Editor Note: I started this back in December but never finished, so I'm finishing it now.
I'm Exhausted.
I know that I'm not alone and that my son has people who care about him and want him to do well, but it is really f-ing exhausting to keep hitting my head against the same wall. I've emailed my son's SPED teacher at least once a week asking questions, requesting help, and suggesting what needs to happen and I just don't understand why everything takes so much time!
You know what else I don't understand? This feeling that he needs to stand on his own two feet immediately. Like, why isn't he just advocating for himself? Well, gee, I don't know, maybe it's because he keeps hearing about "fairness" as in - it wouldn't be fair if you took the test in another room or for a second time, even though that's in his IEP. Maybe it's because he had a teacher in the 8th grade who told him that IEPs shouldn't be a thing and that he was just asking for special treatment.
Sidebar: I don't actually know what was said in that 8th-grade meeting with his teacher, I just know that he went in and advocated for himself and he came out screaming that he would never speak to that man again. The information about special treatment is what we were able to pull out of him.
Everyone is talking about the pandemic and the learning loss and the social-emotional impact on all students, so why are they not treating him like he's had learning loss and social-emotional impact from the pandemic? He isn't advocating for himself. Don't just say, you should advocate for yourself 16 year old who basically didn't have an 8th-grade year! Maybe start by reaching out to him. Build a relationship so he can have some trust in you! Say, "We want to teach you how to advocate for yourself. Here are some tools, and we will try to do this in a systematic way so that it's easier for you." Here is how to write an f-ing email!! Yeah, that's right, my kid will not read or write emails, so will someone at school please teach him some tools to do that?! Because me telling him and offering help is not WORKING!
In case you can't tell, December was HARD y'all. My son got a D+ in history (which he loves! He loves history! I'm not so sure about this particular class, but he does love history.) He got that D because he didn't complete a huge assignment in time and it was locked. He was told he could email it to the teacher before the term was over. So, he recorded an audio file with his thoughts on the assignment (which he has been allowed to do, but it hasn't really been defined specifically), but he had trouble attaching it to the email and then he tried linking it and whatever, the permissions were off and she couldn't listen to it. But she didn't let him know that until AFTER the term was over. She sent him a Google notification that she needed access after the last day of the term - but as I stated above with multiple exclamation points - HE DOESN'T READ HIS EMAIL!! So, she just didn't grade the assignment and gave him a D+. Now, I didn't figure this out until like 5 days later. Did she email me to tell me that this happened? Did she contact the SPED case manager to ask about this? Did she even mention this to my son when she saw him at the start of the new term? No...that would be a hard NO.
Fast Forward to this week, post break. We had an IEP meeting that felt, if not productive, at least validating. And we dropped Spanish and picked up American Sign Langauge (which they did in 1 day!). This is a load off our minds because I think Spanish was going to be a very heavy lift. So, that's where we are. We're still fighting, we're still working toward the teachers bridging that gap for him. Reaching out to him first so he maybe feels like someone cares.
Circling back to the title of this post - I'm with you, SPED Moms (and dads too, but in my experience, the dads don't feel it quite so viscerally), I'm here in solidarity with all of you. This is hard stuff. Lack of staff and lack of understanding in schools doesn't help. So - keep on keepin' on and know that you are not alone. 💪