Good Morning All! I just came back from dropping the girls off at school and it amazes me on the drive home the litany of ideas I have to write about, all before 9 am. I want to tell you a simply incredulous incident that happened yesterday afternoon when I picked up Mia at school but there is some background that needs to be shared first. Trust me, hang in there, it is worth the wait!
First, let me just say that in my mind there are two kinds of special needs moms, no, I’ll take that back, there are three. The first is the one who sees school as a bright shiny place with all of the happy people in the world and the teachers are all highly motivated professionals who only have the kids best interest at heart. For this delusional lot no harm could ever be done to their child and the school in certainly following ever item on the Special Education Individualized Education Plan (IEP) to the letter. These are the gems who think that their “invitation” to a Special Education Committee meeting is just a courtesy the school district provides parents to let them know what they plan to do to, with and for their child in the coming school year.
The second type of special education parents are the ones that simply don’t give a shit. While the kid is in school s/he is their problem and they see school as a break for themselves to not have to deal with their child for a few hours. Then of course, the child spends their time at home holed up in their bedroom watching TV or playing video games because the parents simply can’t be bothered for a multitude of selfish reasons. This kind of parents I hate, loathe, despise … in general, just want to kick in the head.
Then there are parents like myself and my friend Noelle. We are the moms who know the special education law inside and out, we know what we want before we go into any kind of meeting and we know how to get it. We have no problem telling anyone from a classroom aide up to and including the school district’s superintendent that they have their collective heads up their asses when it comes to our kids. We document EVERYTHING and the last thing you want to do is screw up something that pertains to one of our kids. Now, while we may idle in bitch-mode most days, we are also the very first people to write a note or an email thanking someone who has gone above and beyond for one of our kids and will happily yell it from the rooftops. Put another way, seeing an email in your inbox from Noelle or I can only mean something really bad or really good. That is just how we roll, there is rarely any middle ground – it works for us so why change now, right? If you are a mom in this group then it goes without saying that we are thick as thieves and we have each others’ backs in a moments notice.
Noelle’s son has Asperger’s, in a nut shell, these kids are often quite socially awkward but are sharp as a whip, have imaginations that will blow your mind and their thought processes are what we have to thank for many of the incredible inventions we have today. Noelle’s son Dylan is like a son to me and I adore him to no end. I am the only non-family member that is on the list of people who can pick him up or sign him out of school.
Because of their immensely creative minds, kids with Asperger’s often have the tendency to wander around their school buildings getting lost in all of the posters, bulletin boards, projects, etc. Noelle is just incredible when it comes to making sure that everyone that has anything to do with Dylan knows his tendencies and she clearly outlines her expectations for staff on how to handle these situations.
Now, to our story for the day – LOL
Mia and Dylan’s school is set-back quite a distance from the main road and has only one access road to get to the building. Also, I should add that just about all the kids in our district take the bus to and from school and there are maybe 20 parents who like me, refuse to let their kids ride the bus. Everyday we have to haul our asses into the building to physically pick our kids up for safety reasons. It is a pain in the ass but with all of the craziness that can go on these days, I’m ok with it. In fact, we have to sign them out and their names get read off at dismissal.
So, yesterday Bella and I are waiting to pick up Mia and hear Dylan’s name announced. Bella looked at me and said that she didn’t see Noelle there to pick up Dylan. So, I get on the cell and call Noelle at work to check on what Dylan’s status was for after school. He had some sort of club activity she said, but was curious as to why they read his name over the PA system because she never sent in a note or called that he would be picked up.
Now, let me just say that we special needs moms have a 6th sense and we just know when something doesn’t feel right. So, I told Noelle that I would just make sure he got to his club meeting and then head out. She appreciated it and we hung up. A few moments later both Mia and Dylan come around the corner, and he is, of course, all excited about his club meeting so I just told him that we would walk with him to the classroom. Thankfully we did, because there was no club meeting for this week. I got back on the phone with Noelle and asked her if she wanted us to bring him home and she was, as she always is, very grateful for our efforts and asked that we bring him home.
Now, I am not going to lie, I know I should have gone back to the office to sign him out but we were three-quarters of the way to the exit and after the morning I had yesterday, the thought of trudging ALL THE WAY back to the office with three kids in tow seemed ridiculous. Those idiots in the office had him listed as being picked up today anyway so what did it matter.
About half way home my cell rings and it is Noelle and she is PISSED but laughing. Apparently the school had just called her to tell her they couldn’t find Dylan and didn’t know where he was. Now special needs parent or not, if you are reading this you know darn well that making a call like that to a parent, any parent has to be a ball-buster. But to make *that* call to Noelle was like putting your nuggets in a slow-moving vice and asking the machinist to crank the speed up to ten!
We were laughing our asses off imagining at least five to eight faculty and staff members scouring the building looking for Dylan each one praying that they find him because telling Momma Bear that you lost her cub is pretty much a death wish. Noelle is the best in these situations because she just played passive-aggressive with them, “What do you mean you don’t know where Dylan is?” Then they explained the whole sordid story about him being on the list to be dismissed to a parent instead of taking the bus, etc. She let them squirm and asked how the hell they had him on that list because she never sent in any kind of note or even called about anything of this nature. The secretary was stumbling over her words, which Noelle let her do, smiling the entire time!
Then she sternly informed them that she knew where Dylan was and that she was thankful that I was there to protect her son and that he is safely in my care and on his way home. They didn’t dare ask why I didn’t sign him out because they knew that Noelle would back them right into a corner and crank that vice because they screwed up on all fronts!
I have heard similar stories from other special needs parents where these highly paid and purportedly highly trained educators have allowed special needs kids to wander off outside into the woods, etc. because the teachers were huddled in a little circle chit-chatting totally ignoring their responsibilities and then trying to turn it around on the special needs child.
This is one of the many things that piss me off about special education. They are like Congress, they constantly remind you that there are laws in place that are for your protection and safety yet when the law works against them they give you a deer-in-the-headlights look because you aren’t supposed to be as knowledgeable about these things as they are. They make huge leaps of faith that just because there is a law or policy on the books that somehow magically means that they are being implemented and followed.
Living On The Edge of Oz 