A Special Kind of Angel

I checked in at my friend Cathy's webpage yesterday.  Cathy is a special ed teacher who kept having IEP meetings--lots of them--even as she struggled with a bout of laryngitis.  IEP meetings are hugely important to children with special needs and their families.   I am not surprised she did that.  Special Ed teachers, at least the ones I know, are a special kind of angel.

For months, Spouseman and I have struggled to keep fear in line, looking ahead to the options Light of My Life was facing coming to the end of 5th grade.   Middle School is an awful concept as far as I'm concerned.  Why in heavens name isolate and magnify the very worst of puberty into one institutional concrete box?  I remember going through that period in a school that ran from pre-k to 12th grade. Being part of something bigger helped even 7th and 8th graders keep a sense of perspective.  Middle School doesn't.  I've heard the really good middle school teachers say they don't even worry about what middle schoolers learn, as long as they can keep them positive, engaged and motivated.  There's so much bullying.  I could go on and on.  In our case, it also means the end of a truly magnificent support system for our child with special needs.  All the cost-cutting and disinvestment in education, at least in Florida, means that getting to middle school means pretty much being told "you are on your own; sink or swim".  I struggled with the possibility of homeschooling my child, I kept trying to figure out what a viable alternative might be.

Then about 2 weeks ago, Spouseman and I met with her Special Ed team.  We were able to discuss our concern that a child who looks, acts, thinks and is the size of about a 7 year-old, having to navigate classes and halls, having to be completely mainstreamed after 4 years in a special ed cluster, is being set up for monumental failure.  We acknowledged that because LoML was retained in the 3rd grade, she would normally not be eligible to be retained another year.  But we laid out why that was the best option we could find. 

Here's the thing.  We were in a room surrounded by people with heart.  It is so easy to dismiss these school folks as bureaucrats.  But there were people with heart and genuine love for our daughter talking through alternatives, running into some dead ends, stopping, pulling back, looking at other options and hanging in with us to find the way we could best serve this funny, beautiful, fragile child.  In the end, we had a plan that felt so incredibly right and good for LoML that it blew us all away.  The whole room was literally giddy.  As we got ready to leave, LoML's ESE specialist  a tall, lanky, quiet guy who remembers LoML at one of her very worst moments of behavioral meltdown, hugged me with tears in his eyes.  "I can rest now because we've done right by her."

Spouseman and I thanked everyone.  We got back in the car to leave and both just wept.  So, to my friend Cathy, who had no voice but was still the voice of little kids who really have no voice, I say thank you.  To our friends at Stephen Foster and the Broward County School System:  thank you.  The light is still stronger than the darkness.

Comments

[Songbird]

I'm so glad for all of you.

[Cathy]

Rosa - thank you - I am quite honored - it's not easy being a special ed teacher. Then again, it's one of the most rewarding even on the toughest of days. I am so glad that your IEP meeting ended with LoML's best interest in mind. I look forward to hearing more about it soon!