Pray You Never Have to Confront Florida's Public School System About Your Child

Opening a can of worms can be somehow tricky. If opened improperly, you can easily cut your fingers, get mud thrown in your face, or drop the can and spend numerous hours trying to pick up the tiny fidgety things. When confronting the public school officials with a difficult issue in education, you can encounter similar problems. Just mentioning a topic, controversial or not, as the one of religion in the classrooms, ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), etc. can be hazardous. If you state an opinion or a disagreement, you might find yourself hanging from a hook with a lot of angry school officials, all fighting for a chance to take a bite off of you. For example: the most common reaction from school authorities when faced with a child with possible ADHD, is to misinform her/him and the parents about psychotropic drugs (amphetamines), and demand a mandatory visit to a physician, and if parents do not to comply within the time frame given, it can be very messy.

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The slippery guidelines about what school officials can say or do with possible or diagnosed ADHD children should be changed.

An old friend's son was involved in a similar messy case in 1997. I will call this child Alex. Alex's parents (who now home school their three children) were called to conference with his first grade teacher, concerning his inane behavior. When they arrived, Alex's teacher and principal handed them a stack of forms to sign, including a recommendation to have Alex seen by a psychiatrist, with the understanding that Alex should be prescribed a drug called Ritalin. Alex's teacher went as far as to label him with ADHD (a brain abnormality), but indicated that if treated, he could focus, improve his grades, and allow her to teach. Alex's...