Still Learning From Sandy Hook
It’s been two years since a gunman killed his mother at home and then opened fire at canada goose outlet parka the Sandy Hook Elementary School, killing 20 first graders, six educators and himself. People in Connecticut are still hashing out canada goose outlet in usa just how parents and educators should handle children like Adam Lanza.
A team of doctors, lawyers, educators and social workers canada goose from Connecticut’s Office of the Child Advocate issued a report a few weeks ago, and while it says that Lanza is the only one responsible for what canada goose outlet toronto factory he did when he was 20 years old, it also says that there were warning signs and missed opportunities throughout his life. “And you get through the day by managing the day.”
“And, in some ways, that’s goose outlet canada a canada goose black friday sale natural instinct,” Eagan adds. “She’s canada goose outlet the mother of a son who struggles to get through the day, who’s afraid of everything, who doesn’t want to leave the house.. And her default coping strategy became, ‘I just have to get us through.’ And. that kind of infused a lot of the choices that they made.”
The report says that, when dealing with school administrators, Nancy Lanza was able to persuade them to “accommodate and appease” her son by avoiding things that made him https://www.drachen-spiele.de feel uncomfortable. By the time Lanza got to high school, whether he was learning in school or at home in isolation, administrators had one narrow academic goal: keep moving forward.
“I think the school canada goose outlet store uk had a goal of helping him graduate and get to college,” Eagan says. “That was their goal. It was canada goose outlet online uk a good goal.”
But Eagan says it shouldn’t have been the only goal. While the district was satisfied as long as Lanza kept earning credits, it virtually ignored his social and canada goose jacket outlet emotional development. In fact, the report says the district mislabeled Lanza in his crucial high school special education plan entirely ignoring the more apt eligibility categories of autism and emotional disturbance. The district declined an interview.
“It canada goose outlet canada appears to me from what we canada goose outlet jackets know that Adam was one of those students who slid beneath the radar in terms of his official canada goose outlet very serious social, emotional needs,” she says.
That slide should be a real concern for anyone who deals with children, Spencer says.
The Two Way
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Jennifer Laviano, a Connecticut attorney who represents children with special education needs, says school districts often don’t follow special education law intentionally.
“I have several clients with not terribly dissimilar profiles canada goose uk black friday to Adam Lanza about whom not only am I worried, their parents are worried, their psychiatrists Canada Goose Jackets are worried, and I have gone to PPTs (Planning and Placement Teams) with school districts and said, ‘This kid is another Newtown canada goose outlet online waiting to happen,’ and they are telling me, ‘No,’ when I asked for canada goose outlet an out of district placement for this child, which is recommended by canada goose clearance sale the psychiatrist,” she says. “They’re saying, ‘No.’ And why? Because it’s expensive.”
Spencer says money is a part of it but so are educational priorities.
“The degree of emphasis on test scores has the danger of preventing teachers from really looking closely at the breadth of a child’s developmental status,” Spencer says. “For example, social and emotional skills. And, in this case, it was clear that the focus was really on his academics, and despite the fact that it was very obvious and people saw that he canadian goose jacket was in emotional distress.”
But what is obvious for Spencer may not have Canada Goose online been canada goose clearance obvious to everyone. So she says another lesson is this: train educators at all levels to be able to recognize and report a mental health issue when they see one.