Teen on the Autism Spectrum Excluded From Her High School Yearbook

Getting your high school yearbook is a time-honored tradition among graduating seniors across the country, but for Amanda Paeth, receiving her senior yearbook was not the highlight she expected it to be.

According to Connecticut news channel WTNH, Paeth, a senior on the autism spectrum at Mark T. Sheehan High School in Wallingford, Connecticut, was omitted from her yearbook.

“This is not right. You guys got every other kid but me. I basically gave the teacher my book and I walked out of school. You guys could keep it,” Paeth told the news network. Neither her senior photo nor her baby pictures were included in the senior yearbook.

The school’s yearbook is put together by students and then checked by faculty, Paeth’s mom, Jeanine Kremzar, told WTNH, questioning whether or not her daughter’s exclusion was intentional. “She was singled out of a lot of things and she missed out on a lot of things because of it because people just did not understand, administration didn’t understand, peers didn’t understand. Nobody took the time to get to know her.”

After repeated calls from Kremzar and WTNH, the school told the family Paeth’s omission from the yearbook was just an unfortunate oversight and that faculty members were more concerned about spell checking and making sure the quotes submitted were acceptable.

In response to her missing picture, the school has made stickers of Paeth’s photo which students can stick in their yearbooks. Since the yearbooks have already been distributed, Paeth’s is the only one with the fix so far.

“[People on the autism spectrum] still function like you guys,” Paeth said. “We still do clubs. We still do sports. We still go to classes like you. We still learn. That’s really it, it’s just that one small thing.”

Thinkstock image via LightFieldStudios.