INVISIBLE CHILDREN IN OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS?

BETSY COMBIER'S DESCRIPTION OF HOW A SPECIAL EDUCATION CHILD WAS TREATED AT HER SCHOOL DISTRICT -

SPEC 97 is a Federal Law that is supposed to protect our children. However, it only protects them if schools obey the law. Since they operate above the law all over the country, our children are often abused too.

TEACHER ABUSE = PARENT ABUSE = CHILD ABUSE

Timmy is Johnnie Mae Allen's son. He is now 13 years old, and is very bright with behavioral problems which put him into a restricted environment special education school, P811M, in New York City when he was in 3rd grade. At the end of 5th grade, his mom, Johnnie-Mae received a letter from the Principal telling her congratulations! Timmy was accepted into the NOVA Program at Booker T. Washington Middle School 54 for the Full Inclusion Program, the model for the City: small classes, paraprofessionals in every room, advisories, and all special services along with Timmy being in a general ed. classroom. The ideal.

Timmy entered MS 54 in 6th grade, and everything was "fine" the first year. Then the Administrator of the NOVA Program quit, along with the Assistant Principal, because, they said, that they could not work with the Principal. I was PTA President. Johnnie Mae was elected to the Executive Board in May, 2000, as Vice-President for the NOVA Program. She started work with me in September 2000 and asked the Principal at every meeting where the money was. Also, Timmy was thrown out of his classroom all the time, because he was never placed on the roster of the school, and was, along with 10+ other students, never given any supporting services, a para, nothing. The teachers were not even told who was special ed students! So, when the spec. ed students acted up because they were not getting the services listed on their IEPs, no updated IEPs, no supplies or help, the teacher threw them out into the hallway, and the Principal came by and suspended them, all of which went into their files as THEIR problem. As Tommy and the others were not on the roster of the school, they did not get report cards, either. And no notices went to the parents.

As PTA President, I included in my grievance against the Principal that I needed to put these students onto the roster of the school in order to not only get them their services, but also allow the teachers to teach!!!! Larry Lynch, the Principal, would not speak with Johnnie Mae, and Timmy was threatened, suspended, bad-mouthed, etc., until I got Johnny-Mae an impartial hearing as she had no IEP for Timmy. The hearing got her a P3 letter to have services given to him at Booker T - because that is where Timmy wanted to go - but then Larry did nothing about it, and we had another Impartial hearing where it was decided to give him a non-public school.

The other parents I have spoken to are furious, and want to sue. Larry and the Superintendent have disbanded the Program, and sent almost all of the children to other schools, due to my exposing the problems with this set-up. Except that they were making a nice bit of money.

My question has been: how does money follow children not on the roster of a school? Where did their Special Education funding go?

THE VOICE OF NAPTA PRAYS THAT YOU SEE THE LIGHT

Duh? Does anyone wonder why this school bullied this parent out of her position as PTA president? Think about it. She was in a position to blow the whistle, just as teachers are. She revealed missing money and violations of federal law issues about which few parents would ever know or have the documentation with which to prove it, and the few who could, are firmly in the pocket of the administrators before they become privy or have the power to anything that could expose the administration's duplicity. Just think about the power our school leaders have with everyone's children under their charge. The more parents realize how unscrupulous they are, the more parents feel the need to support them. How many parents would risk sacrificing their children knowing how likely these immoral power brokers are to retaliate? Very few will.

So regardless of her status as a parent, Betsy Combier had to endure a potent dose of TEACHER ABUSE or she might expose what is going on in our schools. As in the case of all of the NAPTA teachers, they defamed her, called her intimidating, and used their governmental powers and engaged a group of her peers to gang up on her. They accused her of abusing children. Read the other stories and see the pattern. Each one of us who had the opportunity to blow the whistle had the whistle confiscated using some tyrannical tactic, and our character assassinated so no one would listen.

Each one of us was bullied by our peers who either lied or betrayed us by remaining silent. These administrators, with unlimited power and no real oversight because they politically control our school board elections and arrange for puppet board members who have a political interest in repeating the party line, ARE weapons of mass destruction that are destroying our schools. When is the public going to wake up, see that lousy teachers are the effect, not the cause of our problem, and take their schools back? Join NAPTA now and help us expose the thugs who are in charge of our children. Remove their ability to abuse teachers and it will be like pouring water on the witch in the Wizard of Oz. The playing field will level so quickly that it will look like a teeter totter.

Our teachers do not like what is going on. Many are sick about it, but they allow fear to force them to submit to behaviors that are abusive to our children and to their colleagues. Others, like the parents at Betsy Combier's school, respond to the politically correct call of their administrators and become so brainwashed, they actually believe them. After all, when people only know a portion of the story, it is easy to persuade them that the whistleblower did something detrimental to the system and get others to gang up against her/him. Furthermore, these parents are putting the safety of their children in front of the target of the day. Knowing the lack of ethics displayed by the administrators who insist on absolute power, they figure they have to sacrifice Betsy Combier or any of the NAPTA teachers for the sake of their children. Isn't this a clever web the administrators have trapped us in?

NAPTA is going to complicate this process for our administrators as well as our teachers and parents who choose to hide their heads in the sand or think only of themselves or their children. We are putting the truth out there so anyone who continues to blindly follow the thugs running our schools, has only herself/himself to hold accountable for being an accomplice to perpetuating a system more reprehensible than most can even imagine. No longer is the choice to do what is wrong the best choice or the safe choice. We will stand as a force to expose those who facillitate unethical and criminal administrators. We are drawing a line in the sand and the sooner people cross over to our side and unite, the sooner there will be no safety for our administrators who choose to abuse their power.

Please go to our home page and click on Join NAPTA so you can become part of the solution rather than part of the problem. There is no gray area in which to hide anymore. This system only works because we let it. Together we can stop this. Once our group has a national presence, which we know will happen based on the support we are getting, people will not have to fear our administrators. Their biggest fear will be explaining to their children why they allowed this to happen and how they could expect their children to uphold our American values when their parents did not.

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