Going back to the source in post 4 which does have the most comprehensive information on this event. Other than the headline,
Police report reveals teacher's side of incident we have exactly this much information on the teacher's side of the story from the police report:
“Portillo said she did this as she felt that if (Alex) heard from his classmates how his behavior affected them that it would make a bigger difference to him, rather than just hearing it from adults,” according to the report....
...Portillo and children in the class said Alex was pushing a table up with his feet while he was under the table. She got the school resource officer to remove Alex from the classroom. It was the second discipline referral for Alex that day, the report said.
Portillo told the officer after he left the classroom with Alex, she talked with the other children.
“Portillo said she explained to them that the students in class were all her priority and she would protect them like a ‘bear defending her cubs,’” the report said.
When Alex returned to the class, Portillo said she and the class were not ready for him to return.
Portillo told the officer she asked Alex to join her at the front of the class.
“She said she then asked him to listen to what the children didn’t like about the things he did, and she asked him how it made him feel,” the report said. “She said at this time, ‘We polled the class’ to see how his peers felt about his return at that time.”
This is from one officer's interview. It is limited. The teacher cannot rebut anything the parent added later in her news media rounds.
Interpreting the above making positive assumptions instead of all the negative ones which I need not rehash, this could be asking the children to say how they feel. That doesn't mean they were asked to say what they thought of the boy. According to the teacher, she asked the kids to say, When you [do X], I ["how his behavior affected them"]. That is absolutely appropriate. It teaches kids to express their feelings as [I feel] instead of insulting someone using [you are].
A child with autism has trouble with social cues but may be very intelligent. Why wouldn't it be appropriate to give the child verbal feedback of those missed cues? I would think if done correctly, that is the exact thing one should do.
We also have the Mom's earlier news account of the child saying the teacher told him, "the office doesn't want you". Clearly that wasn't correct. The child left the class escorted by the school resource officer.
We have the child's version which I daresay appears to include Mom's reaction.
“I asked (Alex) what the students said, and he said the students said he eats paper, picks boogers and eats them on top of the table and bites his shoelaces,” the report said. “He told me Mrs. Portillo said, ‘I hate you right now. I don’t like you today.’”
The officer asked Alex how the incident made him feel.
“He said it made him feel sad,” according to the report.
Alex also told the officer Portillo scratched him, stepped on his shoelaces, grabbed his leg and pulled his shirt collar, but the report said Portillo and other children in the class refuted those allegations.
So it is likely the child's account is exactly that, a 5 year old's account. It also sounds like a few words there were repeated because the child heard an adult use them.
We have a reactionary Mom:
Alex’s mother, Melissa Barton, filed a complaint with Morningside’s school resource officer about the May 21 incident, saying her child told her he had been voted out of class at the encouragement of the teacher.
But Barton said there are inaccuracies in the report. She said she gave the school resource officer a written statement, and the officer’s report doesn’t match that statement.
According to the report, Barton told the officer when she talked with Portillo after the incident, Portillo “blocked the door for about five minutes to prevent me from leaving the classroom with my child, who was visibly shaken by the abuse.” Alex hasn’t been back at Morningside since the incident.
I am not going to condemn this mother either but she has been visible in the news interview and clearly has been giving her version of events. My concern is her believing her child's story. I know from hearing many such stories from kids that they do indeed have their version of events, but it is not usually exactly how things happen. You recognize that and begin to gather the real facts.
Instead, this mom confronts the teacher, clearly upset and probably already convinced her child whom she loves and protects was abused. That doesn't mean the mom was right.
And we have an outside observer:
Morningside parent Terrence Moore, whose daughter Jessica is in the kindergarten class and was interviewed by the resource officer, said Portillo is an exceptional teacher.
“She’s top notch. She’s a very caring teacher,” Moore said.
Moore said Portillo is big on making sure the children use their manners and she lets the children know what she expects of them.
“In (Jessica’s) mind, (the vote) was a real non-event,” Moore said.
Moore said his daughter told him Alex was disruptive in class, and she voted for him not to return to the class at that time.
Jessica became upset when Portillo was reassigned to school district offices while school officials investigate the incident, Moore said.
“When she found out that was happening, she started to cry,” Moore said. “She loves Mrs. Portillo.”
That doesn't sound like an abusive teacher.
We also have from this news piece:
Alex was in the process of being tested for Asperger’s Syndrome, a type of high-functioning autism, at the time of the incident. Barton said a private psychologist officially diagnosed him Tuesday with an autism-spectrum disorder and Attention Deficit Disorder.
This tells us the child was
not identified as a special needs child. So we also don't know how the teacher viewed his behavior in light of this fact.
And consider this is a 5 year old just now being tested. That is very late for testing for autism. It suggests a parent who perhaps didn't think their child's behavior was a problem until the school let her know. Parents need training we don't give them routinely. I imagine we have all seen the parent who appears incompetent or unconcerned about the behavior of their unruly children. Teachers in kindergarten are at the gateway that these kids first enter the system if they haven't been in preschool. That means the teacher may be the first person to expect a child to behave. That is a difficult position.
I took that as read going by the earlier posts. So of course if.
