#AACPSAccountable
The robo-calls and texts from Anne Arundel County Public Schools have been coming for 24 hours, reminding me and mine to wear orange for Project Unity day. AACPS took an initiative from the PACER Center's National Bullying Prevention Center and ran with it, creating four observance days this year, with student activities and professional development planned to promote Project Unity's values of kindness, acceptance, and inclusion. The orange-themed social media posts highlighting unity projects at area schools are rolling in as well.
As a former school social worker, I'm all in favor of anything that infuses kindness, acceptance, and inclusion into school cultures. And yet I am still very troubled by my local school system this week.
The story I keep returning to is absent from the AACPS Twitter feed. I suspect it got fewer clicks on the Capital Gazette website than others in the education section – redistricting, for example, or county schools earning higher star ratings. It's a follow-up to the story of Bowen Levy, the 17-year-old student who choked to death at Central Special School four weeks ago. As our county schools promote an initiative from a subsidiary of the PACER Center (motto: "Champions of Children with Disabilities"), they have spoken not one word to the parents of one of the district's most defenseless students, who died on their watch.
Bowen, my daughter Leah, or any of the students enrolled at this county's special education centers are the least likely students to be touted on Twitter under the district's favorite hashtag, #AACPSAwesome. Colorful projects, former students who go on to become teachers, national merit finalists, or competition winners are easy to celebrate on social media. Yes, they deserve it, but they also lend sparkle to the district's reputation.
Look past the curated imagery and you can tell at least as much, if not more, about a school system's leaders and its values by how they treat their neediest students, the ones who are hardest to serve. The message from AACPS regarding Bowen Levy has been radio silence in the face of a gut-wrenching loss. There's no kindness to be found in that. Fear or ego, perhaps. Almost certainly self-preservation (although that went out the window the moment Bowen's parents were told Central Special was not complying with his IEP). Which values are AACPS leaders modeling for the system's 83,000 students in their approach to this case? Not the ones touted by Project Unity.
I don't know the Levy family personally, but I grieve for them. I do know the costs involved in forcing a school system to attend to a vulnerable child's safety and well-being. Our family has paid those costs for Leah, in funds, in stress, and in hours of our time. Bowen's loss reminds me how much greater and more devastating our price could have been. My own unity project is to echo the Levys' call for an independent investigation of what happened to their son; why he wasn't provided with the supports mandated in his IEP; and how many other students have been put at similar risk, and to encourage others to do the same.