Disabled Boy’s Isolation Sparks Feud

Ten-year-old Jan Rankowski started out a recent school day learning to locate objects with a compass and working on his programming skills at a computer. When it was time for a study break, he went outside and climbed on the jungle gym.

But Jan played alone, as he has for a year since officials here banned him from the elementary school playground near his house.

School administrators said the move was necessary because Jan, who has a form of autism called Asperger’s syndrome, used profanity on the playground and failed to respond to authority. Jan’s parents, Gayle Fitzpatrick and Charles Rankowski, have sued to regain privileges for their child.

A lower court judge has ruled in favor of the school district; the case is pending before the Maine Supreme Court, and a ruling is expected by next summer.

“What we are suing for is not just for Jan,” Charles Rankowski said, “but so that thousands of other kids with Asperger’s can’t be thrown off a playground because they don’t look a teacher in the eye when he says hello.”

But Melissa A. Hewey, an attorney for the Falmouth school board, described the dispute as “a personal issue between the parents and the school” and said there was no foundation to Jan’s parents’ claim of discrimination. Other autistic children, Hewey said, have used the playground without a problem.

Rankowski and Fitzpatrick are home schooling Jan. In most subjects, he works substantially above the fifth-grade level, where he would be placed in a public school.

But poor social skills are a hallmark of Asperger’s syndrome. Jan, a sturdy child with tousled brown hair, speaks to people when he chooses and seldom makes eye contact. He lacks the normal neurological filtering system that tells most children his age when it is advisable to make certain remarks and when it is not.

“He does not socialize in traditional manners, or at all,” Fitzpatrick said.

For example, Jan once informed a school official that she was the first principal he had met who was not obese. He used an insult that school officials said was obscene when some children taunted him. He “gives his two cents’ worth,” his mother observed, “even when nobody needs to hear it.”

“This is not exactly a behavioral problem,” Fitzpatrick said, “because a behavioral problem is when you know the difference. His issues are neurological. They are involuntary. It is verbal miscommunication, not aggression.”

The family’s lawyer acknowledged that about a year ago -- just before the playground ban was issued -- Jan had “groined” another child during an altercation with three boys who were teasing him. Attorney Ron Coles said the principal investigated the incident, concluded there was bullying and said all the participants were at fault.

The playground discrimination lawsuit has generated considerable attention in this town of 10,000. Disability advocacy groups nationwide also are watching the case carefully.

“It is a red-flag issue when we hear that because of a disability, a child is not being permitted to take part in an activity that other kids can,” said Brewster Thackeray, vice president of the National Organization on Disability in Washington.

“We know that a lot of times these things happen because of misunderstanding,” Thackeray said. “It is outrageous to expect an administrator of a school to be familiar with every disability. But we hope for a level of sensitivity.”

About 1.5 million people in the U.S. have autism. With refined diagnostic techniques, that number could increase. Fitzpatrick says she receives dozens of phone calls and hundreds of e-mails each week from parents of autistic children.

David B. Jones, an associate professor in the department of leisure and recreation studies at the University of Southern Maine, said it was a Catch-22 when children with disabilities were asked to leave a playground. “If these kids aren’t allowed to engage with other children,” he said, “they are going to be further marginalized.”

When that happens, Jones said, “they don’t develop play skills, which are very important. That is how young people and children develop.”

Fitzpatrick and Rankowski balked when school officials wanted to evaluate Jan’s social maturity. The couple have reams of papers reflecting scores of tests performed on their son. They say the evaluations demonstrate that Jan does not play at his age level. They also contend that their son was always accompanied on the playground by a parent and a school aide.

But Hewey said the parents failed to furnish “enough information to make the child’s experience on the playground successful.”

In the meantime, Jan spends his “recess” bouncing on his backyard trampoline or swinging on the bars of the play structure his father built. After school, he takes karate, piano and drama classes -- “all the things that traditional kids do,” his mother said.

Fitzpatrick said she expected her son to go to college, and Jan said he might study computer science or video game development.

The family is aware, Fitzpatrick says, that whatever decision the state Supreme Court makes will be too late for Jan, who will be too old to use the elementary school playground by the time the judgment is rendered.

“We are fighting this because we are American citizens,” she said. “And because my son has the same rights as every other American citizen, disabled or not. And that includes playing on a playground.”