Special ed class left out of high school yearbook
June 10th, 2009From the Fresno Bee:
The mother of a California teenager said she is frustrated that her son and 10 other students in his special education class were excluded from the 2009 Madera High School yearbook.
Instead of sending the 600 or so people who bought the $80 yearbooks an insert with photos of the special-education students, the school last week distributed a one-page handout with the photos to just the 11 students.
The district blamed the oversight on new software that weeded out photos of students whose identification numbers were not in the school system since the Madera County Office of Education, not the high school, runs the special-education class. Jake Bragonier, a Madera Unified School District spokesperson, said, “They’re on our campus, but they’re not technically our students.”
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June 12th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
The story of the students being excluded from their yearbook made me gasp. How low can they go? As a parent of a child with autism, we’re supposed to just “take one for the team”. Our “team” is overflowing. This news has made me sad and mad. Thanks for the information.
June 10th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
“They’re on our campus, but they’re not technically our students.”
The typical “it wasn’t my responsibility” excuse. Completely ridiculous.
June 10th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Who is going to find out which company makes the yearbook software that weeds out special ed students? Districts throughout the county give different numbers to students with IEPs or 504 plans even when they are included in mainstream classrooms. The software developer should be notified and held accountable, and at the very least notify previous or future purchasers of their product that students with special education ID instead of school ID numbers need to be accounted for and included.
This is especially critical for high school students – since students with IEPs are often eligible for services until age 21, they may never be identified as seniors in the graduating year of their mainstream peers.
This type of exclusion happens from elementary school on up and is totally unacceptable.