When I became the parent of a special needs kid, I realized just how much the world actually mistreated them. People that wouldn't dare drop the "N"bomb or call a gay person the "F" word, have no problem using the word "Retard" like its no big deal. I hear different variations on it in conversations on a pretty much daily basis, from all levels of society. I have even heard it in college classrooms. I tend to drop people that use it regularly and who know I have a kid with Downs because I think they are just attempting to start a fight with me in some passive aggressive manner.
My own family rejected my son when he was born and it was what really lead me to realize that my parents are not very nice people. I can still see my mothers face as she glared at the doctor who had saved my life and the life of my son, after I introduced her to him the one time she came to the hospital to visit when Sticky was in the NICU, and I can still hear her say,"He should have told you something was wrong so you could have done something." Done something?? Like what? It wouldn't have made a difference if I had known he had Downs, other that I would have been better educated from the get go about how fucked up the world is.
He got rejected by private preschools in Flagstaff because they,"Didn't have time or resources to deal with issues like him and because they are private they don't have to." A nice attitude for a Christian school. He is forever getting left out of things like church and such because he needs a little more supervision so he doesn't wander off, and he gets left out of play groups because he is slower and not as athletic as kids his age.
His schooling in Flagstaff was excellent for the most part. We got lucky when he was in Cromer because he had people there who loved him and who wanted what was best for him. The were friends and neighbors and his one on one aide was like the granma he has never had. She worked with him constantly and taught him skills he needed to get by in school and she prepared him to go on to the next grades.Because of her and the aides like her, he can read and do basic math and many other skills at about the 2nd grade level, which is outstanding for a kid with his disability.
He is a tiny little guy. His sister is a 2nd grader and she is taller than him even though she is 7 and he just turned 11. I had him retained in the third grade one year back in Flagstaff to give him time to catch up, and that seemed to really help, but I was shocked to find out that up here in Oregon, they have decided that he is ready to be in the 6th grade!
I was expecting him to be in the 4th grade along with his brother, his current IEP respected and honored as is the law, and for things to roll along as normal, but NOOO. The Sped people have decided to try and turf him off to a middle school self-contained program because there are no kids his age in the special class. In all my life, I never expected Oregon to be more ass backwards and repressive of the special needs student than Arizona. I mean, this state looks liberal and progressive on the outside, but then they promote warehousing of the mentally handicapped in isolated classrooms, based on age and not academic ability. My son is reading and doing basic math, but he needs almost constant supervision and direction to keep him on task with work he doesn't want to do and they tell me that he will get that in a program with the bigger kids where the ratio is 15-1 and he is most likely the smallest kid in the school?
They were feeding me this line of bullshit this last week, telling me that all the other kids at the elementary school are developmentally much younger than him and that he would be bored, but they don't know my son. Hes not a big, macho guy. Hes quiet and shy and though he loves Irish punk rock and the 100 Monkeys and he sings inappropriate songs at times and enjoys announcing his farts, hes just a little guy who also enjoys playing with his younger sister and watching cartoons. The guy who was in charge of feeding me this line of bull had a posh British accent, and I don't know if I was channeling my Scot/Irish ancestors or what, but the more he spoke in his condescending, 'We know what is best for your child" tone, the more I got angry and ready to inflict mayhem. I managed to keep it to breaking my pen, but they could see the tension and anger rolling off of me.
I am going to go over to this middle school program today and I am going to check it out and observe how they operate. If I am not satisfied they have his interests at heart, I am going to have to get an advocate and then start filing complaints with the school district and the under IDEA and get a legal advocate involved and all that fun stuff, but I wish they would just do their jobs, after all, this district spends millions of dollars teaching English to children who are not here legally, and they even but them to special programs, why should my son get any less treatment?
I would rather be working today. But instead I will be dealing with this today. Of course his father jumped right in the middle of me for it, claiming that he should have stayed in Arizona where they had a good program for him, but then I asked, "And live where, in the van?"
The schools around here are not perfect. My daughters,'Gifted" programming is pretty much her helping teach the slower kids in her class. She will probably get bored in a few years and I will be struggling to keep her from dropping out from sheer frustration. She already commented that she didn't see the point of going to school, because they "couldn't teach her anything".
It doesn't pay to be special at either end of the spectrum. The slow kids get warehoused and the gifted kids get ignored until they start getting in trouble. I am starting to look for a charter program for her or a private school that offers scholarships to gifted kids. I will keep battling for my son so he gets the tools he needs to be able to survive in the world and I will battle for my daughter so she will get the things she needs to help her fly.
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