Teacher Wendy Portillo named in another classroom complaint

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. - Teacher Wendy Portillo made national news in 2008 for allowing an autistic child to be voted out of class by his peers.  Now she faces another allegation from another student with special needs.

The student, who asked not to give her name for fear of retribution,  is a 12-year old with a hearing disability. 

She attended Allapatah Flats K-8 school in Port St. Lucie last year.

That’s where Wendy Portillo taught after sitting out a year’s suspension from the school district for her last complaint.

This student says Portillo and two other teachers did not wear a microphone in class as they are required to do when they have a student with hearing disabilities.

The girl says sometimes the teachers would ask her if they should wear the mic, but the child says she felt embarrassed to be singled out in front of her classmates.

"I felt pretty shocked when they asked me if they should wear a microphone.  I felt it was irresponsible of them... I felt I didn't learn very much," she said.

The girl’s mother, Beth Woods, is a special needs teacher in the St. Lucie County School District.  She says she knows her child’s rights and feels that for over 6 months the school district violated them, even though she complained several times.

She ended up taking her daughter out of the public school system earlier this year.

All of this detailed in a complaint to the federal Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights which investigated the complaint. According to the school district, it is retraining teachers to use microphones in class as a result of this complaint.  But it does not intend to levy any additional punishment on Wendy Portillo or the other teachers and administrators involved in this incident.

Beth Woods has retained a lawyer, the same lawyer suing the school district for Wendy Portillo’s other infraction.  He says he’s investigating whether to file a lawsuit in this case.

 Wendy Portillo's attorney could not be reached for comment.