If St. Lucie County school board members next week approve Wendy Portillo’s return to the classroom, she’ll likely be teaching students twice as old as the kindergartners she led last year to vote a 5-year-old out of their classroom.

School board officials had suspended Portillo and stripped her of her tenure for the May 2008 incident, in which she asked Alex Barton’s classmates at Morningside Elementary to vote on whether he should stay in class after he’d been disruptive.

Alex was subsequently diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism. His mother, Melissa Barton, sued the school board and Portillo in August, saying the “Survivor-style” vote-out caused Alex irreparable psychological harm.

By then, school officials had restored Portillo’s tenure and said she could return to teaching as soon as mid-November.

Portillo’s reinstatement is on the agenda for Tuesday’s school board meeting, joined with several other personnel matters.

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PORT ST. LUCIE — The principal and assistant principal at Morningside Elementary, a school in which a teacher last year caused a national controversy by asking her students to vote on whether a boy could return to class, will be reassigned, school officials said today.

Principal Marcia Cully and Assistant Principal Patricia Gascoigne will start the coming school year at Fairlawn Elementary, said St. Lucie County School Superintendent Michael Lannon.

Fairlawn’s principal, Susan Lyle, retired at the end of this year. Morningside’s new staff has yet to be announced, but parents of Morningside students received an automated phone message this week informing them of the change, Lannon said. (more…)

Wendy Portillo answers questions during her administrative hearing.

Portillo, a 12-year veteran of Morningside Elementary, put her head down and wept after the vote. When she looked up she was smiling.

“I didn’t think this was going to happen and I’m just happy I’m going to go back to doing what I love,” she said after the personnel hearing.

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Portillo, who will finish her suspension in November, faced a tougher punishment.

Superintendent Michael Lannon recommended that Portillo be suspended without pay for a year, returned to an annual contract and prohibited from teaching young children again in St. Lucie. He had considered, but ultimately rejected, firing her.

Portillo appealed the punishment to the state Division of Administrative Hearings, but the judge ruled against her. (more…)

FORT PIERCE - A kindergarten teacher who asked her students last year to vote on whether a then 5-year-old boy could stay in her class said today that she never meant to embarrass him and regrets her actions.

Wendy Portillo, a veteran teacher, testified at an hearing to appeal her punishment, occasionally wiping at tears and looking away from television cameras.

“If I could take that morning back, I would,” she said.

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A teacher who asked her students to vote a boy out of his kindergarten class was, but for that single lapse in judgment, one of “St. Lucie County’s premier educational giants,” a lawyer said today at her appeal.

Wendy Portillo, a 12-year teaching veteran, meant no harm and regrets her actions, said her lawyer, David Walker of Stuart.

Portillo is appealing the recommendation of Schools Superintendent Michael Lannon that she be suspended without pay for a year, returned to an annual contract and prohibited from teaching elementary-age students in St. Lucie County.

Melissa Barton, shown with her son Alex, filed a complaint seeking compensation from the St. Lucie school district.

Portillo, who didn’t testify today, dabbed at her eyes with tissues while her lawyer talked about Lannon’s recommendation.

“For Wendy Portillo, what’s done and said (here) will determine whether she can do what she loves and was born to do,” Walker said.

If she wins with the state Division of Administrative Hearings, Portillo will earn back pay from the school district. The hearing at Fort Pierce City Hall is expected to last several days. (more…)

Wendy Portillo

Portillo got the suspension after a lengthy St. Lucie County Schools investigation into the incident. Alex was 5 years old last May when he was voted out by classmates. He was in the process of being diagnosed with a type of autism. (more…)

While school district internal investigators said there’s no evidence Morningside Elementary teacher Wendy Portillo meant to cause harm or embarrassment to Alex Barton, they said in a report released Thursday there is a question as to her judgment.

And consideration has to be given on the effects Portillo’s action could have on Alex’s classmates because they were required to criticize the 5 year old, according to the report compiled by St. Lucie County School Board employment law attorneys Richeson and Coke, P.A. (more…)

Alex Barton

The St. Lucie County School Board voted unanimously Tuesday night to accept the recommendation of Superintendent Michael Lannon to place Wendy Portillo on unpaid leave and to remand the issue to the state Division of Administrative Hearings.

In a letter to Portillo sent earlier this month, Lannon said her actions caused “worldwide outrage and condemnation.”

“Causing 5- and 6-year-old peers to pass judgment on one of their own, to state the reasons for their ‘vote’ and then to act on the outcome is a true failure to apply professional judgment at best,” he wrote.

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