Someone needs to teach the teacher here that kindergarten is not reality TV:
(CBS) A Port St. Lucie, Fla., mother is outraged and considering legal action after her son’s kindergarten teacher led his classmates to vote him out of class.
Melissa Barton says Morningside Elementary teacher Wendy Portillo had her son’s classmates say what they didn’t like about 5-year-old Alex. She says the teacher then had the students vote, and voted Alex, who is being evaluated for Asperger’s syndrome — an autism spectrum disorder — out of the class by a 14-2 margin.
The stupid, it doesn’t just burn, it goes supernova! What’s going on here, training future generations to be reality TV contestants?
Further research reveals that this incident appears even worse than the above article makes it sound:
PORT ST. LUCIE — A 5-year-old kindergartner was “voted out of” his classroom at Morningside Elementary on Wednesday when his teacher asked his classmates to take a vote on whether they wanted him in class, police say.
Teacher Wendy Portillo told the boy, who is known to have disciplinary issues, to stand in front of the class that day, according to police.
“The teacher decided to bring him in front of the class and let the other kids tell him what they didn’t like about him, kind of ridiculed him,” said officer Michelle Steele, spokeswoman for the Port St. Lucie police.
Portillo then had the class take a vote on whether to boot the boy out of the class and send him to the principal’s office.
The class voted 14-2 to send the boy out for the day, Steele said.
When his mother found out, she contacted the school’s resource officer, Steele said. The officer interviewed Portillo, who admitted she had asked the class to vote, according to police.
The teacher said the boy had been sent to the office earlier that day, and when the office sent him back to class, Portillo asked her students whether they were ready for him to return, Steele said. Portillo said she asked the class to vote because they are learning about taking tallies, police say.
If the two accounts above are accurate, Wendy Portillo is one teacher who should not only be fired, but never allowed to work with children again. There’s just no excuse for a teacher humiliating a child, particularly a child with a developmental disorder, in this way. None.
(Hat tip: Ed Brayton.)
