Student voted out: Treasure Coast elementary school teacher Wen...

Morningside elementary teacher Wendy Portillo said she hopes to return to teaching after a unanimous vote Wednesday by the School Board let her keep her professional contract with the county school district and the tenure protection it affords.

[MSM]

This "teacher" is a POS. If this was a white teacher with a black student the teacher would have been terminated with little review. and of course she is filing a discrimination law suite.

[Great]

Melissa Barton has done a lot of damage to a lot of people through her media circus this past year. Let's hope this is over. Whatever lawsuit she plans is a joke. I'd love to see her before a jury. I'd also like to hear her testify under oath about her baseless claims

[friend]

Media circus my foot. If this student had hugged the teacher, they could file charges against the child. Schools rarely back up the rights of the students and they should had in this case. The only one who has done damage is the teacher and her poor choices and I feel sorry for any child in the future who has her for their teacher.

If anything, the public has been fore warned of this teachers conduct.

I hope the mother of that child does sue, and many more parents whose children have been mistreated by the school system and their teachers.

[Anna]

I am disgusted with the Saint Lucie County School Board, that's why I signed the Change.org petition:

http://www.change.org/actions/view/tell_the_s...

If there was ever a time to sue someone it would be now. I hope the mother & father plan to sue the district.

[MSM]

Anna wrote:

I am disgusted with the Saint Lucie County School Board, that's why I signed the Change.org petition:
http://www.change.org/actions/view/tell_the_s...
If there was ever a time to sue someone it would be now. I hope the mother & father plan to sue the district.

Thanks for the link.

[Crystal]

"Asked what she would say to Barton, Portillo said she wishes her well."

You'd think she might say she was sorry at least. But hey, now she's free to go back to emotionally abusing small children, oops, I mean "teaching".

[Alice]

So now we know that it's perfectly okay to emotionally torment mentally disabled children with public humiliation. Way to go and screw the, county board, for dumping us back a few decades.

[Nicci August]

It's appalling that the school board has voted to allow Wendy Portillo to keep her contract. The fact that the woman's reasoning ability is so abysmal that she thought it was a good idea to lead her kindergarten class to "vote out" another student should be evidence enough that she's unfit to teach.

[Alleyne Rice]

Melissa Barton has done damage to the schools? Melissa Barton should own the schools for what this so called "educator" did to her child. He was a five year old little boy. His crime was to wear his shoes on the wrong feet. For that, his entire life has been radically altered because he got on Wendy Portillo's nerves.

Wendy Portillo should never be in a classroom again. She doesn't have the temperament to work with small children. 1 in 166 children in America are on the autistic spectrum. She will encounter an autistic child again. What will she do to the next child? And the one after that?

[miranda]

absolutely disgusting.

[miranda]

disgusting

[lucille]

;alskd horrible!!

[John Schutte]

There is nothing right about this at all.

Even if the child isn't autistic, to have them stand in front of class and be humiliated like she didn't just allow, but ENCOURAGED, is reprehensible. As a teacher she should know better than to humiliate a child like this.

Something like this will likely have an affect on this child for the rest of his childhood, if not the rest of his life.

Take it from a Developmental Psychologist, with a lot of hands on experience with various ranges of Autistic children. What she did was wrong. She knew it was wrong, and did it anyway.

At the absolute very least, she should have tenure taken away. What should happen, is that her teaching certificate should be revoked by the state. If she wants to teach, she can do so in private schools, or in another state.

[Monokle]

What a joke. The only reason she still has a job is because of seniority not merit. There are probably dozens of teachers waiting for a job, each one better suited than Portillo. But thanks to collective bargaining she is essentially fire-proof and our children will continue to suffer the consequences. Hooray for public education! The modern triumph of incompetence over accountability, hooray!

[Lazy Employee]

Oh boy... The Autism Nazis are out in full force on this article.

While it's pretty clear Ms Portillo used poor judgment in this case, regardless of what the Autism Nazis say, she doesn't deserve to be burned at the stake. Furthermore, the school board should be able to use their discretion with teacher disciple without the ridiculous pressure from the radical Autism Nazis.

Listen Autism Nazis, I feel true empathy that your child was inflicted by a terrible disability (or is that not okay to say in your nutty Autism Nazi PC world?). However, let's get some things straight:

1. Your 1 in 166 statistic is the reason Mark Twain wrote his now very famous quote. It’s silly – everyone who has a slightly abnormal behavior does not have autism.

2. Immunizations didn’t cause your child’s autism – scientific research on this is conclusion, regardless if you believe it or not. Your consistent propaganda on this issue is causing much more harm than good. I realize that mainstream science hasn’t always been kind to the autistic, but this is not one of those cases. Get off the anti-immunization band wagon and focus you attention on treatments that can actually do some good.

3. Your child should not be mainstreamed. It’s not good for the autistic child and it’s not good for the children in the mainstream classrooms. Again, if you focused your attention on improving and increasing programs for autistic children rather than attempting to mainstream them, you’d do far more good.

4. Quit being so militant – you’re hurting your otherwise noble cause. Just like PETA’s militant nuttiness creates ill will towards animal cruelty, the Autism Nazis are creating ill will toward one of our more important medical issues. Take a cue from all success the folks who have been fighting to cure Breast Cancer. They have increased awareness, medical research, and public funding for their cause without being nutty. Unfortunately, the Autism Nazis make the whole autism campaign appear closer to PETA’s work than to Breast Cancers’s advocates.

[Rhyne]

Lazy Employee-

Autism Nazis? Really? Way to Godwin an argument right off the bat. Barely out of the starting gate, and already falling on your face, especially since your post comes off as much more militant and combative than anything the Pro-Barton comments have had to say.

[Velma]

Lazy Employee -- if you had a disabled child or even knew someone that did, you wouldn't talk that way. "I feel true empathy" - you don't know the meaning of the word. I hope you don't learn it the hard way.

[Dave]

I sympathize with this kid, as I had a teacher try something similar when I was 8. I was poorly behaved, but was and am extremely intelligent and socially capable of advocating for myself and so it wasn't a traumatic experience because I defused it... I can't imagine how traumatic it would be at age 5 for a kid with Asperger's.

This teacher is a monster for what she did. She has ruined at least some years of a child's life because he got on her nerves. This teacher should not be back in the classroom. Ever, preferably.

[John]

Lazy Employee,

You have a lazy mind and your comments are a joke. TO call a parent of an Autistic child a Nazi?

Who the fuck are you? She should not have been suspended for a year, just fired on the spot. Fired for being unprofessional. Fired for humiliating a child (ANY CHILD) with a social flogging. Fired for bad decision making.

You're an ass.

[Bartons Circus]

I like the Autism Nazi term. That's a keeper. It illustrates a very important point: One can advocate for a cause without being a nut. But, a few nutty advocates can do a lot of harm to a good cause.

The nuts need a reality check. Your misbehaving kid is not Einstein or Mozart. He or she deserves a public education, but not at the expense of dozens of other kids who would be learning if not for the constant disruptions your kids cause.