Ohio Families, School Districts at Odds

Teresa Kaminski was convinced her son was autistic. Her school district was not.

After more than six years of watching Jared struggle socially and academically and begging administrators to hold him back a grade, Kaminski took him to a local psychiatrist and then to a neuropsychologist at Akron Children’s Hospital. The doctor diagnosed him as being on the autism spectrum.

But even after she presented the findings to the special-education team at Perry

Local Schools, they instead classified her son as having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Administrators attributed his delays to a lack of maturity — common in boys, they said — and told Kaminski he would catch up.