Parents of Autistic Boy Flooded with Mail

Melissa Barton is getting quite a pile of mail, hundreds of cards and letters from all over the globe.
"Oh, this is from Australia," she says as she sorts through a mountain of colorful cards spread out on her dining room table.
All these cards are actually for her five-year old son Alex. "This one here says the world thinks you're wonderful," she read aloud as she looked at a Spiderman greeting card. Other cards, many of which were handmade by children, have captions such as "You are very special," and "I think you're nice."
She can't believe the response. "It's amazing, it's absolutely amazing!"
Her son won the hearts of people everywhere, after the story broke last month that his teacher Wendy Portillo embarassed him in front of his classmates at Morningside Elementary, when according to Barton, Portillo asked the children to tell Alex what they didn't like about him and then the kids voted him out of their class.
"There is no excuse for what has been done to my son. None. And disability or not, no child should ever have to go through this again," she said.
Barton says her son, who's autistic, is still suffering from the incident at school last month.
"It hasn't gone away for him. Whenever we talk about his friends in his class, he starts to say I'm stupid, or I'm not special."
She intends to sue, even if the teacher is fired.
And to those people who may feel she's just trying to cash in on this, and is suing only for the money, she says this. "You know, those people probably don't have children and if they do they need to realize this is a violation of civil rights for a five-year old child and I'm here to protect my son."
A spokeswoman for the St. Lucie County School District says the May 21 incident is under investigation by school officials and attorneys. She says Portillo remains employed by the school district. She would not comment on the pending lawsuit.