It's all in the math

The intervening year ...

Pinnochio's brother was diagnosed with Asperger's (okay, which is a term no longer recognized by the powers that be, but I digress ...).  Pinnochio has been doing well, with some setbacks due to health issues, but otherwise has been ever-so-slowly transforming into a "real boy."  His brother seems to be devolving into a wooden boy, however, and this has taken quite a bit of adjustment and intervention.  Get out the strings!  There's a new puppet in town!

*blech*

Last year, our local school district was sued by outside entities for mishandling special education students, so they willingly gave us another settlement agreement to progress Pinnochio's furtherance into real boy status without any ado.  We literally have data coming out of our wazoos demonstrating how well Pinnochio has progressed this year.

So for kicks and giggles ...

We recently attended Pinnochio's IEP meeting.  The superintendent had resigned and the special ed director quit because of the law suit.  New players, come to the table! 

 Ahhh ... but are they so new?  From where I sat at the meeting, they looked to be exactly the same.  Same cold glare, same lack of conscience, same missing heart.   Seriously, do school administrators take a course in "How to Manipulate and Intimidate Parents"?  Thankfully, I took the counter-course in "How to Give It Right Back to 'Em," so we were more or less equally matched.  The difference, of course, is that while those same evil administrators are sleeping snugly in their cocoons right now, I am up sipping coffee and trying my best not to wish a plague of autism against their houses.

The next step ...

I left the IEP meeting and contacted our specal education attorney.  Of course, I had to leave a voicemail for her.  I waited 2 days - a lifetime to someone awaiting a NOREP in the mail - and finally broke down and sent the attorney an email.  I have not heard back from her yet, but continue to say my prayers and cross various appendages that she will be available to represent us yet again.

The lie that no one outside of special education understands is believing that the school exists to educate one's children to the best of their potential.  I am here to tell you ... this is absolutely not the case from the perspective of the administrators.  For them, special education students exist for federal funding ... a child sitting quietly behind his desk will be pushed forward through each grade until he has reached graduation age, irregardless of what he has learned.  The more sitting behind a desk the student does, the more federal money in the school coffers.  It is a simple equation, really ... too bad the school is not willing to teach my son math.