The Reta twins will walk. That much is certain, despite confusion statewide over a new requirement that special ed students must pass the state high school exit exam.
Anne Dudley Ellis is reporting in today's Bee that Alyssa and Amanda Reta will be able to participate in Buchanan High School's graduation ceremonies Wednesday and I'm happy to hear that. The Bee advocated in an editorial last week that the Clovis School Board reconsider a decision by the district administration that the girls would be banned from the ceremonies because they had not passed all parts of the exit exam. Six other special education students also will be included in the ceremonies.
The sisters are developmentally disabled, and there are specific rules in the education code covering special education students. Clovis Unified has its own regulations, however, and the initial ruling was that the girls would not be able to participate. The twins' father appealed to the school board for a reconsideration. The board voted unanimously Wednesday to allow the girls and others to walk in the ceremony, even though they will receive letters of recommendation rather than diplomas.
This has stirred up a lot of attention, as one might expect. Read Ellis' full story by clicking here.
On Saturday's Valley Voices, special education teacher Jason Plemons gave his opinion on the topic. Read his ideas by clicking here.
I think that I am the only one who disagrees with the decision of Clovis Unified in this case. I don’t think that I am a bad guy but there is a serious problem with people in this country not following the rules and thinking they can not suffer the consequences. It is a state wide law that every special ed students have an IEP team. That is a team that follows the students throughout their k-12 education. The IEP teams consist of the student’s teachers, case workers and many others sometimes. It is their responsibility to make experienced suggestions to the student’s parents concerning their education. I pretty much know for sure that the Reta parents were told by the IEP team that their children were too disabled to pass the high school exit exam and would be much better off taking the voc. Ed route. Of course, like with many parents of the time, they feel that their kid can do anything. It’s too bad that their child has a disability and could not earn a diploma, but it’s really too bad that their parents would not listen to professional advice concerning their child’s future. I really feel that it is a shame that those kids get to enjoy the graduation ceremony even thou they did not graduate. Many kids did not graduate, so they don’t get to walk. What the Reta kids are doing sounds like cheating to me. I know people that it was so hard for them to graduate that they would have been irate if they knew someone was walking with them who didn’t earn it. Not trying to be mean. It’s too bad when any child doesn’t graduate, many kids will not and cannot graduate, but the Reta parents were given a choice.
After reading all of the comments posted, I am baffled by how ignorant so many people are about the situation. To answer Ernie’s question, California State Policy section 56391 of the education code states that any student, special education or not, “shall be eligible to participate in any graduation ceremony… in which a pupil of similar age without disabilities would be eligible to participate.” We are not just fighting for Alyssa and Amanda. We are also fighting for the other 40 plus special needs students and students who are not mentally disabled at all but did not pass the high school exit exam. Being able to walk on a stage with your graduating class has absolutely nothing to do with receiving a diploma. I don’t know where anyone gets the idea that we are fighting for my sisters to receive a diploma. This is not the base of our actions. We just want them to be able to participate in a celebration of their completed high school career. That’s it, nothing more.
And to set Al straight. Here is some information no one has bothered to mention.
Our parents were given the decision to register both Alyssa and Amanda to be on the graduating track and receive a diploma or take the vocational or life skills classes and receive a certificate of completion. Obviously they chose to put them on the graduating track, but what the school failed to inform them about was that if they failed the graduating track the CUSD policy wouldn’t allow them to walk at graduation. But if Alyssa and Amanda completed the vocational classes, they would have been able to walk regardless if they passed the exit exam or not. Our parents are being told that they were in fact informed about these circumstances and that the school has signed forms proving that they knew about it. Nobody did inform our parents and they asked to see the papers that they supposedly signed. Conveniently enough those forms have been misplaced and cannot be located at the moment. Hmm… I wonder why.
While I am commenting I would like to thank all of you who are supporting us. There needs to be more kind hearted people in this world to make up of all of the cold blooded pessimists taking up space.