Alex Barton, boy who was voted out of class, makes honor roll
October 20th, 2009 by TCPalm.comAlex Barton, now a second-grader, has made the honor roll at Jupiter Academy, where he enrolled this year.
This year is his first in a mainstream classroom setting after being voted out of his classroom as a kindergarten student.
Alex Barton
Alex, then 5, gained national attention when his teacher, Wendy Portillo, allowed his classmates to vote him out of his Morningside Elementary classroom. He left the school and got homebound services for first grade.
Alex attends Jupiter Academy through the MacKay scholarship, which provides money for students with special needs to attend a private school.
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October 20th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
The “Public School” system is ill equipped to deal with special needs students. Good for Alex.
October 20th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Way to go Alex!
October 20th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Congrats Alex! This certainly demonstrates the efficacy of the McKay Scholarship, good for this family!
October 20th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Bless his heart the cute pie. I remember that story and felt ill for the child and his family.
It is nice to hear that he is doing so well. That is what you get when you make an effort towards children. I bet the Mom or who ever was schooling him at home worked their butts off in that year at home.
Now he has a great school on top of it.
Congrats little Alex, your the bomb and a champ.
October 20th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
I guess his momma finally told him to behave or else, because the private school can kick you to the curb for being a disruption all the time which the public schools are not allowed to do.
October 20th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Why wasn’t the mom more pro active like sitting in class to keep him calm or making sure he wasn’t disrupting the whole class with his inablility to sit still or behave when he was going to public school a system already overloaded with troubled kids it took a private school to help him booo for the post keep bringing him and his lazy mother to our attention.
October 20th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
I will say that PBC does deal with special needs children. I know that from personal experience. Now do we have too hear this everytime little Alex does something. Give me a break
October 20th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
How rude people can be… this Young man deserves the kudos for his efforts and good grades… don’t condem the mother till have have walked in her shoes.
Congrats to the whole family.
October 20th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
How rude people can be… this Young man deserves the kudos for his efforts and good grades… don’t condem the mother till you have walked in her shoes.
Congrats to the whole family.
October 20th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
As a former teacher I know how hard it is to teach children
with problems who can be disruptive in the classroom. However, in this situation, both the teacher and the parent
were both equally at fault. The teacher for making the child
a focal point in a distructive way and the parent for not
trying to teach the child that he can not do what he wants
when he wants to do it. Now, hopefully we can get on with
business-good for Alex that he made the honor roll and that
he is proud of himself. May be with better discipline-he
would have done the same in public school. If he is now
in a self-contained class with a smaller amount of children-and he is able to concentrate than the move was positive
and everyone especially Alex can shine. Now, can we move
on?I think this child has gotten enough publicity!
October 20th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Wonder who submitted this to the Post?? The mother is a media whore who will never let this die. There are many kids with his condition that make an “honor roll” somewhere. Why is he so special. Give me break. This will be on the 10pm news for sure with the proud mommy. Geez
October 20th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
This is such a non-story. Just because he was able to make the honor roll while being home schooled does not in any way mean that his misbavior was not detrimental to the education of his fellow students in school. I do not recall his mental ability being called into question but rather his interference with other students’ right to learn.
October 20th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
And this made the news worthy because…..?????
October 20th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Congratulations to the young man for getting good grades and all the hard work that went into it. However, you will certainly not hear me congratulating the mother. It took her long enough to do something about getting this child into the proper forum where he could learn. My son’s education has been disrupted time and again due to a special needs child in his public classroom. You know who has to come home from work and teach him what he missed in class that day because of the disruptions - yup - me! These parents that insist on mainstreaming their kids in the public school system are not helping them. It should be like it was a few years back - if you need special help or attention you go to a special class. This saves the child from embarrasment and ridicule and the other kids and teachers from costly distractions.
October 20th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
“Honor Roll” has been made meaningless in modern times.
Let’s not forget that NATHANIEL BRAZILL was said to have been an “honor student.”
He was a dumb animal who shot and killed his teacher because he was told “No.”
“Honor Roll” is a joke and tells us nothing about the actual merit of the kid.
Are you telling us that Alex has stopped being a disruption to the rest of his classmates and his teacher? If so, great.
October 20th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Figured it would be on tcpalm.com under education “blog.” Is there not more important things to discuss other than this?
October 20th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Why is this in the news? There are soldiers dying in Iraq and we have to hear about this kid? By the way, there are kids that misbehave and get on honor roll. He wouldn’t be the first kid, why do we spend so much time on this kid?
October 20th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
teachers have to give him an A now or get sued.
October 20th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Dude who gives a crap about this kid. Woopidydoo he makes good grades in a private school….wtf who cares? This mother is whats wrong with all the parents in this society, they are enablers. They need to be prevented from procreating. There are other kids that deserve to have a decent learning environment…its not all about this special kid.
October 20th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
He looks like an angel there but looks can be decieving….
October 20th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
And we are suppose to be impressed? Just more garbage drummed up by his mother.
October 20th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
[...] kids later apologized and said they felt pressured by the teacher. Alex Barton has autism. From the Palm Beach Post: Alex Barton, now a second-grader, has made the honor roll at Jupiter Academy, where he enrolled [...]
October 20th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
This goes to show how much better private schools are than public and how much better the staff is to handle their students whether special needs or not..
I am a product of private school system until the 8th grade and when my parents couldn’t afford it for high school, I attended a public school for the first time..it was a shock.
Parents, if you have the means to send your kids to private school, please do so. It will only better their education and enjoyment of learning.
Way to go Alex, I hope the teacher that had you ousted eats those votes….God Bless.
October 20th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
WAY TO GO ALEX! I had four brothers and sisters none of us ever made the honor roll…….GREAT JOB BARTON FAMILY.
October 20th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
dz,
I invite you to come to work with me as I teach autistic students. Maybe you’re the one person in six and a half billion with the magic touch to see into their brains and calm their fears so that they can sit still and behave. What do you think? Take me up on it? All this money going into autism research when you have the answers all along!
October 20th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
I think that what makes this story newsworthy is the fact that rather than listen to people who said he would never succeed, he is thriving. People talk trash about his mother and call her lazy, but to try to make a child with autism fit in with *normal* kids takes a lot of work. If anyone should be berated and called lazy, I think it should be the teacher who talked FIVE YEAR OLDS into voting out a classmate. Congrats, Alex!!
October 20th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
This goes to show how crappy the first teacher was, in every way.
Autistic students ARE unmanageable for terrible teachers. For good ones, they can be taught very effectively.
October 20th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
Great the taxpayers are footing the bill for a kid that’s gonna end up on the dole eventually anyway. Might as well start ‘em young. Soon all the $$$ will be gone and we’ll be hunting each other like rats.
October 20th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
1. Not all schools allow parents to ’sit in the room’
2. Some mothers AND fathers work
3. Allowing this “voting” out of the classroom is the act of a teacher who should have been fired. I can’t believe a teacher would actually do this to ANY child. This is the total rejection of child. Very wrong.
4. Anyone calling a parent in this type of situation “lazy” obviously is not the parent of an autistic child.
My child is autistic and I now homeschool him because he was kept in isolation at school. Here he does get social interaction. His self confidence is back and he loves learning again. Over the years we have had a lot of therapy, training and sleepless nights. I got completely exhausted fighting the system (esp when my child was reacting to bullies!) and decided to do what was best for him in this situation. I work from home so it works for me. All situations are different, all kids are different and all autistic children and adults are different.
October 21st, 2009 at 2:46 am
His Mom STILL: Can’t Understand Normal Thinking!
October 21st, 2009 at 7:51 am
Just heard Ms Barton on 97.9 Great Job AlEX!
October 21st, 2009 at 8:45 am
Elizabeth….hate to break it to you, but your #3 comment is exactly why our society is screwed.
Not everyone gets to be the Astronaut.
Some kids simply have to accept doing without.
October 21st, 2009 at 9:24 am
Only Mr Bojangles, Alex is not one of them apparently….Have any of your kids ever accomplished anything or do you spend all of your time blogging and ignore your kids?
You must feel pretty stupid when an autistic child can make principals honor roll and your offspring cant……LOL.
October 21st, 2009 at 9:35 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kju9VU2B7Bk
October 21st, 2009 at 12:35 pm
I am disgusted to read the “anti - special needs” feed back of the people who commented on this story.
Their ignorance and cold heartedness is apparent in their
comments.
Let me tell you, that as a mother of an Asperger’s child, I always made sure that I had a good relationship with my child’s teachers in everyone of his classes ( he attended public schools).
By reinforcing classwork and /or homework, at home after school, my child managed to get into the mainstream for all of his subjects when he started middles school.He continued in high school as well.
He never disrupted anyone in the class - he used to sit upfront under the teacher’s nose.
He graduated with honours and is now attending University reading for a Bachelor’s degree!
SHAME ON ALL YOU PEOPLE ARE INTOLERANT CRUEL AND IGNORANT
of these children’s needs and lives. Statistics show that
1 in 150 people in U.S.A. have Autism.
Instead of being so angry, and negative, why don’t you give positive input and YOU play a more positive role in your child’s life by making them aware that there are all types of people who make up a world and teach them tolerance!
It is your children who are the bullies and you have a worse problem on your hands!
So don’t point fingers - WORK TOGETHER AND MAKE A DIFFERENCE!
God bless ALL our children - they are our future!
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:02 pm
For those of you who are condemning the mother or the child for his disruptive behavior, your ignorance is as obvious as a beacon in the darkness. You sound like fools. If you wish to comment, perhaps do your homework first. As much as I would not make assumptions and false, hurtful judgements of a person who has a disorder that I do not, so should you restrain your vicious words when clearly you have NO understanding of what autism is and how it presents itself. The law requires that we place our children in school. Sometimes it is during the preschool and kindergarden ages that autistic behaviors more clearly begin to define themselves in a child. The obtaining of a diagnosis takes months of observations, waiting for appointments and scraping together thousands of dollars to make it possible. After that, it must be determined whether the child can be integrated into a “typical” classroom or if he/she requires a program that more intensely focuses on his/her needs determined by the disorder. The law states that a child must be placed in the least restrictive environment first. Unfortunately, many of the teachers are not educated themselves on how to identify or deal with the behaviors that can occur when a child with autism is put into a classroom of kids without neurological issues. In the meantime, the child must attend school only to be abused by an educator who should know better than to use such childish and scarring behavior. She not only damaged the booted child, but all the children who were made to vote. I’m sure not one of them will ever forget the incident. What a terrible idea. It would be like bringing a child with epilepsy to the front of the class and booting him because his speech impediments irritate his classmates. Different symptoms - same shameful behavior by the teacher. I’m sure it made her feel better momentarily to inflict this kind of cruelty on a child who made her life difficult. But his life, and his mother’s, is difficult every day. Read about autism and you’ll begin to understand why. I am immersed in autism research daily and it is heartbreaking, complicated, and exhausting. These kids and their parents have to exert so much more time and energy to every little task — things we typical persons take for granted. It is a neurological disorder — NOT a behavioral disorder. And because a high-functioning autistic child does not use a wheelchair or some other obvious indication of medical problems, they are often mistreated and ridiculed for their behavior. Most parents of autistic kids, I’ve found, are much more organized, involved, and consistent with appropriate disciplinary measures than parents of typical children, because they, more than ANYONE, are desperate for their children to lead as “normal” a life as possible, and for their children to be able to receive an education, take part in family activities and build friendships. The reason this story is important is because it brings to light the fact that our educators need educating, the public needs educating, and a child who has a disorder that for many is the killer of all dreams is now thriving, thanks to being placed in a setting that’s healthy, encouraging, and appropriate for him. He and his mother are an inspiration to other families who wonder if their child can be successful in school and in life. It would serve all children better, in fact, our society better, if instead of inflicting cruelty we strived for understanding and a commitment to help one another.
October 22nd, 2009 at 2:30 pm
such a positive outcome! so proud of this beautiful mom and very big congrats to alex! kudos to the new school. great on you barton family for finding a safe and welcome school! all school can follow the same steps as this school to make their schools wonderful places for learning.
nature makes us what we are. we are primed for learning all of us, and the patterns are key factor in what direction the learning takes. the negatives we see here in the comments are all learned, too. it takes some extra learning for ‘unlearning’, yes thats true that is an evidence-based statement, but it is possible for those who have negative responses to educate themselves and turn that around. one can hope. kids always come with wonderful special gifts. some of them are what we consider different yes and we must absolutely adhere to this and focus on the children in this discussion. the children are here to reach their potential.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Every person on this web site that post hurtfull things has answered my question as to how children in elementary school could already be so cruel. Its not just in them it comes from the parents. I have 2 Autistic children and have to daily not only meet the academic needs of my children but also the emotional because everyday they have to deal with someone who feels they are not to what they should be. My children are well behaved and very much know the expectation of school rules . They just cant always conform as much as they want to. (And trust me they want to. ) Before you post something that shows how ignorant you are I suggest you research what you are blogging about.
October 22nd, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Why aren’t more mothers as vocal as this mother? I think mothers should be running for office. Get on school boards prevent this type of thing from ever happening again.
Moms have the power ~ Thank you fierce Barton mother!
October 23rd, 2009 at 5:01 pm
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Fat-Family-In-Dundee-Split-Up-As-Overweight-Couples-Seven-Children-Taken-Into-Care/Article/200910415411313?lpos=UK_News_Second_Home_Page_Article_Teaser_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15411313_Fat_Family_In_Dundee_Split_Up_As_Overweight_Couples_Seven_Children_Taken_Into_Care
October 23rd, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Why would anyone blame the parent in this situation? This child was 5 years old. If this was a non-special-needs child with a behavior problem the teacher would have had to deal with him as well, and I would have had an issue with him being “voted out” of the classroom too. Part of being a teacher is control of your classroom. If you can’t control your classroom, you need to hang up your teaching certificate. Secondly, this child was out of the classroom with the teacher having no idea where he was. He could have been taken! She hadn’t a clue! I don’t care how great a teacher she was for 12 years, if we did an error this big on our jobs, we’d be fired. She was given a suspension without pay and can eventually go back to work.
As to the taxpayer issue. Yes, you are paying for his education, suck it up. I don’t have kids and I’m paying for your kids education. It’s part of life. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses…yeah, it’s all part of that.
This child should get everyone’s support and should have all the way through the process. He was 5 years old, he had no voice in this, so his mother had to be his voice. She did a great job.
Congratulations to Alex on doing well in his new school.
June 16th, 2010 at 10:36 pm
FOR FOOLS WHO BLAME THE MOTHER AND THE CHILD. FOOL TRY NOT TALKING FOR A DAY OR NOT UNDERSTANDING WHATS GOING ON AROUND YOU. YES I KNOW IT WOULD NOT HAPPEN TO YOU. THE JOKE IS ON YOU FOOL YOU WILL GET OLD, LETS SEE WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU.
CONGRATS ALEX AND MOM// KEEP YOUR HEAD UP