Girl with cancer kicked out of Catholic School

[baliano]

I don’t know what else the school could have done other than perhaps provided some form of home study.

Anytime I see a “Catholic” story on CNN, MSNBC or any of the MSM I expect the story to make the Church look bad. In this case the report seems to ignore all the secular logic that would be applied by any public school and concentrates instead on the Catholic nature of the school.

I hope the school refunded her tuition, the family could probably use it.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

I don’t know what else the school could have done other than perhaps provided some form of home study.

Anytime I see a “Catholic” story on CNN, MSNBC or any of the MSM I expect the story to make the Church look bad. In this case the report seems to ignore all the secular logic that would be applied by any public school and concentrates instead on the Catholic nature of the school.

I hope the school refunded her tuition, the family could probably use it.

Good point, if it was a public school there would be no mention of it.

 

[Allegra]

This child would not have been promoted under these circumstances in the public school where I work. Being retained is what is best for this girl. If the parents wanted to avoid this, they should have gotten a tutor to their home while she was sick so she wouldn’t get so far behind. They have no business complaining after the fact.

 

[mafh]

This child would not have been promoted under these circumstances in the public school where I work. Being retained is what is best for this girl. If the parents wanted to avoid this, they should have gotten a tutor to their home while she was sick so she wouldn’t get so far behind. They have no business complaining after the fact.

Well, it’s possible the poor little girl was so sick from her chemotherapy that it wouldn’t have done any good to get a tutor anyway.

But, I agree that she should be held back. Being held back isn’t a punishment – though maybe a child would think of it that way. If she went into 8th grade unprepared, it would snowball and she would probably be struggling all through high school, which could leave her in a difficult position for getting into colleges. It’s far better for her to repeat a grade and go into the next level with a solid foundation.

I’m sure it would be upsetting for the kid to be a grade level behind her friends, and I do feel very sorry for the poor girl, but it’s probably best in the long run. I suppose her parents are mostly thinking about saving her from more anguish in the near-term (and I sympathize… it must be so hard), but I think its at the expense of her long-term success.

 

[Kelfa28]

Well, it’s possible the poor little girl was so sick from her chemotherapy that it wouldn’t have done any good to get a tutor anyway.

Absolutely.

Chemo and radiation can do a serious number on your body. Your flooding it with toxins and radiation in order to get rid of the cancer.

Grown adults get so sick they can’t function. You’re pretty much knocking on death’s door while getting treatment.
I can only imagine how sick she probably was from the treatment.

Some kids just cannot do anything but stay in bed and try to tolerate being sick. Forget school, forget learning…their job is to get better.

That being said…I agree with everyone else. She needs to be kept back a grade or she needs to go to summer school or get a tutor to try to catch up.

You can’t just be promoted out of sympathy if you don’t know the job.

 

[Memaw]

Absolutely.

Chemo and radiation can do a serious number on your body. Your flooding it with toxins and radiation in order to get rid of the cancer.

Grown adults get so sick they can’t function. You’re pretty much knocking on death’s door while getting treatment.
I can only imagine how sick she probably was from the treatment.

Some kids just cannot do anything but stay in bed and try to tolerate being sick. Forget school, forget learning…their job is to get better.

That being said…I agree with everyone else. She needs to be kept back a grade or she needs to go to summer school or get a tutor to try to catch up.

You can’t just be promoted out of sympathy if you don’t know the job.

You make it sound worse than it is, most of the time. I have had many family members as well as friends deal with Cancer and Chemo etc. . I would say in the past 15 years or so they have improved the treatments very much. My son had Chemo a year ago and he did real well except for being very tired. A child would maybe be more so I’m sure. My friend and neighbor is now going thru her 3rd round of Chemo and is doing very well. If one didn’t get treatment it most likely would be “knocking on deaths door” as you put it. God Bless, Memaw

 

[Gwendolen]

The titile of the article should have read “Catholic school attempts to compel child who missed most of school year due to a very serious illness with a long recovery period to repeat the seventh grade, after not meeting academic or attendance standards.” Next line, when parents refuse, child is dismissed from school. The discussion could proceed from there whether or not the school met it’s moral burden in regard to accommodations.

I find this very sensationalized.

 

[pristine2]

The Public school where this poor child lives is required to provide services if requested by the parents. It makes no difference if she is enrolled in private school. She coild have had home/hospital teachers the entire time.

This isn’t true where we are, and I rather doubt it is so in Michigan. Public schools are generally not required to provide any educational services if the child is enrolled in private school.

It’s very true that the clip is too short to draw any conclusions. I mostly reacted to the few lines of text from the dismissal letter I was able to read. I recognize such language. I also understand the constraints under which a community Catholic school system must operate. It must have been a terribly tough call to exclude the child.

We have one child, a nine-year-old girl, in Catholic school. Her brother, who’s 11 and autistic, instead attends public school because it is compelled by law to provide the special adaptations and accommodations he needs.

We’ve never criticized our Catholic school for its inability to cater to our son. But I do wonder how he would have been treated had we enrolled him anyway. For us, it is a little ironic that our “normal” child is allowed to benefit from a God-centred community education, while our special child is excluded from it.

 

[Kelfa28]

You make it sound worse than it is, most of the time. I have had many family members as well as friends deal with Cancer and Chemo etc. . I would say in the past 15 years or so they have improved the treatments very much. My son had Chemo a year ago and he did real well except for being very tired. A child would maybe be more so I’m sure. My friend and neighbor is now going thru her 3rd round of Chemo and is doing very well. If one didn’t get treatment it most likely would be “knocking on deaths door” as you put it. God Bless, Memaw

I used to work as paramedic through the duration of my twenties.

Now, granted, I’ve been out of the game for several years since I’ve gotten married and started having children…as well as going for my bachelor’s.

But I’ve taken hundreds of people over the years to their treatments…both chemo and radiation.

A lot do well. Others just don’t and do get very, very sick. Obviously every human body handles these medications differently.

 

[Memaw]

I used to work as paramedic through the duration of my twenties.

Now, granted, I’ve been out of the game for several years since I’ve gotten married and started having children…as well as going for my bachelor’s.

But I’ve taken hundreds of people over the years to their treatments…both chemo and radiation.

A lot do well. Others just don’t and do get very, very sick. Obviously every human body handles these medications differently.

They explained to us that now give you meds to help prevent getting very sick. About 20 years ago my sister had Chemo and was very sick. She has survived !! Those I have known in the past few years did sooo much better. ( A brother, brother in law, son, niece, another sister, and several friends. ) I thank God for the improvement in care. 50 years ago my Mother died of Cancer, they didn’t even have Chemo then. God Bless, Memaw

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

It would be nice if the OP would weigh in given that this is pretty much a hit piece. Otherwise it just looks like the OP posted it only to side with the “news” company.

 

[1ke]

This isn’t true where we are, and I rather doubt it is so in Michigan. Public schools are generally not required to provide any educational services if the child is enrolled in private school.

The child might have qualified for public school assistance through the equitable services requirement in Michigan, or if she was classified with a disability through IDEA.

We’ve never criticized our Catholic school for its inability to cater to our son. But I do wonder how he would have been treated had we enrolled him anyway. For us, it is a little ironic that our “normal” child is allowed to benefit from a God-centred community education, while our special child is excluded from it.

Perhaps your son too could attend the private school and receive public school special education services. Check with your state education agency on how they implement IDEA requirements for private school children.

 

[pristine2]

It would be nice if the OP would weigh in given that this is pretty much a hit piece. Otherwise it just looks like the OP posted it only to side with the “news” company.

I had weighed in, above. While I’m not sure I’d call it a “hit” piece, and I’m glad the family found access to the media, I agree that there was not enough there to draw any conclusions.

The child might have qualified for public school assistance through the equitable services requirement in Michigan, or if she was classified with a disability through IDEA.

We’ve been through that whole question. Really, it almost never happens anywhere in the United States. There are only a handful of private schools in the US that cater to children with special needs in any way., These are either very high end (with tuition of $30k a year or more), or subsidized heavily with fedspend, not local education funds.

The Individuals with Disabilities Act requires that the public school districts “find” children in private schools who have disabilities and may need special education, but it does not require anything beyond that. The relevant portion of the law:

“No parentally-placed private school child with a disability has an individual right to receive some or all of the special education and related services that the child would receive if enrolled in a public school.
[34 CFR 300.137] [20 U.S.C. 1412(a)(10)(A)]”

There are some important efforts in Catholic education to include students with special needs, and to generate sustainable funding for the purpose. But as far as I know, such efforts are limited to affluent pockets of the country, and are not very developed yet. In our neck of the woods, Catholic Schools discourage admission of children with special needs. They simply do not have the resources.

ccse-maryland.org/

 

[dixieagle]

I suspect there’s plenty going on behind the scenes on both sides. And as others have said, this girl would have to have been held back next year…it wouldn’t be fair to her to set her up for long-term academic failure by continuing to promote her to grades beyond her academic ability.

That having been said, it required weapons-grade ignorance about the modern social media/PR game to think that expelling her was a good idea. Informing the parents that she’d be held back in the coming year due to a lack of academic proficiency may have resulted in a tempest in a teapot, but I’d say most people would have generally understood that it would be in the student’s best interests to be capable of the work asked of her. Outright having her removed… facepalm

My husband is a broadcast journalist and teaches a college class which includes the intelligent use of social media; we had a discussion about this incident this week. I completely agree with your assessment. “Weapons-grade ignorance” about how this would appear and how the story would spread like wildfire is a pretty accurate description.

I think of how our own parish school wholeheartedly supported a seventh grader who was treated for leukemia for several years until he lost his battle. The thought of expelling him would have never crossed anyone’s mind. Truly, repeating a grade would likely have been the least of this young lady’s concerns. She was fighting for her life.

This is an example of utter tone-deafness, no matter the motivation.