It’s one of those situations I can’t figure out. Are the school systems in Georgia retaliating against parents more, or are we just learning about it more? Are the systems upping the ante on those parents who advocate for their children receiving special education services OR are those parents becoming more vocal about the wrongs that have always been done to them?

I honestly don’t know. But I have a hard time hearing about it…because it is happening so much and in so many different ways, all over the state. Readers here indicate that it’s happening nationally as well.

Yesterday’s retaliation news in my world was learning that a family had been turned into DFCS by school officials for neglect because they refused to give their child medication for ADHD. (School officials insisting that parents medicate children is illegal, by the way, but apparently frequently occurs anyway.) The family is now being investigated by DFCS, and the mother has been accused by school personnel of Munchausens Syndrome by Proxy. HUH? Those of us in the foster/adopt world know what havoc unfounded allegations of abuse/neglect can wreak on our homes. We’ve heard the horror stories; and apparently this maneuver is happening more and more. What did these parents do to warrant such an allegation? Request an evaluation of their child for special education services.

Are you blown away yet?

On the same day came the news of an 8-hour re-evaluation meeting at another school system, where when the parent requested an independent educational evaluation, the school officials berated her and extended the meeting to last all these hours. This is a tactic I’m intimately familiar with – having what should have been a 30 minute eligibility meeting stretch into 4+ hours because I was paying my daughter’s attorney to be there with us. What an incredible waste of taxpayer money for all these highly paid administrators to sit in a room berating a parent all day.

Then there are the truancy charges filed against parents who seek medical homebound placements after their children have been injured or traumatized at school and their doctors advise them that the safest place for their child is at home.

And this is just what the systems are doing to the PARENTS; I’m not even detailing what the systems are doing to the children – improper restraints, suspensions, isolation, verbal abuse…the list goes on and on.

I can barely take in this information on a daily basis. It seems to be increasing, and it’s overwhelming to know so many parents are struggling to secure what parents of children without disabilities take for granted as a right…a free public education.

It’s easy to victimize those who are already victims – those who are already in a position of vulnerability. Children with disabilities and their parents are definitely in that category. And frankly, who has the time or money to fight? I know first hand how out numbered you are in such a fight. I wish you all could see my office – piles of papers and notebooks scattered everywhere. It is organized chaos that someday (yea right) I’ll find the time to actually file and catalog. Meanwhile, I do what I can to quickly organize the truckloads of IEPs, court documents, research and other paperwork accumulated on our own special ed journey. It has to be organized somehow, because I do need to find things. Yet, I don’t have administrative assistants and aides to help with that process, nor do I really have 8 hours to waste in a meeting, not collecting any salary, while paying both attorney fees and babysitters to care for my child.

So they’ve got me…there is little I can do to continue to fight on that front, while also being tasked with educating my daughter here at home. After all, that is the bottom line…getting LuLu the education she deserves so she’s able to grow up and live an independent life.

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