Hateful

 Hateful

 

A couple of weeks ago a gunman was welcomed into a synagogue because he said he was homeless and hungry.  Instead of gratitude for kindness, he held the rabbi and members of the congregation hostage for eleven hours while he threatened their lives unless he got to intervene on behalf of his sister a convicted terrorist who is serving time in a U.S. prison.

A few months ago, a teenager stormed through his school and killed several students.  

Over the course of this past year, schools and houses of worship have suffered armed invaders, people have been abused and hurt because of the color of their skins, language has become increasingly uncivil and rude.

What does all this have to do with the education of children with special needs?-Plenty!

In every instance, the perpetrator of violence felt entitled to inflict that violence on people he saw as “less than”.   People with disabilities routinely experience this condescension and sometimes physical aggression.

We have come to use crude and ignorant language in every day discourse further demeaning our interactions with each other.  When we demean each other we set ourselves up to be hateful towards each other.  And in a very real way, give tacit approval to other forms of diminishing someone else.

Have you ever been to a restaurant with a person who uses a wheelchair for mobility?  Don’t be surprised if the server completely ignores the individual and speaks to the more physically able person as if the individual using the wheelchair could not speak for herself.  It is not unusual for the popular press to write about someone “confined” to a wheelchair as if the individual committed a crime and the person is confined to a prison.

It seems we make progress in our respect for others and then we start to move back the clock.  We define people with autism as “autistics”- as if that one trait defined a person who is also a boy, has blond hair, is great with technology and is one of the most organized people we know.  

Newspapers write about African-Americans needing additional help with paying rent as if there were no other Americans who needed help paying rent and as if ALL African-Americans needed help paying rent.

Maybe each of us has hate in our hearts towards some things or some people.  Maybe that’s true.  But it is not a trait we should need to show off.   Hateful towards others is not good.  Knock it off.

Does your physician know enough?

 Does your physician know enough about helping people with disabilities?

 

It has been over 30 years since the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) took effect.  Recent research shows that many physicians are still unaware of their obligations under the law.

Well over one-third of doctors surveyed had little to no knowledge of their obligations under the law.  And almost three-fourths had not a clue what a reasonable accommodation is.  These findings come from a study published in the Journal of Health Affairs.

The lead author in the study, Dr. Lisa Iezzoni of the Harvard Medical School, found that even though people with special needs comprise about 25% of the population; she found multiple barriers to effective health care and particularly lack of knowledge about the requirements of ADA.

The ADA bars discrimination against people with disabilities including the delivery of medical services.  Yet, how can a physician deliver appropriate health care if she/he doesn’t know what “appropriate” is under the law.

Iezzoni recommends that people with disabilities quiz the practice before making an appointment. For example, it is not unusual for someone using a wheelchair to find the examination takes place while the person is still seated in the chair rather than be moved to an exam table where a more thorough examination could take place.  ADA requires sign language interpreters for those who are deaf.  The interpreter should be a neutral party so that the views of a friend or family member are not filtered into the responses of the patient.

Additionally, physicians are often asked to verify or advocate for school based services for children with disabilities.  If the physician does not know what accommodations are needed for children with special needs to benefit from an education how can he/she perform this vital function?

Physicians are not blind to the vulnerability this lack of knowledge creates.  In the study, 68% said they felt at risk for a lawsuit for failure to provide adequate care to a person with special needs.

Medical schools are working hard to educate med students about the need to combat racism in health care.  Little to nothing is included in a med school education on how to provide appropriate care to a person with special needs.  

It is unfortunate that this void will be addressed only out of fear of a lawsuit.  The greater risk is the damaging consequences to people with special needs when their medical needs are not appropriately met

Why are some more equal than others?

 Why are some more equal than others?

 

The teachers’ Union in Chicago has not called a strike but nor have they come to work.  Their excuse is that the buildings are not safe and they want to teach virtually.  First of all, when did the union get to decide when schools are open or closed?  The mayor of Chicago is negotiating with the Union to decide on the terms when they will agree to return to school.   I wonder if dozens of students, instead of thousands, had been kidnapped, would the Mayor still be negotiating with the kidnappers?  Teachers’ unions have evolved from being professional organizations into labor unions.  They may call themselves professional organizations but they are not.  One of the indicators of a profession is that the individual puts the needs of the people they serve first and not their own needs,  a person is a professional by that criterion not by the standard of just getting paid for the job or service.

Excellent and well-trained teachers are paid much less than they earn.  It is also true that marginal teachers are being paid much more than they deserve.  But merit pay is a non-starter for unions.

Teachers’ unions are not allowed to strike, so this is not a strike. The teachers are just not providing the services for which they are paid.  By the way, there has been no mention of any monetary consequences to teachers for not doing their jobs.  The other issue is, I wonder what these teachers are doing while they are home.  How many are going out to visit unvaccinated friends or family?  Anyone visit a bar lately or go to a movie?   Over and over we know that schools do not spread the virus to the community but rather the community brings the virus into schools.

Because teachers won’t work, many parents will not be able to work and you can see where this all leads.  

Teachers are not totally to blame for this debacle.  School districts have stopped treating teachers as professionals for some time.  It is hard to discern which came first, teachers acting like assembly line workers complete with pacing guides to tell them what they will be doing every day or unions declaring the number of minutes a teacher may work a day.  As professionals, we are supposed to put the best interests of the people we serve first.  Oh, wait a minute, that is neither the school districts nor the teachers, it is the students.  It is a struggle but we should try to remember that salient point.

Teachers should be deemed essential workers, just like grocery store clerks, medical assistants and police officers.  Teachers can’t have it both ways, behave like an assembly line worker and be treated like a professional with significant responsibility.  Teachers have a job to do and it is a VERY important one.  They need to get up off their collective bargaining agreements and get to school.  The mayor of Chicago and all the other mayors need to start treating these folks like the kidnappers they are.  Kidnapping a kid’s education is a crime and needs to be treated as such.  Teachers are important but they aren’t more equal than others

Do We Really Need an SRO?

Do we really need an SRO?

In today’s parlance, an SRO isn’t standing room only but a school resource officer (SRO) which is sort of like police officer light.  Nearly all SRO’s are armed and the few who aren’t carry restraints such as handcuffs.

The original idea for the SRO was to provide protection and support for students and staff from school violence, whether that violence originated within or without the building.   In theory, the SRO has some additional training in how to work with adolescents, although there are also school districts with an SRO in elementary and middle schools.  But about half of the resource officers said they had any specialized training to deal with kids with disabilities and 20% said they had no special training to deal with students at all.

Opinions differ as to whether the SRO is a mentor to the students or an extension of law enforcement.   Sometimes one SRO may rotate between several schools.  In Maryland for instance 328 of the 439 SRO’s in the state were assigned to one school, the remaining had multiple schools.  The call for more SRO’s increases whenever there is a mass school shooting.  People seem to think that more SRO’s in a building will keep more students safe.  Yet there was an SRO in Parkland and he didn’t keep anyone safe.  Additionally, large high school buildings simply can’t be covered by one person and the chances of that one person being exactly where an invasion is happening are not great.   In Maryland, schools must have SRO’s OR “adequate police coverage” whatever that is.  In practice, that usually means sheriff deputies, regular patrol officers in the area or others who can provide emergency responses.   Some of the larger school districts in the country actually have developed their own school police forces.  The thought is that in this way school districts can control hiring and training.  But there is little evidence to suggest that an in-house police force is any better at containing violence or understanding the students’ needs.  

Most school districts have a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the agency that employs the resource officers.  Usually these memoranda delineate just when the SRO gets involved in student discipline.  In most instances they are not to get involved in routine student discipline or low level crimes, but only at times of violent crimes or felonies.

It is not clear if there have been any quantitative studies to see if the presence of an SRO actually helps student safety or creates a culture of “gotcha”.  The anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that the benefit of the SRO is a reflection of the attitudes of school administrators.  

Black Lives Matter advocates call attention to the figures that show Black students are arrested by SRO at a rate that is sometimes 20% HIGHER than percentage of Black kids in the school.  They ask is this just a new opening in the school to prison pipeline?

So do schools need an SRO and does their presence really make a school safer?   It appears that their presence has led to a decline in rapes, robberies and physical attacks.   On the other hand, it appears they do little to reduce school shootings the primary reason they were initially placed in schools.  Is the cost of an SRO worth the price or could that money be spent on more social workers or counselors?  Independent of the presence of an SRO, the amount of school violence has decreased over the past 20 years.  

Uniformed officers, SRO presence, metal detectors, bullet proof glass and circulating panda cars might make some families and staff feel safer, but does learning occur more easily in a war zone or in a place where kids are known and seen and not afraid.