To anyone interested in individual educational needs and child safety:
I am sick and tired of having to fight for every little item necessary for my child to get an education within the Independence School District. I am sick and tired of being lied to and played a fool because I am not a district employee educated in the game playing tactics that only district employees are taught. These tactics are used as often as possible to prevent from giving each child the individual education they are entitled. I am sick and tired of the Independence School District placing my son, his safety, his well-being, his education, his overall needs and rights aside in order to meet their own needs. I am sick of them using privacy laws to keep parents apart, and being told I am not allowed to drop in and check on my child at school, do to the privacy laws.
Someone out there is accountable for what is happening within this district. The schools, the district, the board, the state; who is going to stand up and be accountable for all these children?
I have started with the school, they see no problems. Then you go to the district, they lie and cover problems with the fact that they know the laws, or at least the way around them. Then director, he doesn’t know how to respond to any letter sent his way. The board, they must have taught the director, for they too do not return calls, e-mails, and letters. The state, well they return calls, but they are not there to help the child. They are there to make the schools look good.
So, again, I ask who is accountable for trying to force a parent to leave their child at a place that employs a person that has offended the parent, making that parent feel their child would not be safe in that persons care. Tell me a parent that would leave their child anywhere after getting such a feeling?
Who is accountable for allowing the school to decide that a child doesn’t need an education, but life skills is what is best for that child?
Who is accountable for allowing a severe and profound school to not have to employee therapists proficiently trained to teach the wide range of severe and profound children?
How is it that strangers who continue to prove they do not care for the children or their individual needs is given the right to choose what is best for them? And beyond that, how is it that they teach their staff to say one thing and do another when not in the parents company?
How is it that education and medical are two different things? You need a script to perform therapies for our children and yet when a doctor produces medical advice you do not have to honor it?
Our governments may have taken away monies from the schools causing them to be crafty in finding new ways to educate our kids, but if you place monies and politics before the kids, then you continue to take away the kids’ rights to free and appropriate educations based on their individual needs so that no child is left behind. You must make all decisions based on the reason behind the educational field, not every based on the paycheck.
Schools, districts, boards, states; not one of these agencies has the right to choose what is best for a child that is not their own; not one of you can ever make a decision stating factual needs without attempting to stand in the shoes of each individual and their family. I know you do not have the time for that on a regular basis; unless you are actually attending an individual educational plan meeting with open ears and minds and the true bets interest of the child at heart.
My son is not in school today because the Independence School District has chosen not to educate him based on his true individual needs, but based on their needs. He needs to be in a safe environment; since he is non-verbal and non-mobile child, so I must be sure that I am placing him in a safe environment. It would be child endangerment if I didn’t. My son deserves an education. He has proven to not just need life skills, to all but the school. He has even been proven to be ready to implement a new voice thru his Dynavox 5 that Medicaid dished out $9000.00 for after seeing his ability. I would assume that the only school in the Independence School District for the severe and profound would already be staffed with personnel proficiently trained in the wide range of techniques necessary for each severe and profound individual child’s needs. Especially considering these children are so wide spread with all the different named disabilities in this world. Imagine my amazement in learning that such a school only has to employ therapists trained with basic skills. Sad to learn a voice is a basic and unnecessary proficient speech need for a non-verbal child capable of such a task. My 4 year old who needs basic speech is taught by a therapist with the same credentials as my severely disabled, non-verbal child. I have had outside therapists and evaluations, even school staff all state that my child is very distractible, needing constant reminders to stay on task, but yet the school does not feel he needs a one-on-one aide to meet his needs. They have 6 kids to 4 teachers, so they can meet his needs every minute that he is in school. He needs constant reminders, but not constant help, or is there no constant tasks since he only needs life skills. Maybe that is why my happy go lucky man spends so much time pushed aside. Since he can’t walk, crawl, push himself, or even speak to someone to get constant attention, then he doesn’t need constant attention. Last year one girl did everything to get that attention, and then later in the year another girl came demanding that attention; together, those girls got the constant attention the desired. I know my son desires it; but because he is just happy to be around other kids hearing voices other than family, his needs can and are pushed aside for the sake of the needs of the school.
So, again, who is going to hold the Independence School District, Board and State accountable for what they do on a daily basis to prevent my child from getting the individual education he needs and deserves based on his individual needs?
