Update 05/11: I have now spoken to the principal regarding this situation. The principal was 100 percent supportive and genuine, so I believe this was an unfortunate event and a learning experience. As I mentioned in the beginning of the post, we love the school and everyone has been incredibly supportive of both my girls. Yearbooks will be recalled and reprinted to include all children.
Now we need to talk, how do we make sure this doesn’t happen to any child with a disability?
—
This is not a post I want to write. Mainly, because we have been happy with our school and incredibly thankful for the people who work with my daughter. They are good people. At her last IEP, I paused the meeting for a second because I was overwhelmed with thankfulness for the incredible team who cares for my daughter.
I am writing this post because when I discovered her picture was missing from the yearbook, I posted on Facebook about how devastated we were, and several parents of kids with disabilities responded this had happened to their child, too. These parents asked me to use my platform, to speak truth about the injustices and discrimination our children with disabilities face.
This is not only my fight — it is our fight.
My middle daughter came home from school with her yearbook in hand. The first thing she said was, “Mom, Nichole’s picture is not in the yearbook.”
I flipped to her fourth grade class, and sure enough, her picture was missing.
“Ugh” I said, “They probably have a page for the kids who are in special education.”
We flipped through the pages in the yearbook, but there was no page for the kids from special education. I had a mix of emotions. First, relief that the yearbook was not practicing segregation, but then sadness her picture was left out.
This is when I posted what happened on Facebook. My daughter loves the yearbook. Every year she looks forward to looking at pictures of her friends, telling us stories about them. She shows the yearbook to people who come to our house and makes sure they see her picture. Not this time. This time, she gets to look at her fourth grade class and say, “Where is my picture?” It is absolutely devastating.
I emailed the teacher and principal. The responses I got were versions of “we are so sorry, we are looking into it.” From their responses, it was obvious they were aware not only was my daughter’s picture missing, there were other students who had not been included. This is when I looked for the two friends from her fourth grade class who I also know receive special education, but their pictures were not there. We looked for her friend from a different class — her picture was not there. We looked for the other little boy with Down syndrome at her school — his picture was not there.
The school printed a yearbook that excluded the children with disabilities.
Let that sink in for a minute.
Now, I cannot say if it was intentional or not. I like to believe it was not. But still, how do all the kids with disabilities get left out? What button gets pushed that suddenly erases the pictures of the kids who receive special education services? I don’t know how the yearbook spread happens. I don’t know who made this mistake or who was responsible for the oversight, but honestly, I don’t care. I don’t care about that part. My main concern is not necessarily that the yearbook was printed without my daughter’s picture and her friends’ pictures. My concern is the adults in charge saw it and they said, “Oh that’s too bad they were not included, but let’s go ahead like it’s not a big deal.”
It is a big deal. As a matter of fact, this is a pretty serious situation.
The problem is the school made the choice to distribute the yearbooks rather than taking the time to correct the mistake, whatever it takes.
This is ableism.
If the pictures of all the Hispanic kids had been excluded, would the yearbook have been distributed? I doubt it. This is no different. As soon as it was discovered the kids with disabilities were excluded, you stop distribution. Even if the yearbooks had been passed out to some students before realizing this error, you ask to get them back as soon as the issue is discovered and explain there was a misprint and the yearbooks needs to be fixed.
I don’t know the actions the school would have taken had any other minority been excluded from the yearbook, but I doubt those yearbooks would have been sent home and passed around for signatures. Yet, the kids with disabilities were not treated with the same basic dignity and respect allotted to other kids.
I expected the adults in charge to be responsible and not let this “slide,” however unintentional. It cannot be justified as it happening to a small group of children; a smaller minority.
No kid, regardless or race, sex, religion or disability should ever be discriminated against and have adults stand by and let it happen.
I get this was a mistake and perhaps unintentional, but the delivery and distribution of the yearbooks was intentional; it was a choice made even after the issue had been brought up.
What perhaps began as a mistake became intentional the moment it was decided it was OK to distribute the yearbooks.
To me, this is inexcusable.
Schools, you know better. You have to be better.
Our kids are not disposable, they are not invisible, and they have the same right as every other student to be included in the yearbook.
This is about social justice, because an entire population was discriminated against and deemed unnecessary. The school saw it OK they were not represented.
Our kids with disabilities matter.
And this is a fight I am willing to take on to make things right, not just for my kid, but for the many kids who have faced this negligent form of discrimination at school.
Special Needs Parents, Are You Surviving?
I created a guide with 13 practical ways to help you find peace in the midst of chaos, opt in to make sure you get a copy of this freebie!
Hi Ellen,
Please tell Nicole I’m so very sorry this happened. It broke my heart because I just got my yearbook photos taken and all the yearbooks at my school have the disabled students and disabled faculty featured prominently. Maybe one of the reasons my school does this is because tenured faculty are disabled themselves. I’m appalled your daughter’s school did this! “People with disabilities are not disposable” AMEN TO THAT ELLEN! I just gave a speech yesterday on the value of lives of disabled people and I see from this post that my speech was unfortunately very needed.
In addition to yearbooks and/or special education pictures as a separate part of the year book, school trips exclusion/left behind is something else to monitor. When my sons when on overnight trips, the school district would ask me to go – I was cheaper than paying an aide hourly rate and travel costs. They paid my trip cost. It was fine with me as well as my sons to go along. If not they I would have advocated for them to go with the necessary support services.
The message this sends to the other students is that excluding someone who is different is okay. This time it is those students with disabilities, but it can carry on to people with piercings, with afros, wearing a hijab… you get the picture. The school, inadvertently or not, implied to every student it’s okay to exclude something based on the fact they are different. This is a dangerous message. I can’t believe it is not being taken more seriously by the administration. It is very sad and disappointing when discrimination happens. But I feel it is even worse when directed at our most vulnerable citizens. We need to do better.
I’m so sorry for your daughter and for all those children left out of something that is quite often a thing of pride, i.e. being in the school yearbook. It is unacceptable and in some ways unforgivable that they were excluded. Like you said, it doesn’t matter what process was used in making the book. Children who should have been in there are not.
I am absolutely appalled that a school would allow this to happen, and not work very hard to make sure it was corrected. My son who has down syndrome starts 6th grade in August and i have to say he has been in his year books multiple times. His schools have always been awesome…I ham so thankful for each and every person at hos schools..without them i do not think he would be doing as well as he does..
I am saddened to hear this happened. Your child is a human being just like the other kids. I am sorry to hear both your daughter and her friends were not included. Not sure if the Americans With Disabilities Act can help you in any way.
I work with kids at church and I love each one regardless of who they are. They are all God’s creation and I will other people in the world outside the church would realize that! Keep being her advocate, she needs it! Feel free to message me.
There are obviously more questions than answers in this conflict. Can you please keep us apprised as you uncover how this happened and how it gets resolved? I am as dumbfounded as I am disappointed.
Just posted an update at the top.
I’m so sorry this happened. It’s inexcusable. I support you and your quest for answers. Whether it’s a series of errors or an intentional act, answers and a move to correct this should be instant. I wish you the best. I’m praying for you.
Estoy totalmente de acuerdo en que la escuela debe rectificar su error.
Es total descriminacion. Les deben imponer una sanción. Se puede hacer algo incluso a nivel internacional de loa derechos humanos
Hable con la directora y mandaron un email pidiendo que todos regresen sus anuarios. Los van a imprimir de nuevo, que es lo que yo esperaba que hicieran.
Ellen,
You have a beautiful daughter. I am both sorry and appalled that this happened to her and the other children that were excluded. In your shoes; I would have reminded the Superintendent/School Board that printing and distributing new (corrected) yearbooks was going to be less costly than the legal fees they were facing if the correction didn’t happen.
What can we do to help you get the yearbook reprinted, correctly?
Dev, the school is taking care of this now, so they are rectifying the oversight.
My son was left out of his 8th grade yearbook and was never invited to attend his 8th grade graduation, the field trips, the dinner dances, field days, end of year picnic…they didn’t even order his a cap & gown or a year book for him all because he was a medically complex child on medical homebound at the time!
When I came into the lobby of the school one day for a PPT I sat there on the bench watching a slideshow up on the TV of the 8th grade class attending all the special events throughout the year and just cried because my son was never invited! Where was MY child!? Why didn’t he deserve to have fun with the rest of the kids too!?!? He missed out on so much because they viewed him as a risk/liability instead of a child! Even though I kept in constant communications with the special education case manager on a daily basis and asked her about special 8th grade events, they never informed us!
Even though he had an IEP AND doctors notes demanding that he have full access to attend EVERY single social event possible at his school, with me by his side and a medical bag, to fulfill his social/emotional needs, they NEVER invited him or made us aware of ANYTHING! They kept us in the dark on purpose! They discriminated against him because of his disabilities, 🙁
My son is now in 11th grade, but when we look back at his 8th grade yearbook there is an empty space with his name on it. (We finally got them to give us a yearbook on the last day of school!) It breaks my heart every time I look at it…they did nothing to change it.
Our community actually found out what was happening to him after he was hospitalized with depression and they all rallied around us to show him the love and support he needed to continue fighting for his life against rare life threatening diagnosis. They put together a support and upliftment day in his honor at our local park to celebrate his achievement of graduating the 8th grade!
I never got to see my son walk down the aisle to receive his graduation diploma & wear his cap and gown, all because he was lost, forgotten about and left behind!
There is absolutely no excuse for this kind of treatment towards children with disabilities!
I never knew it was happening to other children too….I am so sorry!
It’s absolutely heartbreaking, 🙁
We need to make a change to make sure this never happens to another one of our children EVER again!
I am happy to know that the immediate concern has been addressed. I would be very concerned about the yearbook staff, if made up of school students being overseen by school staff. If the staff didn’t do diligence in proofing, that is one thing, as bad of a message as that sends. However, if it is a particular student or few who are responsible for layout, that has legs that will forward into higher grades, and the ignorance of their thought process will be horribly detrimental to all who surround them. My hopes that your message will go viral in a very big way. Thank you for sharing this, as hurtful as it has been for your family.
I’m glad to hear that they are working to solve the problem. You reminded me of when I was back in school- Special Ed kids were hidden in some back room corner of the school. They had their own page in the yearbook. I’m glad that things have come far since then, but we have a lot to work on still.
Who was responsible for this “oversight”?