Samantha Drake: My Thoughts, My Words, My Life

 I would like to thank Bessie Lou for her questions about the progress being made with my son's school. I welcome any questions, comments, and responses.  I am glad to help any and everybody I can through my experiences and the information that I've lead as a result. 

My last post addressed the lack of order and structure in my 6 year old autistic son's kindergarten class.  Anybody who has autistic children understand the importance of structure.  Many autistic children like repetition and rarely like change.  When things are chaotic and disorderly an autistic child usually has a break down.  Well this lack of structure and chaos in the classroom has caused several break downs. I have gone to the school, had ARD meetings, contacted the assistant principal, met with the teacher, and there has been no resolution.  The school has even gone as far as to send me a discipline slip that stated my son called a teacher, "a stupid little B****." (Keep in mind my son doesn't speak in complete sentences, and so his putting together a sentence like this is highly unlikely.)   When I sent an e-mail to the teacher who wrote the slip and the principal who signed it confronting the inaccuracies on the slip I got no response. The teacher called me on the day the actual incident took place and I immediately e-mailed the resource teacher to call an ARD to review his behavior intervention program (BIP).  This is how I was able to remember the exact date the incident took place.  On the slip it was the wrong date.  Then I came to the school and spoke with the teacher about the incident that I was called about, at no time did she mention my son saying these things to her.  The second inconsistency I saw with the discipline slip was that it showed that it was filled out on April 10, and the slip wasn't post marked until April 23.  I find it very hard to believe that this incident happened on the 10th of April and they didn't bother to call, e-mail, or even send home the discipline slip until a week later.  Lastly the action taken lists an ARD being called, when in fact my son was suspended for two days for the real incident (not for using profanity with the teacher).

I am amazed at the lengths and deliberate lies that have been told on a 6 year old child.  I am extremely upset and discouraged when I encounter educators who behave in this way.  I will not stop fighting for my son.  He is an extremely bright little boy who will grow up and be a productive man.  It may take more work but he is worth it.