Graduating with honors despite being illiterate, female student sues school for 'negligence'

Aleysha Ortiz, a freshman at the University of Connecticut (USA), dreams of writing stories and even publishing books, but it will be a challenging journey, because she admits she is illiterate.

Aleysha told CNN she was more scared than excited about graduation day. Despite receiving a high school diploma, awarded to students who had excelled in 12 years of public school in Hartford, she still couldn't read or write.

Just two days before graduation, Aleysha said, district officials offered her a deferment of her diploma in exchange for an intensive academic support program. But she refused: “I thought, they’ve had 12 years to do that. Now it’s time for me to take care of myself.”

Now, Aleysha is suing the Hartford Boardof Education , the city of Hartford, and her special education director, Tilda Santiago, for emotional distress due to negligence.

City officials declined to comment because the case is pending. Hartford Public Schools also said it would not comment, but said it was committed to meeting the needs of its students.

Hartford Public High School. (Photo: CNN)

When the “bad kid” is actually the one who needs help

Aleysha was born in Puerto Rico and showed signs of learning difficulties from a young age. Her mother soon realized that her daughter needed special support. So when Aleysha was 5 years old, the family moved to Connecticut in the hope that the education system there could help her.

However, the situation did not improve in the following years. According to the lawsuit, as early as first grade, Aleysha was unable to recognize letters, sounds, and numbers. Without proper support, she began to exhibit “disruptive” behavior, leading to her being labeled a “bad kid.”

By sixth grade, Aleysha’s reading comprehension was at the level of a kindergarten or first grader. By high school, things were no better. In tenth grade, her special education teacher, Ms. Santiago, was accused of harassing, threatening, and teasing Aleysha in front of other teachers and students. Although the incident was reported, Ms. Santiago was replaced only when the teacher-student relationship became too strained.

Illiterate girl still passed university thanks to technology

By 11th grade, Aleysha was still struggling to hold a pen, but she began to stand up for her right to education. Some teachers suggested she be tested for dyslexia.

To her surprise, Aleysha was accepted to the University of Connecticut. A month before graduation, Aleysha finally took an in-depth test, which revealed that she needed to start over on phonics, vocabulary, and reading comprehension skills—things that should have been taught in kindergarten. She had previously been diagnosed with ADHD, anxiety, and communication disorders.

Aleysha shows CNN how she uses her laptop to transcribe audio into text for school assignments. (Photo: CNN)

How did someone who couldn’t read or write get into college? Aleysha says she relied on text-to-speech and speech-to-text apps to fill out applications, write essays, and do homework. “These apps gave me abilities I never knew I had,” she says.

Aleysha studied by recording lectures, listening to them at home, looking up the meanings of each word using voice-reading software, and then saying the answers, which were then converted into text for submission. Thanks to technology, her grades went from Cs and Ds to A and Bs. But to get there, Aleysha had to study until 1-2 a.m. every day, then wake up at 6 a.m. to go to school.

However, when asked if she could read a passage, Aleysha just shook her head: “I can't. I just see nonsense words everywhere…”.

"I want them to be held accountable"

Aleysha is currently on a leave of absence from school to receive mental health treatment, but plans to return soon. She said the goal of the lawsuit is to hold the school and the education system accountable so that no one else finds themselves in the same situation as her.

For her part, Aleysha said: “I am a very passionate learner. They took away my opportunity to learn. Now that I am in college, I want to take that opportunity. Because this is my future.”

(Source: Vietnamnet)

Link: https://vietnamnet.vn/tot-nghiep-loai-gioi-du-khong-biet-doc-viet-nu-sinh-kien-truong-tac-trach-2391095.html

Source: https://vtcnews.vn/tot-nghiep-loai-gioi-du-khong-biet-doc-viet-nu-sinh-kien-truong-tac-trach-ar938424.html