Parents Want Their Autistic Son to Speak at Graduation Ceremonies : Simi Valley: The couple are taking action. But Royal High officials stand by a student panel’s selection of two other speakers.

Commencement speeches at Royal High School will tout the theme “This end is only the beginning.” And no one is taking that theme more to heart than Peggy and Harvey Rose, who are upset that their autistic son was not selected by a student committee to speak at graduation on June 20.

Despite a decision by school officials to stand by a student committee’s selection of two other speakers, the Roses are pressing ahead with a campaign to have their son Ryan, 17, address his classmates.

Peggy Rose has complained at school board meetings and written numerous letters, asserting that Ryan deserves to speak because his speech addresses the needs of special education students.

“Special education students have been underrepresented at graduation,” she said. “The immediate issue is that Ryan doesn’t get to speak. But the more global issue is that if Ryan--with all his credentials--doesn’t get to speak, what special ed child ever will?”

Four senior class officers and their adviser picked the speakers in April after listening to 11 speeches that had to comply with the five-minute time limit and include the graduation theme.

The students said they picked the other speeches because they were more interesting and more in line with the graduation theme. Senior class President Kelsey Ryan said he never meant for the issue to cast a cloud over graduation proceedings.

“It really hurts my feelings that he would accuse us of being discriminatory,” said Kelsey, 18, a classmate of Ryan for six years. “We chose the speakers not for who they were but for what they had to say. Ryan’s speech had a lot of heart in it, but it wasn’t in line with the theme.”

Student adviser Tim Piatt said the school respects the decisions of its student government members, who appointed Ryan to take part in a leadership class during his junior and senior years.

“They have acknowledged that Ryan is a hard-working kid,” Piatt said. “They have honored him in many ways. They just thought some other kids should have a chance to speak. These kids are well aware that Ryan has . . . certain limitations, but they try to treat him like any other kid.”

Ryan, who has been accepted to California State Polytechnic University, Pomona in the fall, found out this week that a student-run selection committee was standing by its decision not to let him address his fellow classmates at graduation, despite his appeal.

“I want to speak out to the parents of kids like me so they can cope,” he said. “So they can realize that their kids can achieve. Even though I am disabled, I can do it.”

Although many districts are including special education students in classes with other children, advocates say they still need additional attention.

Ryan has been taking “mainstream” classes at the school and has been active in student government, speech and debate, and on the school’s track and field team.

“Even the most successful special education student needs to have some type of special education backup to help him,” said Mike Murphy, president of the Simi Valley district’s Special Education Advisory Committee, a parent advocacy group.

“Ryan has achieved a lot,” Murphy said. “But the bottom line is that he has autism. He is not like every other kid graduating from Royal High School.”

School board member Carla Kurachi said the issue raises the question of how special education students are treated and recognized in the district. She has requested that the board study to what extent special education students are included in all school activities at its next meeting on May 30.

“I don’t think that you can equate his speech with any of the other speeches,” she said. “You have somebody who has overcome major obstacles. Why wouldn’t you want to acknowledge that?”

Royal High administrators said they have already acknowledged Ryan in several ways. In fact, the same group of students who rejected Ryan’s speech chose him for the Mr. Highlander award for two years in a row. The award is given to the student at the high school with the best work ethic.

Principal Mike McConahey, who personally tutored Ryan to ease his transition into a math class last winter, said he has asked the selection committee twice to reconsider allowing Ryan to speak--once immediately after the two other speakers were chosen, and most recently on Tuesday morning.

The students, however, stood by their original decision, saying Ryan’s speech did not meet the theme and they did not want to upset the eight other students who were not chosen to speak.

“I know about Ryan’s accomplishments. We all do,” senior Kelsey said. “But he’s asking us to go back on our word, and we can’t.”

The principal said he has not received any complaints from the other students not chosen.

“Yes, Ryan is a special kid, but there are 500 special kids graduating from the high school this year,” he said. “If you have a representative from one special program, then other students will wonder why you don’t have a representative from the athletes or the musicians or any of the other special groups on campus.”

Dennis Carter, who oversees special education in the district, agreed, saying that in the future the school should consider a special speech category that would include all underrepresented students, from special education to bilingual to minority.

In the end, he said the individual schools must decide how to run their own graduations.

But Peggy Rose, who plans to meet with a legal adviser today, maintains that her son overcame extreme obstacles to fit into the mainstream and deserves to be recognized this year.

“I don’t blame any of the kids on the selection committee,” she said. “Kids need to be taught empathy and understanding, but I think the adults fell down in this case.

“We need to go further with this. We’re not going to let it die.”