All Summer long my wife and I had been churning our guts about where Alex was supposed to be going to school. He was 5 in February, and this Fall, he would be starting Kindergarten. For those of you just tuning in, Alex has autism.
He has been in some sort of County program in one form or another since 18 months 0ld. Back then, we were concerned that he was not yet speaking. So we had the County send some people down from the Infants and Toddlers program to work with Alex. He went into an actual school/classroom setting at 2 years old, and started full days of school at 3 years old.
In that time, he has really excelled at quite a few things academically, especially reading.
But last semester at his school there was an issue regarding where he would go to kindergarten. For some reason we still don't understand, and that would take too long to explain here, his teachers wanted him to go to a program for "slow kids". I am using that term just for the sake of explanation in this blog. They wouldn't refer to that place as such. But one issue we had, was when we posed the direct question of whether this is a diploma bound program (as opposed to simple life skills) we were told "yes". Later, once we had signed off on this, we learned it was NOT a diploma bound program. And whether you want to soft pedal it, or come right out, I don't know how else to say we were lied to.
It seemed like we were set up to not discover this, or discover this after it was too late to do anything about it. Once we realized Alex had a ticket to Shanghai, we got things in motion. We took him to a top notch child psychologist in Bethesda who ran every test out there on him. Come to find he has problems with verbal instructions. But he is king with non-verbal problem solving, and when it comes to the written word and reading he has a second grade reading level. (None of this was discovered by his school)
During the summer, we didn't send Alex to the extended school session. We sent him to two separate camps, one being a theatre camp with "typical" kids, and he did quite well at both.But in the meantime, we hired a professional advocate as well as a lawyer to help us get Alex into the regular school. The Federal law passed in the 1970's, the IDEA law, states that the first compelling directive is to give the child the least restrictive environment preferably at his home school. In the two meetings we had with the school district this past month, they decided to fight us both times for reasons I can't understand. Especially in our case, as our lawyer said, that we wanted less services, not more. And if Alex needs another program, we can move onto that. She said that in the past, when she argued before the school district asking for more services, they were always throwing the Less Restrictive Environment (or LRE) in her face, so why not now?
I am very tempted to describe the surly details of the final hearing we had with the School District. A very compelling experience for those who'd like to know. But I don't think I want to go through it again. I'll just say, Liz had all the documents, the attorney had the mojo, and I had the bad attitude of the angry father. I can say I now understand how actors mentally prep themselves for a harrowing scene, because I unwittingly relied on a mental technique to prepare myself that almost made me jump across the table. In the end though, they relented to what we asked for: Alex go to regular kindergarten with his own para-educator to shadow him.
So today was the big day, and I was a nervous wreck. All that work and effort, and it all comes down to the picture on the left. Alex strapped into the seat for the ride of his life... so far. The moment kind of reminded me of the scene from "Band of Brothers", where after 2 years or so of training, the guys were finally going to face their destiny. And they are strapped into the airplane, waiting to go, to make their jump on D-Day.This morning, Alex kept saying, "go to school..."
He thought it was going to be like orientation, where I would be there in the room with him. But you must remember, he is an old hand at this going to school thing. Full days of school since his 3rd birthday! Even so, when I saw him sitting here, I knew the ordeal he was facing...and he didn't. Any other given day, strapping into the car seat would be the beginning of a fun ride to the store or the park.
So I dropped him off, and yes, once he realized that I wasn't staying, he started to cry. Two teachers took him by each arm, and walked him to the classroom. I said goodbye and turned away, and went back home. Now all I can do is wait to find out what is happening right now. I can't rid myself of the idea that if a "normal" kid cries, everyone chalks it up to a typical reaction, and if Alex cries, people will say, "Well, shouldn't have sent him here. Can't handle the big kid's school". I know I shouldn't think that way, but once bitten, twice shy, you know? We have already experienced how people who should be looking out for our son, in essence were really not doing so, and were ready to relegate him
to the refuse pile for any number of reasons, least of which the fact that they already decided and didn't want to admit they were wrong. Maybe I am being harsh. Maybe. But he's my kid, and we see so much more of his talents than his old teachers. That being said, I also feel that what happens today and this first week is going to set the stage for the rest of his school career. And in a way, you can forgive me if I somehow feel that I am sending him in harm's way.But I can't end this blog on that note.
This is something that I know we must do...
