18h ago

Connecticut teen sues former school after graduating unable to read, write

san.com Connecticut teen sues former school after graduating unable to read, write

A former student in a Connecticut district contends she graduated without being taught how to read or write.

A former student, Aleysha Ortiz, is suing the city of Hartford and the local board of education. Ortiz alleges she graduated without learning how to read or write. She claims it was due to negligence and lack of proper support for her developmental disabilities.

The lawsuit claims Ortiz was denied necessary testing for dyslexia. It also claims she was removed from special education curriculum and only tested for developmental disabilities on her last day of school, revealing significant unmet educational needs.

59 comments

I remember the full-length report on this some months ago. Shit's legit.

People dismissing this really don't understand how terrible the attitudes by administrators are towards special education and disability education. It's entirety believable that the district would dismiss her needs in order to up their graduating numbers.
(Special education teachers are great, this is not aimed at them)
I'm also not familiar with "Straight Arrow News", though, that's the only thing that gives me pause
- You can read this one from CNN. I posted the SAN article only because of the headline.
  
  Thanks! I wasn't trying to be negative, I just hadn't heard of it before!

Holy shit I wish I could have done that. Fuck LAUSD

But knows how to litigate? Only in the US.
- Sometimes I read certain comments that get me thinking. Are you really this dense? Or are you trying to get a rise out of people?
  OBVIOUSLY they didn’t file for litigation themselves my lord
- If you think she is filing this herself then you might want to sue your school as well!
  
  Almost always the parents
  
  Sue a school? You must be from the US.

Well, the picture is showing German words, I suppose many US students would find it hard to read those correctly... Did they not have enough time to actually look at the stock photo they chose?
- She was the one who chose the stock photo
- yes, because she was unable to read and write in German

Love it.

its underfunded for sure, even in blue areas, or its being mismanged. even in my blue area the hs just passes people with a failing or D grade in thier classes to graduate hs. not enough funding goes into struggling students that is not in the SP.ED group, often times these students get dumped into "remedial classes that are not part of the normal curriculum of a HS", just filler classes. the problem is they are willing to sacrifice students education just to maintain funding,(hence the participation grades) which sets up students for failure, and is a disservice that they cant even pass community college courses, even more disadvantaged when it comes to community colleges that has to have "certified courses with universities(typified by the increased difficulty of the course when compared to other nearby schools). when i was hs in 2000s, there were only a handful of really successful students, how did we know the administration thought it was a good idea to rub in the faces of the rest of the student body, they framed the meeting in a way that "look at these bright people, and look at you in the audience", everyone just sighed out of annoyance.
- While there are many problems with standardized testing, I think this is where people say we need standardized testing.
  If a school is pulling that shit, there needs to be a way to catch it and do something about it

I hope she wins.
I was pigeonholed holed into the remedial track and stonewalled whenever I tried to get out of it. They graduated me without the basic state requirements.
I recently called them just asking for a piece of paper saying that I did not fulfill the requirements and did not properly graduate. They refused me and insisted that I was fine. I did get them to admit that I tested Advance Proficient for science even though I was placed in remedial science.
I just want this piece of (legal)paper so I have one less brainworm while I fix my education for real.
- they just wanted you "good grades" on paper, when in reality you were failing courses, they only need you for the funding.
- You're better off. Just getting a GED
  
  I have one. It's exactly the same as a HS diploma. Just a path to community college.

Standard republican play book: Break shit and when called out wonder why it's broken.
The school to prison pipeline is malfunctioning because Ortiz was smart enough to sue.
- "Republican play book" dude it's Connecticut. And none the less Hartford. That city hasn't had a Republican mayor since 1971.
  The issue is that educational funding is predominantly on the municipal level, rather than the state level.
  The only mention in the article about Republicans is the CT Republicans being outraged about how the schools have failed this child. Which is entirely justifiable.
  But rather than look at the underlying system issues lets resort to flinging mud at people who had zero impact in the current situation.
  
  so you're saying it's not republicans that are predominately concerned with defunding education?
  or that republicans are not routinely "surprised" when their policies cause problems- exactly like this?
  interesting. You're right. I'm just flinging mud. I couldn't possibly have a valid point (like maybe don't get rid of the fucking department of education.)
  By the way. Your stats on funding sources is wrong. (PDF warning, but here's the budget break down as of April '24
  a screen grab of the overall breakdown:
- probably the parents are suing.

US in last fucking place in 1st world in Education, life expectancy but the number one in war. This teen needs to join the army, lose a leg and become a hero if he wants to be somebody. Thank you for your service sucker.
- They aren't in last place but they are way farther behind than a lot of places.
- they wont be able to join if they cant even pass the asvab for the military, i heard alot of graduates struggling with that. what helped recruitment in the last 1-2 years was military propaganda(like top gun maverick). Having untreated dyslexia makes you ineligible for the military nanyways
- Except she's a woman, so very likely to be sexually assaulted in the military (and that's if she even gets in, DEI and all that), and vets get shafted as well. Her losing a leg to an IED will be ruled "not service related," and she will be denied any funds related to care or issues resulting from said injury after she leaves the military.
  
  I hate that this holds any truth. It is really sad to see all of the mismanagement in the military
  
  the military usually doesnt allow combat roles for women , funny enough. they usually choose the safe jobs.

Holding kids back & provide extra support costs the school money. A large percentage of schools either don't have the money or their bloated bureaucracies are siphoning off the money. Where I live the average pay for teaching is like $22/hr. but people in admin easily make upwards of $100/hr. Additionally, the admin staff is many times larger than the staff at multiple schools.
- Why would you want to support some one who is considered retarded? When my Grandpa went to college his parents were upset because he was the dumb one.
  As it turns out he was way more successful than any of his siblings. He just was dyslexic and probably Autistic.
- Yea district admins earn 100k/year on average, it all goes to them. i had a co-worker in a retail job, said the blue district here only offered 25k-35k/year as a starting package but you must commit to a 5-7 year locked in contract, additionally you will have to teach in the most sketchy neighborhoods too. she refused, and this was before the pandemic. last i heard she doing better in TECH. theres even more fuckery with being a private school teacher.

I hate to go 'Boy, I don't buy it' but, uh, I kinda don't?
This is one of those things that COULD happen, as long as every teacher, every administrator and the state itself were all intentionally trying to make it happen.
CT has standardized tests that are required to be taken to progress through school, so how can someone who can't read or write pass those?
And EVERY teacher she had from first grade on just accepted the fact she clearly was unable to read or write, and thus was almost certainly not doing any work, and just decided that's a-ok and we'll just pass her along anyways without doing anything?
Somehow feels like there's a lot more to this story than just her side as presented by that article.
- Me: "My kid has a learning disability. Can you give her some reasonable accommodations?"
  My Kids School: "But does she really though?"
  Me: "Uh, yeah. She has a diagnosis. From a psychiatrist. Also, you have noticed her grades are abysmal, right?"
  School: "They're not that bad. She's actually doing pretty well."
  Me: "She has mostly D's and F's. Is that seriously what you consider 'pretty well'?"
  School: "..."
  I'm doing some major paraphrasing but this is the gist of actual conversations with my daughters school administration. I'm not saying I believe it's very likely that someone could graduate without being able to read and write. I'm just saying that in some school districts, there's a greater than zero percent chance of that happening.
  
  they have been doing it for decades, even our school passed people with that kinda grade to graduation. not surprised at my local CC i see people struggling with arimethic courses.
- As a teacher, admin will not listen.
  “Hey this kid cannot read. Hey this kid smells like shit and has been wearing the same outfit for the past two weeks. Hey this kid is telling her classmates which gas stations will sell vape carts to minors.”
  
  As a teacher, do you pass students who cannot read? While your grievances are fair, OP makes some very valid points.
- I graduated many years ago now, but I did graduate with someone who could not read or write. He was a sport prodigy, so they lied to keep him playing. It definitely happens.
- CT has standardized tests that are required to be taken to progress through school
  I don't know about CT, but I deliberately failed one of my state required tests in NJ and they passed me anyway. It's all theater.
- I absolutely buy it. I know someone whose job it is to teach kids in grade 6-8 how to read. Some can't read three letter words. This is in a blue state. This teacher I know frequently talks about most of her colleagues being grossly negligent in a variety of ways.
  
  i can confirm, in my hs in a very blue cali area, tons of people were struggling the courses, and they just passed them for the most part. once they get into Community college, you can see a ton of them struggling in the most basic courses( of course students are from all over the us) but more or less they come from the same HS system(pass all D- high F grade earners). the professors themselves also notice this trend, at the time i was in CC, they said people were only getting a 9th grade math education, and a 10th grade reading writing essay education), it has gotten worst since then.
  our CC also had university level stem courses, and you can imagine most dont do well in the class(C isnt really considered a good thing), in terms if you want to transfer to a UNIVERSITY(NOT A non-low level tiered one)
- (without looking into it to verify) isn't this likely because of "no child left behind"?
  
  No, more complicated.
  We stopped teaching phonics (which is something that we had already tried in the 70s, to similar disastrous results). The “whole language” approach just does not work for the vast majority of children.
  Digital devices and the instant gratification machine/shot attention spans also make it so less children are reading for pleasure, so that way that some failed children would at least “make it” through interest and passion is less common too.
  The NCLB/ESSA aspects are pulling time from social studies and science, which hamper the ability to think critically about what is read. The focus on state testing also means that literature instruction rarely involves reading entire books, but instead excerpts and passages in high school English classes, which more explicitly mirror what is assessed on the ACT, etc.
  
  if it is, they're doing it wrong. it means to help everyone graduate, not abandon everyone and set the bar so low everyone auto-graduates

59 comments