TOOELE COUNTY, Utah — There’s a yearbook to mark every year Amber Bailey has completed in the classroom in Tooele County. But this year, the 21-year-old special needs student is missing from her copy.
“It’s kind of like they singled out the students who were in the transition program and said, ‘We don’t want you in our yearbook,’” said Amber’s mother, Leslee Bailey.
She was shocked to see her daughter’s picture missing from the Blue Peak High School yearbook this spring. Bailey, who has Down syndrome, attends classes at the county’s Community Learning Center, which is housed in the same building as the high school.
For the last two years, the school has always included the 17 special needs students from the center in the yearbook. However, this year, a change was made.
“They’ve been to school with these kids,” Leslee Bailery said. “They’ve walked the halls with them. How would you feel if it was your child? You know, your child was left out because, as the principal told me, ‘We don’t have the pages.’”
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The young lady is 21 and takes classes in a community center housed in the same building as the high school. Since she is not enrolled in the high school, I'm not sure she's a high school student.
ReplyDeleteThey should have made some images smaller to accommodate the 17 students which would have easily fit on 1/2 a page. They are a part of that school environment just like technical school programs and honors programs taken at colleges.
ReplyDeleteDiscrimination is quite profitable to the one being discriminated against.That 15 minutes doesn't come easy,but when it does,opportunists grab it and hold on to it for all it's worth.
ReplyDeleteKids who spend part of the day in a technical class or in an honors college-level class are still enrolled as high school students. That's why they're in the high school year book. It might be a nice gesture if special needs adults housed in the same building as high school students were included in the high school yearbook, I'm not sure that should be demanded.
ReplyDeleteIf you are not a high school student, you don't belong in the yearbook.
ReplyDeleteThey apparently started doing it three years ago, on a space available basis. Now they expect it.
ReplyDeleteI don't agree that the real high school students should have their photos reduced to accommodate them. They didn't go to high school with them, they did not share classes with them.
When I graduated, (not around here), every assistant counselor, adviser, lunch lady and secretary was included. Even the scary creepy janitors, who everybody knew were ex-convicts and/or deviant sexual predators. But not the "exchange" trade school kids from across town, because they did not go to regular school with us.
The speds should have their own little "yearbook".
Special needs "student" for the rest of their lives. Does that mean, say, 10 or 20 yearbooks and yearbook photos? They never graduate, they just finally get too old for school anymore, or just become unmanageable. They aren't being taught, or learning, in many cases they don't get past a third grade level. The parents are just getting state provided daycare for their special needs children, and I am a firm supporter of that. The mother might be trying to make an issue out of it, but her state supported, special needs child probably couldn't care less.
ReplyDelete