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Monday, March 23, 2009

Alex Barton's Tie Dye Project









TieDye
Image credit: Photo by
mobilene on Flickr
Licensed under Creative Commons

It's been a while since I've posted an update about the case of Alex Barton. Alex, who has been diagnosed with Asperger's (a form of autism), was voted out of his kindergarten class last spring after his teacher, Wendy Portillo, became frustrated with his behavior. She decided to discipline him by asking his classmates to state what they didn't like about him and then took a vote on whether or not Alex should be allowed in their classroom. Alex was voted out 14-2. The St. Lucie school board suspended Ms. Portillo for one year without pay, suspended her teaching license and revoked her tenure status. She is currently in the process of appealing this decision.

As for Alex and his family, they are grateful for the support they received and are currently keeping busy forming a chain of connection to other kids on the autism spectrum through The Tie Dye Project.

Alex has tie dyed five shirts and is mailing them out to other children with ASD and related needs. When a child receives a his or her shirt, that child will then make five shirts of their own to send to five other children with autism.

The project still need participants. Teachers are encouraged to take part in this effort as well. If you would like to participate in the Tie Dye Project email your contact information to Melissa Barton at mommyofalex@justiceforalexbarton.com or visit Alex's blog at http://blog.justiceforalexbarton.com/ for more details.
Posted by at 5:01 PM
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11 comments:

  2. Great idea- my autistic kids love to tie-dye! Thanks for the heads up on it :-)
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  3. What an awesome project!
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  4. Thanks for the update! Wonderful news!
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  5. That's a great idea. Thanks for sharing this. How incredible that the teacher would ostracize this child. I wonder what happened to her compassion.
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  6. What an awesome idea! I'm going to pass this along to my daughter's teacher.
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  7. I have been in constant communication with Melissa on this and it is an extreme outpouring of responses but more and more reponses are necessary because for every child, there needs to be 5 recipients. I should be getting my package for my 5 kids to make our 25 shirts - this is going to be fun and I am hoping that all the children get the joy and happiness out of this project that they so greatly deserve!
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  8. What a great project. I'll pass your link on to my friends with autistic kids, I'm sure they'd love to be involved.

    Thanks for stopping by Sweet Life the other day!
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  9. A reader with the screen name Scientist left a comment on this post. I have not published the comment itself, as I believe the purpose of discussion is better served through polite and respectful language than angry name-calling. In the interest of promoting dialog and providing accurate sources of information, I am rewording the information in Scientist's comment as follows:

    The information provided in this post about what happened in the classroom is inaccurate. The police report contains allegations by Alex's classmates that he lied about what happened. The full text of the police report can be found here:

    http://web.tcpalm.com/2008/05/29/Bartonrpt.pdf
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  10. Now, in response to Scientist's comment:

    The important piece of information in my own reading of the police report is the fact that the teacher, Wendy Portillo, admits herself that she called Alex to the front of the room, asked other children to tell him what they didn't like about him, polled the children and told him they weren't ready to have him back in class. If these facts were in dispute, I (personally) would not have posted about this incident.

    There may be disagreements about some of the details, and people may certainly have differing opinions over whether or not Ms. Portillo's actions were an appropriate means of handling the situation (some argue yes, some no), but the basic facts of the case (that Alex's behavior was disruptive and that Ms. Portillo chose this means of disciplining him) do not seem to be in dispute. I certainly urge anyone interested to read the police report and form their own conclusions:

    http://web.tcpalm.com/2008/05/29/Bartonrpt.pdf
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  11. there is still no permament solution for autism. we just have to take good care of the kids who are suffering autism.:`;
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