event does not necessarily constitute an endorsement

of such tactics by FEAT. But if you do ever try it, please let us know.

Thanks to Jo Clare Hartsig.]

http://www.observer-reporter.com/NEWS/WASH/9-07-00wash1.html

A deaf education teacher hired to help end a McGuffey mother's

five-day protest at her son's elementary school last week resigned from her

job Wednesday morning.

Acting Superintendent Zito confirmed that the teacher called the

administration office to say she would not continue her duties with the

school district. Zito would not elaborate on the circumstances surrounding

the teacher's departure, but said it had nothing to do with her

qualifications.

" She was a very good and supportive individual and would have been a

plus to our program, " he said.

The development came less than a day after Deanna Lesneski, the mother

of a second-grader with special needs at Blaine-Buffalo Elementary School,

publicly complained that the teacher had been instructed by school employees

not to work one-on-one with her son and later reclaimed her space by the

school's flagpole.

Lesneski dominated [local] news reports last week with an impromptu

sit-in at the flagpole. She claimed then that the school district was

refusing to administer her son's medications and was not providing him with

an aide proficient in his form of sign language.

She agreed to end her five-day demonstration Friday afternoon after

the school district again promised to medicate her son, " Max " Lesneski,

and verbally agreed to hire a teacher with a master's degree in deaf

education to work with him.

But relations between Lesneski and school administrators fell apart

again Tuesday morning after she attended an early morning conference at the

school. Lesneski claims medical logs shown to her that morning revealed that

school employees again failed to administer her son's medications. Then,

when Lesneski went into her son's physical education class to observe how he

was interacting with the new teacher, the mother said she discovered the

woman standing in the back of the room. The teacher told Lesneski she had

been instructed to observe the class, which was what she was doing.

Zito said the teacher was in the back of the room, but that the

situation was quickly corrected when he spoke with the woman about being

available to assist Max by standing within view of the child. Zito also

pointed out that the physical education teacher had been repeating his

instructions to the class in sign language to accommodate the second-grader.

The superintendent also said that any problems regarding the

second-grader's medication have been resolved.

Even so, the teacher's resignation has put the school district " back

to square one " in attempting to find someone proficient in sign language and

able to communicate with the second-grader, Zito said. And there is no

guarantee that the hiring of another aide or teacher is going to appease

Lesneski this time around.

" I don't know what it will take for me to leave here, " she said

Wednesday afternoon. " I left without (an agreement) being in writing

(Friday) and look where I am today - right back where I started from. "

Lesneski said the school district's director of safety and security

handed her a letter Wednesday afternoon indicating that parents have

complained about her protest and are asking her to move her demonstration by

the flagpole to the end of the driveway at the bottom of a steep hill. If

she does not comply, the school district will seek a court order from a

Washington County judge to make her move, according to Lesneski.

Lesneski said she does not believe she'll be leaving school property

anytime soon. Asked if she felt the protest was the most constructive way to

handle the situation, she said, " It's the best I can do. I've done

everything else, and this is what I have left. "

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