Mental Illness Discrimination in School (My Experience)

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During junior high I was in the gifted program at my school. This meant that in addition to participating in an extension program after school, all the students were enrolled in advanced classes together. I also played in the orchestra and many of those students were enrolled in the classes considered to be on the high level colleges bound track, if not the advanced classes. Even though legally putting kids on 'tracks' in school was illegal they still did it and called it teams. They even labeled your team with a letter of the alphabet corresponding to achievement. All the students knew those on team 7A for example were the gifted kids while 7D was the team with all the special education students. It wasn't too far into my 7th grade year when basically the entire gifted class in my grade was taken on a field trip to the top ranking private university in our city. This school was also one of the most well known private schools in the country - up there close to Harvard or Yale status - and had a world renown medical school. Just one other student and I were left behind, with no explanation. When the other students returned from the field trip they explained it was basically a trip to start recruiting them to attend the school. Yes, they were recruiting 7th graders from around the area! Apparently, they did this each year to get a big head start on bringing in students identified as gifted from area schools. The next semester, all the students in the high level college bound classes were taken to the second highest ranked private university in the area. The other student who had been left behind with me last semester was taken on this trip, while I was left behind once again. This time I pretty much lost it! I went to the guidance counselors' office in tears and asked how they chose the students who got to go on these trips. The answer came down to basically the guidance counselors picked whomever they wanted. It was strongly hinted that since my guidance counselor knew I had emotional problems - she already didn't see the point in taking me to a college tour since she didn't think I'd even graduate high school! Back then I didn't know someone could be discriminated against because of something other than their race or ethnicity, but its crystal clear now discrimination is what was happening to me. I was being denied an opportunity that my peers were being given simply because I was experiencing severe anxiety attacks. Later that year, my science teacher tried to deny me a place in the advanced science class for the next year for similar reasons. Luckily, I was involved in an after school club run by the head of the science department and she placed me in her advanced science class even without my teacher's recommendation. Had I stayed in that school system, I'm afraid to think what would've happened. By 8th grade, teachers were making it clear they didn't think I should be in their advanced classes. For math that year I was moved down a team to a classroom that was uncontrollable and plagued with weekly fights. I learned nothing and sat in the back of the class writing stories most of the time. Halfway through the year my advanced social studies teacher simply stopped checking the answers on my papers and wrote a C at the top of everything I turned in. I have no doubt that I would've been placed in career preparation classes and never given the chance to prepare for college if I'd moved to the district high school as planned. Yes, not even moved to community college bound courses but to career preparation classes, simply because I had an anxiety disorder.