Mother seeks help from School Board for epileptic son

By Rosemary K. Otzman
Independent Editor
A tearful mother told the Van Buren Public Schools Board of Education about the hard time her son is having in a self-contained classroom at Rawsonville Elementary School.
Lisa Echols said Evan has severe epilepsy and his heart stops whenever he has a grand mal seizure.
At the Dec. 8 school board meeting, Echols told her son’s story and asked the board for help.
She said her doctor said that going to the school in the present situation is harmful to her son’s health, so she is keeping him home. Now, she said, she is facing truancy charges.
At the end of her remarks, School Board president Brent Mikulski turned the matter over to School Supt. Michael Van Tassel and asked him and his staff to look into the situation.
Supt. Van Tassel said he was aware of the problem, but didn’t know as many details as he now knows.
“I need to, obviously, spend some more time on this,” he told the board.
Mikulski also told Echols to feel free to contact board members by email at any time and don’t feel she has to wait for another board meeting.
School Board treasurer Sherry Frazier said, “That mother was courageous to get up there … As a board member, I would like to get an update on what happens to the child.”
Echols began her remarks by saying she was frustrated and at her wits’ end. Evan is disabled with severe epilepsy and did very well at Tyler School where he was in a regular classroom with 30 other children and teachers who knew what to do when Evan had a seizure.
She said the district moved her son to Rawsonville School this year and he changed from eager to learn to a problem student. In that self-contained classroom there are 12 students, a teacher and a parapro.
“We were guaranteed teachers would be trained in how to handle seizures because when he has a grand mal seizure, his heart stops,” she said.
But they weren’t.
“There have been numerous behavioral changes,” she said of his new class reports.
She said he was accused of head-butting a parapro and she found he was in the middle of a seizure and being restrained.
She said she went to the doctor and changed his medication. Nothing worked.
On Nov. 17 she got a call at work saying there was a hands-on issue on the bus. She said she went home and her 15-year-old daughter said Evan waved to the bus driver after he got off the bus and the driver nodded to him. There didn’t seem to be a problem.
When asked about his day, he said he had a great day. She looked into his backpack and found a letter from the school saying he was non-compliant, refusing to do the work, defiant, jumping on the lunchroom table, at 2:45 refused to come to the rug, his color code went from a good green to purple. It was a terrible day without a call home to tell her about it, she said.
Echols said she went to the teachers, the principal, and the superintendent, all without relief.
She said a child in Evan’s class asked her if she saw the video and she didn’t know what the child was talking about.
She said she learned the teacher took a video on her cell phone when Evan was having “a meltdown.” She was able to see that in a meeting.
The video on any bus problem is not available for her to see because of student privacy issues, she said.
In other business at Monday’s meeting, the school board:
• Accepted a $37,899 check from the Van Buren Educational Foundation for grants for 77 teachers from every school building in the district. Mikulski said the foundation’s presentation is one of the highlights of the year for the school board. The latest foundation fund-raising event was the Jingle Bell Run last Saturday, which attracted 300 runners;
• Presented a plaque of appreciation to Trustee Scott Russell, since it was his last meeting;
• Approved the Annual Summer Tax Collection Resolution, so all the school taxes will be collected in the summer tax bill;
• Approved the Schools of Choice program for the second semester, with a limited number of openings. Registration is Jan. 6-26. Treasurer Frazier said it is important to offer schools of choice because other districts have shown it makes a big difference in their enrollments;
• Approved the Best Practices Incentive Resolution which will qualify the district to receive $50 per pupil in Best Practice state funds. That will total about $252,000. The district must comply with at least seven of nine criteria and it is certifying it complied with eight of the nine. The only one not being complied with is: “The district includes Teacher and Administrator job performance as a significant factor in compensation determination”;
• Heard Trustee Russell give a short report on the board policy updates, as required by changes in the law. The policies were in a document 56 pages long. This is the first reading and the second reading and approval will take place at the next meeting. “All are changes in the law and we have to keep in compliance,” said Supt. Van Tassel;
• Set the 2015 board organizational meeting for 7 p.m., Monday, Jan. 12, followed by the regular meeting; and
• Approved the Nov. 30 retirement of Patricia Burrell, a secretary at Owen Intermediate School, after 22 years of service to the district. The board also approved the employment of LaKeisa Branhan as the new secretary at Owen as of Dec. 4.