School officials called Heriberto Hernandez’s son a “headache.” It turned out the headache was a symptom of a school staffing & communication disorder.
Hernandez brought his story to the Board of Education — and by speaking up, cut his way through a bureaucratic headache that was holding his son back.
Hernandez’s son is a fourth-grader at Roberto Clemente. He reads on the first-grade level. School officials have called his son “just a headache,” he said, as he rose to speak to BOE members during the public participation phase of Monday night’s meeting.
The young Hernandez is a special education student at Clemente, where he receives medicine for attention deficit disorder (ADD).
“If he gets the medicine he’s fine,” said Hernandez, “but the school nurse is at Clemente only four days a week, and not on Wednesday. So every Wednesday they call me that Enrique is causing problems and I have to take him home. Why? Because the nurse is not there, and they say that only a nurse can give him the medicine. He’s been out of school for three days now.”
This makes little sense to Hernandez, because the medicine is not an injection but a pill. Yet a vicious cycle has begun. Without the medicine, quite recently the child apparently was acting out and slid across the room and apparently into a teacher. The teacher said the child kicked her. The father denied this; he also said nothing would have happened if the medicine would have been given. In addition to educational deficits to make up and behaviors to control, the family now faces legal complications.
As a result of incidents like this, Enrique spends so many days away from school, his absences add up. That results, by Board of Ed rules, in his being classified as a truant. Then he becomes in danger of being remanded to the state Department of Children and Families.
“I’ve been to meetings and more meetings with the principal, Dr. Leroy Williams,” Hernandez said, “and with many others. Sometimes I show up, and they are not there for the meeting. There’s confusion, and Enrique is not learning. No one’s helping my child. Maybe he shouldn’t be in that school.”
Hernandez didn’t know where to turn. He had previously been involved with the grassroots advocacy group Teach Our Children, so he called Gwendolyn Forrest, its director. That call came Monday afternoon, the day of the BOE meeting. She suggested that if he felt he had exhausted all channels at Clemente, he come to make his case before the board. And so he did.
The board room — six board members and an audience of some 30 people — fell hushed as they listened to this father, clearly anguished, ask for help.
Schools Superintendent Reginald Mayo asked Assistant Superintendent for Instruction Ima Canelli (pictured at the top of this story) to huddle with Hernandez to figure things out.
When they did, after the meeting was adjourned, Canelli confirmed that there is some misunderstanding about the medicine. “You don’t have to be a nurse to give out medicine. I’ll figure this out.”
Mayo said that two nurses were recently hired to fill in coverages. Still, Canelli added, school nurses are difficult to find, and no school has one every day of the week. “The problem here is not nurses, but communication and coordination.”
It might also be education. Hernandez (pictured with his partner Haydee Santiago) said his child receives only one hour a day of special education instruction, and something was profoundly wrong. He has been exploring other schools.
Was he prepared to have his kid stay at Roberto Clemente if these issues can be fixed?
“Yes, he said, “as long as he learns. At home, I give him the medicine, he is very focused, works on the computer. Something is wrong there. They are not helping him learn.”
Still, Hernandez, who had been a school volunteer at Clemente for four years, seemed relieved that he had come before the board and his son’s plight was now getting some top-down attention.
Canelli added, “I’m going to make some calls to figure this out.” She was open to the idea that once an explanation for the absences can be established, they might be removed from the child’s record, eliminating the danger of expulsion for truancy. A meeting was set up for Wednesday. Hernandez seemed mollified, for now.
For previous installments in the Independent’s series on parental involvement in local schools, click on:
Parents, M&Ms Join In Math Lesson
Brandon Aims For The Blue Shirt
Night-Shift Waitress Hangs Up Apron
Dad Meets The Teachers. All Of ‘Em
Ms. Lopez Moves Brandon’s Seat
Night-Shift Waitress Gets Xena To Class On Time
Fifth-Graders Get “Amistadized”
Board of Ed To Parents: Get Involved!
Task Force Hones Plan for Kids
The New St. Martin DePorres Comes Home
Good-Bye Recess. Hello Take 10.