Do I have an IDEA/ADA case? [View all]

[aspieextrodinare]

Okay a bit about me. I am a grad student at a major US university (for privacy sake I will not say which one), seeking my Master's in Special Education (well technically I already have it) with certification (that is the hard part). In pretty much all my classes and internships I passed with flying colors, acing all but one class (which was nearly impossible for me as I also have a reading learning disability and the professor didn't spend any time going over the book). Thus I started my first student teaching placement last fall.

This is where problems started occurring. My first placement was a disaster, which was not helped by the fact that even before I had really started teaching my cooperating teacher told me she doubted if an autistic could be an effective teacher (if you can't tell by my name I have been diagnosed with Asperger's). The classroom environment, while probably representative of the new age of special education was a disaster. In my classes I could expect anywhere from 6 students to 23 students, ranging in ability levels from preschool level to 6th grade level. Creating lesson plans for such students is not easy, and I was given NO help on this at all. Literally from my very first lesson until the time the placement was stopped I was told, "Just do whatever you want." Generally my cooperating teacher would be doing IEPs and the one time I actually did ask for help due to a para I was planning on using being sick she has quite the attitude. Needless to say, this placement didn't end well.

My second placement was far more ideal, but once again I had a teacher who made it a point to say that autistics aren't capable of succeeding in, as she put it, such a social job. She even went as far as to suggest that my university was just taking money from me (despite them not asking for anything that term). This placement for the most part went great. The students were learning (what I always feel is the most important thing despite the fact that my university has me graded for this 3 times throughout student teaching, compared to the 17 times I am graded for maintaining effective friendships with my co-workers). However, after about 4 weeks my cooperating teacher said I was not progressing enough, and a few weeks later I was dismissed.

This time I actually did get some clue as to the reasons why, but most of them escape me. 2 are directly related to my autism (one had to do with me stimming at the wrong times, and one was about the "maintaining effective friendships" which she always gave me passing marks in), 2 were bogus (one was me not differentiating between students enough... when I never had more than two at the same level, forget what the other one was), and one was that I joked around a bit too much (okay... I get this one, but a lot of teachers joke around with their students, as long as the work gets done who cares?, beyond that she never mentioned this prior to releasing me). After this the university said no more.

Beyond all this I was never given any supports beyond a class that I had to pay $1,000 to take (and was/is largely useless to someone who has been in college 6 1/2 years) and a counselor I had to drive 15 miles to see (through city traffic) and was hard to schedule an appointment with. Nothing was done to help me at all by the teachers/schools, who both made it a point to say autistics shouldn't teach (ironically, both of them had little to no experience with HFA/asperger's, and little experience with LFA). The irony there is I just want to teach HFA/aspies, so I would think someone who would understand them as well as I can would be ideal. So I am wondering, does anyone think I have a claim at disability discrimination, and is it worth it to make that claim?