Making Special Education Actually Work

Anne M. Zachry:

We got a couple of comments on this posting that I’d share except that one discloses even more personal information about the student with the gun from someone evidently close to the situation – great insight but enough information for some people to figure out who the child is, which would breach his confidentiality further, so we can’t share it; and, another post from someone using hostile, foul language who entirely missed the point of the article. So, what I’m doing here is quoting the share-able content of each comment with my feedback.

Comment #1 from “Jane” includes this very pertinent point: “… what hasn’t been reported – and shouldn’t be reported – is whether the school ever conducted Child Find and provided the services he needs. And if they didn’t do so, I would say that’s a much more egregious issue than a teacher’s spouse letting it be known that his wife had vented exasperation, frustration, and/or concern to him about the child’s classroom issues. After all, every kid in the class knew the boy had problems, and now, even with his name not printed in the newspapers, all his relatives’ names are in the news, so whatever privacy he once had is gone, and his personal history is now on display to the public, not just in the U.S. but in international news as well.”

Jane is right that whether or not child find was conducted shouldn’t be reported in the media. She’s also right that if there was a failure to identify and serve this child, presuming he was eligible for services, that’s a huge culpability on the part of the involved school district.

I have to disagree, however, that a failure to serve this child was worse than disclosing his personal information to the media. I think the violations are equally bad.

As Jane herself pointed out, the whole world knows who this kid is, now, and that is quite probably detrimental to achieving an appropriate outcome. I have to say that the failure to attend to his needs and thereby prevent this tragedy is an enormous issue but that exposing him to the public after the fact is an equal failure because it only makes a bad situation even worse rather than foster appropriate remedy to all those injured one way or another.

There were evidently a number of failures by many adults in this boy’s life and, unfortunately, it would take a breach of his confidentiality for us to know exactly what all went wrong. And, Jane is also right that, in the grand scheme of things, a teacher venting to her spouse is not the biggest issue here.

The issue is, as Jane pointed out, even without disclosing this boy’s name in the media, everybody still figured out who he is because of what was disclosed to the public and that was the concern that I raised. Exposing this troubled boy’s life to public scrutiny may result in those of us who get it understanding the real issues here. But, it also puts him in the “line of fire” from irate members of the public who fail to appreciate the shades of grey regarding child development and what happens when it is negatively impacted by reckless and irresponsible adults (and I’m talking family as well as any public servants involved).

So, to “HeyZeus” who posted with Comment #2 some unkind feedback that failed to address the issue raised by our article, you may be very right that “Ms. Poss probably saved that little girl’s life,” but we never said or suggested that this was not the case. That wasn’t the point.

The point is that Amina was the victim of a victim. Both of these children were harmed and vilifying a 9-year-old in the media over poor choices he made in the face of adversity and in the absence of adult wisdom, while sharing information that makes it far too easy for the public to figure out who he, is isn’t going to solve anything or make this bad situation any better. If anything, it makes things worse.

Further, Mrs. Poss has clearly already been through enough. An emotional error in judgment on her part and/or that of her husband could unfortunately bring more bad times upon them if they are held accountable for discussing this young man with the media. As Jane pointed out, even though the boy’s name wasn’t disclosed, enough information about him was shared that now enough of his personally identifying information is internationally known to shoot his privacy all to hell.

The concern we raised about FERPA was as much advice to teachers who may find themselves in similar circumstances in the future of what not to do as anything. I have no desire to see Mrs. Poss punished after surviving a crisis situation like this and taking care of her students in the moments following the shooting. But, the law is the law and there is a possibility that she could be met with consequences for disclosing personally identifying information to her husband that he subsequently disclosed to the media. Again, a bad situation could be made worse over disclosures made prior to the shooting that were later shared by her husband with the media once the shooting had occurred.

HeyZeus asked, “Tell me, how is saying something about a kid transferring in and that he might be troubled ‘private’ information???” Easy. We know whose classroom he was in – Natalie Poss’s class. That narrows down the field of which child it could have been to about 30 kids. Then we know he transferred in from somewhere else. How many 9-year-old male students transferred into Poss’s class this school year?

The kids in that class know who all transferred in this year, 3rd graders don’t know beans about FERPA, and just try to make a 3rd grader keep things private about something dramatic that happened at school. Developmentally speaking, they need to talk about this for their own emotional health and it’s too exciting (not in a good way) to keep to themselves, so you can trust that they’re talking about who the kid is to whoever will listen and certainly to their families.

There was enough information disclosed to the media to compromise this kid’s confidentiality, which does nothing to rectify what happened or make things better. Disclosure of Amina’s information was different because her family disclosed her information to the media, which is their right. This boy’s right to privacy was not waived because he made an error in judgment that resulted in someone getting hurt, as awful as what happened to Amina is.

Hypothetically speaking, if this boy’s family was largely responsible for his troubles, they’re likely to seek a way to point the finger of blame at someone else if for no other reason than to create a defense for themselves. If the school district failed in its duties under special ed law to identify and serve this boy, the family could take the district to due process over whatever failures occurred.

A FERPA violation gives them one more credible assertion to make against the district and then it becomes a legal battle between presumably incompetent parents and a school district that failed to follow the regulations. I am never in favor of giving bad parents a legitimate argument as to why things aren’t all their fault.

When someone else in addition to the bad parents fails a child, then multiple parties are at fault and they start arguing with each other over how much blame the other party should bear rather than focusing on helping the kid to become better. It muddies the waters, clouding the issues and removing the focus from appropriate resolution.

A child’s right to privacy is important to taking appropriate measures when something bad happens because children, particularly children this young, are not developmentally capable of exercising the kind of judgment we expect of adults and are already vulnerable and easily traumatized when the mistakes they make are this bad. Often, prior trauma is behind these kinds of tragic events in the first place and, according to the information shared by Jane that we can’t repeat here, that’s exactly what went on.

Exposing young children in situations like this to the wrath of adults who aren’t much more developed themselves is one of the reasons why kids who find themselves in situations like this are often lost to us all forever. It’s not that they can’t necessarily be saved; it’s that there are too many people who favor stringing them up over solving the problems that led to the events that got them into trouble in the first place. Not that there shouldn’t be consequences to the behavior, but the consequences should fit the circumstances and should include consequences to the adults (family or otherwise) who contributed to the tragic events.