Today will be a rough day. Today is our ARD meeting at school. My son has been acting out almost every day since he was assaulted by his teacher. Almost every day we get a call from the school stating he is hitting or biting his teachers. Just last week the principal called me again to say he bit his teacher and in the process almost hit a student. And I keep telling her that he doesn’t act like this at home. That these new behaviors are the result of what happened to him. I…n the school environment, he is trying to protect himself from what he sees are threats. She explained to me that there are no more threats since the teacher has been let go, but she needs to understand that my son still feels threatened in this environment.
Today the district’s psychiatrist will also be there. Last week, I was asked if I authorized her to evaluate my son. I told them before she evaluates him, I’d like to speak with her. When she called me, I told her what had happened to my son and how he has been acting since his teacher did this to him. She said she had no idea and that the school’s policy is not to share these types of situations to her. This is when I asked her, “How are you supposed to evaluate my son if you don’t understand the entire picture? If all you hear is that my son is acting out and you don’t understand the reasons for this, how are you supposed to fully analyze him?” But after I told her what had happened and how we have been struggling with him since, she said she would take all of these things under consideration and would give us her assessment today.
The long term substitute that we have is a sweet heart. They threw her into this mess and she has been trying so hard to assist us in every way. Unfortunately, we have come to realize that we need a more experienced teacher. We need an actual teacher who is certified in special education and understands what changes to implement so that my son can come back from this slump that he is currently in. My son needs someone that will be able to help him and unfortunately, this sub isn’t able to. This weekend we talked to our old physical therapist. She specializes in children with autism and has been our go to person ever since. We explained to her our situation and that’s the first thing she pointed out. This substitute doesn’t have the expertise to assist in this situation. My son needs someone with training and we will be requesting this today.
We will be up against a district who tries to hide what happened to my son and is trying to simply move on. Unfortunately, my son is having such a difficult time to do just that.
I know that today my job will be to fight for him, for his well-being, for his success.
So today will be a rough day.
Monkeynism AKA Autism 