Miami Autism Dad Victor Antunez interviews Barbie Rivera, Founder and Principal of H.E.L.P. Miami, an accredited K-12 micro-school, and author of Enough Is Enough! The conversation goes back to 1991, 10 days into the school year, when school teacher told Barbie her bright, bilingual 6-year-old son Damon was “mentally handicapped” and would need a lifelong ADHD prescription to learn. Barbie disagreed. She pulled Damon out, started teaching him herself in 1992, and that one decision grew into the K-12 private school she runs today. Barbie breaks down what a year in the wrong classroom does to a 6-year-old who’s come to believe he’s “stupid,” how she gets a child their first win after a lifetime of losses. Along the way she tells the stories of Fabian, who came in sure he’d failed 6th grade and tested from a 2nd-grade to a 9th-grade level in 3 months; Melissa, who finished 10th grade in public school with a 1.0 GPA and is now chasing a doctorate; and Monica, born hearing-impaired and written off by her teachers, now in college to become a speech therapist.
📍 Connect with Barbie at H.E.L.P. Miami:
Online: https://helpmiami.org/
Phone: (305) 742-4003
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