Share/BookmarkAs you may or may not be aware of, we are in the process of having to locating 2 new schools. What’s that you say? We already have enough on our plates? Ding Ding, we have a winner. You are absolutely correct but we have little choice in the matter. Elliott’s previous school has decided that they cannot educate a child with Autism. In a last ditch effort to try to talk to someone about it I sent a certified letter. My emails and phone calls have gone unreturned and my face to face attempts to talk to someone have been fruitless. The really frustrating part is that our hands are pretty much tied unless we move. Canton City Schools is our only choice right now and that school system as a whole, leaves much to be desired. Canton City Schools, as you may recall, is the School System that “abused” Gavin and refused to follow his IEP. We have always said that it will be a cold day in hell before we EVER send another child to this school and yet here we are.
Emmett has aged out of early intervention as of his 3rd birthday, this past June 26th. I attended the ERT and IEP meetings myself as Lizze was otherwise occupied with Akron Children’s Hospital during Gavin’s admission last month to the psych unit. Dividing and conquering has it’s advantages but in this particular case it would have been better if we had both been there. Basically, the school is not qualifying Emmett for services under the Autism diagnosis. They basically said that the ONLY thing he needs or qualifies for services under is speech and language, which is complete BS. I explained that Emmett struggles in more the just speech and language but they wouldn’t hear it. I refused to agree with the ERT and checked the box for disagree and we went on to the IEP. The IEP was based on the results of the ERT and so it was focused on speech and language. I agreed with what they were offering for speech and language but I didn’t agree with him being mainstreamed. I got them to agree to an integrated classroom with a mixed population of IEP kids and “typical” kids. They informed me what school he would be going to and that was basically it. I once again expressed my concerns about their assessment and I completely disagreed with the fact that they don’t consider Emmett, diagnosed with PPD-NOS/Autism Spectrum Disorder to be Autistic. That just kills me and frustrates the hell out of me as well. When I arrived home and finally met up with Lizze she did some digging around. Turns out that the school they are sending Emmett to is just about as bad as it gets. So the idea of sending our son to this Canton City school is an ABSOLUTE last resort.
Elliott and Emmett are in the market for new schools. In many ways it has to do with a lack of understanding as to what Autism or Aspergers really is. One would think that a school system charged with our children’s future would be a bit more up to speed. I still hope to hear from Elliott’s school and be able to actually talk to someone about this and try to work something out as the school is what’s best for Elliott. We have looked into open enrollment but it’s not an option for several reasons. If a nearby school system participates in open enrollment they either charge an outragous amount for tuition or only open enroll in the Spring, without exceptions. So we are feeling backed into a corner and without many, if any options. We have begun looking at new locations to move to should we get the opportunity to move but we honestly struggle keeping up with where we are now at times so moving may be something we just could not manage.
With everything else we have going on right now, school shopping is the LAST thing we needed to worry about and we are just about out of time. No pressure right..
[...] This has recently impacted us in a major way on the educational front with Elliott and Emmett both. [...]