Todd Geraci is a Graduate

by Kristina Chew

categories: Education, Policy

Published June 22, 2009 @ 12:30AM PT

18-year-old Todd Geraci was at first not going to be allowed to graduate from the People's Academy in Morrisville, Vermont, with the students he had been with for the past nine years. Geraci is on the autism spectrum and, as the June 19th Rutland Herald reports, because he had not yet "completed work in his individual education program, which includes social and other goals," he could not graduate. Noting that "'[w]e were faced with relinquishing his rights and we found that just unacceptable,'" Julie Sullivan, Geraci's mother, filed and won a court injunction that required the school to allow him to graduate with his classmates last Thursday night. As Matthew Bryant, an attorney with the disability law project of Vermont Legal Aid who assisted the family, pointed out, Geraci has completed all of the general education requirements.

School administrators see things a bit differently. Says Tracy Wrend, the superintendent of Lamoille South Supervisory Union:

"We want kids to be successful, we want them to meet high standards," Wrend said. The ruling may have "increased the likelihood that high school students will assume they don't have to meet high standards and can participate in the ceremony as well."

Thursday afternoon she talked to the family of another student who was considering filing with the court demanding that their child – who was not disabled – also be allowed to participate in the graduation ceremony despite not completing the academic work, Wrend said. In the end that injunction was apparently not filed by the time the court closed Thursday afternoon.

"Graduation at People's Academy is not a feel-good exercise," Wrend said. "It is the formal recognition that students have met the high standards set for them. We want our graduation ceremonies ... to have meaning."

Ok, ok. Something tells me that Geraci and his parents aren't thinking of graduation as a "feel-good exercise" either, but as something he's worked hard to achieve, and with more challenges than many have. Geraci's case seems quite different from that of the other student mentioned.

His situation does raise a key issue in the quest (some would say fight) for accommodations for individuals with disabilities in the schools. Certainly there's not a wish to lower standards for students with disabilities, as if to suggest that they are "not up to the work." On the other hand, it is necessary to reevaluate and reconsider the standards in place. Before there was an Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the families of students like Todd and my son Charlie and many more would not even have had the opportunity to consider sending our children to public schools, or to school at all. We need standards, but we need to rethink those standards so that they don't put unnecessary obstacles in the paths of students who try as hard (and even, really, harder) than their classmates.

Kudos to Todd and a thousandfold of congratulations!

And.......today at 3pm EST/2pm CST listen in to AWA Internet Radio, with moms from different generations w/sons on autism spectrum share unique experiences.