Last year around November and December, the Monkey was restrained 4 times at school.

Due to his OCD, changes in his routine are intense.

It started with his iPad.

He typically gets to his class,  iPad in the charging station, grabs it, sits down in his desk, and starts the day. His iPad has his communication app where he is able to use it for his needs. It also has YouTube where he is able to watch cartoons until class starts and he has to log off.

This particular day, his iPad was not there. All iPads were not there. They were taken by the IT department for upgrades. But staff was not aware and therefore were not able to find them. During this time, the Monkey was trying so hard to regulate and calm down.  But as time passed on, more and more, he eventually hit his breaking point and wanted to hurt his teacher. His teacher and paraprofessionals were trying to help him by explaining the situation or finding other things to distract him. But it didn’t work. The staff had to get the other kids out of the class so they wouldn’t be harmed, and security was called. He was restrained by an adult male who was not certified to restrain him.

This was the first restraint. 

Then it happened again 3 more times within a few weeks.

To say it was a very difficult time is an understatement.

State law grants parents the right to see the video footage.  So I requested to see it. My intention was to see what happened so that I’d be able to help his teachers and see what we could do to stop this.

I have always said I am not an autism specialist, but I am a specialist of my son. I know his triggers, and I see things that others may not.  I felt working closely with his teacher we could pinpoint ways to work with him. 

Also the Monkey goes to school half time, and the other half he goes to ABA therapy. He has had his therapist for 3 years now. She’s amazing! She’s become part of our village. She knows my son, and we work very closely to assist him. They share a beautiful bond. 

There are two ways to assist when changes to his routine are involved. First, if the change isn’t really needed, I try to work with his school to keep it as before so he doesn’t struggle. But this is real life where change is a constant. So we work with his ABA therapist to help him through the changes. Our ABA therapist, Ms. K, is an amazing person. She will work on social stories for him, talk to him about scenarios and show him how to act next time.  She will walk him through situations and help him with certain triggers. This is an intense process but she does it in a way that he doesn’t see it as work, but as simply a friend helping him out.  It’s beautiful to see them work. 

The first step in the school’s process to request to view the footage, parents have to allege staff misconduct. If we don’t, we can’t proceed.  How can I allege misconduct since I haven’t seen the footage?  This first step is a deterrent to keep parents from continuing with the request. It also places the school staff and the parents pinned against each other.

After doing this, I had to navigate multiple steps of submissions, various, Level 1 through 3 complaint process, hearings, emails, and many phone calls.

Finally, last week, after 10 months, we received our hearing date before the school board to state our complaint.

The board decided in our favor.

I was extremely surprised. To me quite frank, I was shocked.

I can speculate why this was done. One of the reasons why I feel this happened is due to having our hearing to be public. They wanted it behind closed doors, but we were adamant. We wanted others to know our struggle. I am not sure if this is the reason.  But whatever it was, we won. 

Ten months.

Ten months of paper work.  Ten months of calls.  Ten months of emails.  Ten months of forms to fill out. Ten months of waiting. 

And now we are here.

It’s 2 a.m. right now, and in 7 hours my husband and I will see the tapes.

In the beginning of this request, we were told that each video was reviewed by a committee comprised of school district employees and that they concluded there was no misconduct by the staff.

But these questions have kept me up all night. 

If there was no misconduct, why make this so difficult?

Why not let us see the videos in the first place?

As far as assisting or son, this video won’t help us much. Since almost a year has passed, it won’t help us make a plan with his therapist and the teachers to see how we can help him. Getting a social story together and talking to him to assist him won’t help. The Monkey’s cognitive skills are very low, and we won’t be able to say, “Remember back in November when this happened? Well, we want to talk about it to help you sort this out.”  Although this was our intent from the beginning. 

But we still need to see the videos. 

My husband told me that he’s had sleepless nights thinking about the videos since this process started. I hadn’t let myself go there and think intrusive thoughts. At the time, I was only focused on the battle of the beuracracy just to get the permission to see the videos.

But now that we are here, my mind can’t stop thinking of what we are going to see. And how there’s a huge possibility that our hearts will be shattered. I am hoping we are proved wrong. And that the people we have entrusted our nonverbal special needs son actually tried to assist him during his most difficult and vulnerable moments.  I’m hoping they were patient and kind and did what they have been trained to do.

But the other possibility exists too.

That in his most vulnerable moment, he was not treated with the care and compassion he deserved.

To be continued.