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High school grad can't read diploma
East Greenbush alumnus with dyslexia is suing district

By RICK KARLIN, Capitol bureau
First published: Saturday, May 17, 2008

ALBANY -- David Streck graduated from East Greenbush's Columbia High School back in 2002 but he's never read beyond a third-grade level.
Show a business card or other written document to him and he'll give it a brief stare and tell you the words are meaningless.
     
It's not for lack of brain power. Streck, 25, said he passed high school math with little problem and he enjoys using computer spreadsheets and building Web sites.
When he drives, he navigates by memory rather than street signs.
But he knows that his future prospects are dim if he can't read instructions on a job application, respond to e-mails or even go through the newspaper want ads.
So he's in federal court, trying to get the East Greenbush school district to pay tuition at a special school for people with dyslexia, a neurologically based inability to process some forms of information such as written words.
While his case, which was heard Friday in the U.S. Court of Appeals 2nd Circuit could take months or even years to fully resolve, it highlights a puzzling fact -- every year when high schools graduate yet another class, some students earn diplomas without having the most basic skills.
Depending on one's views, this proves either that youngsters with handicaps are no longer shunted aside, or that schools don't make enough effort to help those with learning disabilities such as dyslexia and they simply push them through the system.
The latter is what Streck's mother, Donna, says happened to her son. She recounted how she struggled in vain to get him the help she thought he needed while at East Greenbush.
David's high school years sound like the kind of struggle that lots of parents go through when their child has a learning disability: endless requests for more or different evaluations or additional programs or even requests to send the youngster to a special school.
His special help periods, he said, were often no more than study halls as special education teachers basically threw up their hands in frustration at his severe dyslexia.
Donna Streck also contends that the periodic progress reports for her son gave the false impression that he was making progress.
For his high school exams, he had special helpers who would read him the questions.
By the time David was a senior, he wanted to stay in school to continue learning to read but the district wouldn't let him, he said.
So after high school Streck enrolled in Landmark College, a special Vermont-based school that works with dyslexic students. The $43,000 annual tuition proved to be too much for the family, though, so he left after a year.
The Strecks want East Greenbush to pay for at least another three years at Landmark or a similar school where he can try to learn to read.
"That's our ultimate argument here," said Fred Hutchison, the lawyer representing the family. "She put her entire faith in the school district on this. They told her he was doing fine from elementary school up to graduation."
East Greenbush district lawyer Jacinda Conboy, citing privacy laws, said she couldn't comment on the allegations.But Superintendent Angela Guptill, while not talking specifically on the Streck's case, said disabilities such as dyslexia can lead to frustration on all ends. The use of helpers to read exams, Guptill said, is an effort to make sure that students can prove they have mastered a course's content, despite their disability. One East Greenbush student a few years ago, said Guptill, had a reader and a scribe help her with exams and she went on to a top college.
The use of readers becomes complicated, though, for an exam like an English test, where it's difficult to separate the ability to decode or make sense of letters and words, and to comprehend a written passage. "It depends on what you are measuring," said Kathleen Boundy, co-director of the Boston-based Center for Law in Education.
Some students, Boundy said, may never learn to read but that doesn't mean they are incapable of learning.
"The issue becomes, are you holding these youngsters back who may never learn to read. But that doesn't mean they are incapable of learning to high levels."
Rick Karlin can be reached at 454-5758 or by e-mail at rkarlin@timesunion.com.

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"That's our ultimate argument here," said Fred Hutchison, the lawyer representing the family. "She put her entire faith in the school district on this. They told her he was doing fine from elementary school up to graduation."

Wrong answer here.......and doing fine probably means doing fine considering the amount of resources available to the school and the taxes collected----I say sue the NYS Lotto and ask where the 'special funding' is/was......
if he does so well with math and computers---count the numbers and take a gamble on the NYS Lottery with 'a little bit-o'-luck' and maybe get somethin' for nothin'........put your faith where the State has put it---in gambling, obfuscation and compensation........

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"She put her entire faith in the school district"

I agree senders............WRONG ANSWER!!! And I'll betcha that the kid may not know how to read, but sure as hell knows how to use a condom, which is taught in their sex education class.

somethings not right here

"It's not for lack of brain power. Streck, 25, said he passed high school math with little problem and he enjoys using computer spreadsheets and building Web sites."

how did he make it past the regents in course 1,2,3 math

with all those word problems?????? and instructions?????????????

either that or the regents needs to teach his learning method

btw the.pope is Dyslexic or is itcixelsyD