Isabella Mooney
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
My 504 plan, a green slip of shame that I never asked for, stared at me mockingly from the table that separated me from my mom, the principal and my guidance counselor. I glare at the three of them, sure they can feel the anger boiling in my eyes. I insisted on being here. I’m 14, and this is the first time I had a say in what accommodations I get for my disabilities.
And what an opinion I had prepared for these people.
I grabbed the slip of green paper. As it fluttered in panic in my hands, I ripped it in half. I swear to God I hear a scream as I place it on the table, defeated.
“Get rid of it.” I say. “Now.”
A 504 plan is a school program meant to help children with certain learning disabilities. I have ADHD and dyslexia, two of the most common learning disorders. When I entered school as a kindergartner, my mom went over my head to tell the school that I was a “special” kid. I would need extra guidance. This meant I couldn’t sit with my friends in class. It was never my choice to have a 504 plan, and I never found it useful a single day in my life.
Every teacher thought that I was dumb as rocks. And yes, teacher, I did read the directions. I read them forward, backwards and reversed through a mirror within my own brain—a special power of dyslexia—and I still missed half of what you asked. And no, teacher, I am not being a smart ass right now, for you see I don’t read like you do. I do this thing where I start at the beginning, and switch to the end, then I reread the beginning, then I read backwards the beginning, then forwards the end and then I give up and decide that the middle is of no meaning to me. And I thank the lord in high school when my blind best friend introduced me to the wonders of text to speech (or is it speech to text?).
So, I asked you, teacher, if I may read the first half of this now and the second half later. You instead pointed to the accommodation on my green card of shame that stated that you are to read the entire sheet aloud to me. So, you did. You sat at my table with all my friends while they snickered and you slowly read the paper to me, out loud, for the entire class to hear. And every time I looked away, distracted by my own shame, you tapped that pink fingernail on the table, only to catch hell from my glaring eyes as I am focused on how much I hated you in this moment. Forget the directions.
And teacher, let me just tell you, that it is not OK to laugh in front of me about my spelling in second grade. Or to find it simply endearing (Enderring? Enndering? Where is this A coming from?) that I spelled dinosaur like bionsour. For not only did I have an argument with the amount of Os and their placements, but I also didn’t understand the difference between a b, d, q, p. When flipped this way and that, it’s the same letter. Perspective is everything, and I apparently had a lot of it.
On the green card of shame, there was a clause indicating that spelling tests are pointless with my disability. Instead of sparing me the shame, you insisted on forcing me to take these hellish tests, watching me cry over the paper as I insisted to myself that not knowing how to spell doesn’t make me stupid. How thrilled I was when I learned about spell check.
Because this was the real issue with the 504 plan. I was never given a say on whether it was issued to me. Not only did it fail to include things that would be helpful for me, but it also wasn’t explained to my why I needed it. Was I stupid? Why did no one else have one? When every big test rolled around, why was I forced to go to a separate room, with the kids who were disabled to the point that they couldn’t even talk to me, and take my test there? It was isolating. How was I supposed to know that the only reason I was in those rooms is because teachers were supposed to read the test questions aloud to me, and that they worried that it would disrupt the other kids?
If you’re curious, I never willingly used that accommodation. Only in high school, after the plan was null and void, would anyone learn that I had an auditory processing disorder that rendered the accommodation completely useless. But hey, it’s not like you ever asked, teacher, if it was helpful in the first place.
What would the plan have looked like had I curated it? Well, first of all, I would have wanted to be allowed to leave my seat. Instead, I was subjected to endless hours in various corners of shame for being “rambunctious.” Little did you understand, teacher, that my behavior was so rancid because I was crawling out of my own skin. I needed to move. I needed to do something with my hands. The endless tapping of my feet, the chewing of my nails or my habit of snapping pencils were all manifestations of my overflowing energy that needed an outlet. But unfortunately, I had used up all my bathroom breaks for the day.
I also would have requested to never have to take notes by hand again. I thanked God the day I entered college and realized that I could use my laptop. When spelling moves from memory to mechanics, I suddenly knew how to do it. I don’t have to remember what letters make what word. I simply have to remember the order that I click keys on the keyboard. And isn’t that so much more effective? And hey, you never would have guessed, teacher, that I love writing. In fact, I never knew it either. I spent my whole life thinking that my 504 plan meant I was too stupid to be a writer.
But I’m not stupid. It has taken me a long time to unlearn the shame brought on me by this slip of green paper so prominently displayed to everyone around me my whole life. It has taken a long time to undo the bullying that I encountered having my disabilities always on display for the whole class to see. I am not stupid, but this green paper with its grinch-like grin seems to think so. And that is why it simply can’t be a part of my education anymore.
“Do you understand,” my guidance counselor said on the day I tore up that green paper, “that if we get rid of your 504 plan, we can’t give it back? It will be gone forever.”
I raised an eyebrow. According to them, I’m the stupid one here.
My counselor sighed. “I don’t think that getting rid of it is a good idea.”
The anger in my chest threatened to find an outlet through my face, but I let it escape my hands in the form of a snapped pencil instead. “I said I want it gone. Let me make my own choices.”
And—would you look at that teacher—suddenly I became a straight A student. How strange.