They. Work. For. Us. Legislating Change.

So the governor's office hung up on me. There had been no contentious exchange, unreasonable language or offensive content. After stating the purpose of the call a pleasant man said " I'll find someone to help you ". Purpose of the call? To ascertain why in blazes people who work for us are allowed to deny our children their education and once in awhile, their lives. It seemed harmless. I'm fairly sure being put on hold for 25 minutes constitutes a hang up.




Someone else who works for us was awfully surprised to hear from me. " I think we spoke back in 2015 " said she. Why yes, yes we did and I've been in touch as noisily as possible in the interim. My kid nearly died as a result of being pitched into the Special Education process's  murky depths. We're, er,  irked. There was a snitty exchange of pleasantries based ( I think ) on why on earth I'd be calling. " You seem to have gone through all the correct channels " meaning ( again, I think ) we'd exhausted what abysmal recourse there may be for parents objecting to a public school's ability to a. deny your kid their education b. re-diagnose your kid, I mean practice medicine without a license  c. force parents into litigation d. apply litigious , costly layers of misinformed shellac to your kid's educational records. There's an 'e'. Paying for everyone's salaries while they do it. They work for us albeit not noticeably.




It should make us feel better knowing we're not alone. That's a whole lot of Nope. If you can still afford the internet after paying for your child's medical and/or mental health treatment and a few massive legal bills try Googling " What in hell is an IEP ". Or LRE or 504 or how much does it all cost? What you can't find is WHY frantic parents are plunged into Special Ed's dark underbelly. You'll find a plethora of company and no, it doesn't make you feel better. It makes you ill. That schools may operate within some specialized category outside the law, with impunity, should make everyone sick. The few who aren't ill are a little busy. They're counting all your money, who has time to vomit?






We, the tax payers  employ all these people in whatever capacity for which they raised their hands as our children's caretakers. If any one of us betrayed our children to the extent permissible by this system we'd have CPS on our porch and should. As bosses, i.e. the folks who write the checks it's our job to oversee our employees. That'd be anyone paid with our tax dollars- they work for us.


Legislating new laws as an overlay to those already written seems a further waste of company funds but ok. Having been flatly ignored by every, single employee with whom we've communicated it's past time for a group effort. I have no clue how one goes about the process of organizing a grass roots movement. There's always a first step dependent on outraged citizenry. Again, Google " What in hell is an IEP ". You'll find plenty of outraged citizenry.




What do we want?


Special Education put directly into the hands of our excellent Special Education teachers, The End.

Schools may not re-diagnose your child, medical and mental health diagnosis by a student's private, professional care givers may not be challenged.

Lawyers may not be employed in any part of the Special Education process. If need arises these attorneys must be certified in the field. No such certification now exists.

Psychological evaluations are obtained from a student's private caregivers, school psychologists play no part.

Oversight is in place to monitor and ensure cooperation by schools.

IF a public school insists on using tax payer dollars in order to litigate a child's placement, and equal amount of tax dollars spent on the school attorney is given to the child's family for their legal bills.

Disciplinary action will be taken against any school administrator attempting to deny a student their education.

A department devoted to direct oversight and enforcing laws created. This department steps in when need arises as the parental recourse when schools overstep civil rights. No ' file a complaint ', no mediation ( which schools may refuse to do now, as it stands ), hearings.

Unless required as part of a student's daily care, schools may have NO access to, nor request a student's medical and/or mental health records.

The present system is so entrenched it's an accepted, confusing, multi-layered, expensive and frequently dangerous mess. Everything can change. We used to stuff children into factories, coal mines and heck, brothels. That changed because someone finally got the idea public officials Work For Us. Having stuffed them into schools, it's past time for our tax payer funded employees to remember it again.


It may sound like a lot. There's a lot to do.




You. Work. For. Us. So fix it because we're not going away and will be hanging around in irked masses until you do.




Sign up. There will be a better format soon.

Pennsylvania Schools, Solving Over Population One Kid At A Time

We called, wrote, contacted offices, pleaded and begged. Like idiots. Mental health professionals took a suicidal kid, patched him up, sent him into the world and schools ( and lawyers ) broke him again. If they'd been wrecking cars we'd never have been able to get insurance. It was just a kid. As everyone knows here in PA they're around half the Blue Book value of cars. Right? Transpires it was ' just ' our kid times more than we anyone can know. Scattered around like the litter these kids seem to be considered, they have no voice, parents have no strength against a barbaric, corrupt tsunami.


We've lost our last kid. Ours is still here thanks solely to his own strength and the mental and human services professionals who have endless skill and a LOT of glue. I don't want to think of those not here anymore but we must. If teen suicide was a disease, like meningitis, there'd be vaccines mandated, quarantines and an emergency declared. You know why, right? it's their kids too- the suicidal kids are only ours. The thing is, there are a LOT of ' us '.






Dear Sir, Madam and Other Folks,




We have wasted hundreds maybe thousands of hours trying to get someone's attention. Suicide and our children. And our schools and tax dollars spent to kill our kids. I am not kidding, I am not an hysterical female, I am not exaggerating. That'd be great. Wish I were. Our schools are literally KILLING THESE KIDS. If it were as easy as pulling teeth, getting this governor's office attention, It'd be a relief. Teeth we can do. This is not ' just ' about one child. In Pennsylvania, as you know, children are disposable. We know because ours is soggy and circling the drain. PA kids are like toilet paper. Use and flush. Let one school district get their hands on one, the entire flock of buzzards flies down, picks them apart and there are no bones left to bury.




Swear to God ( the real one, of Our Father Who Art fame ) I'm headed to DC. I'll sit in Mueller's waiting room until he's done with his present batch of putrid corrupt politicians, thugs, crooks and assorted criminals, with our large smelly Pennsylvania box. We'll give the poor man a few minutes as a breather and knock on the door. Swear by every religious holy book this earth ever carved, printed and ritualized I'm not coming out of that office until someone promises TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT OUR SCHOOLS KILLING THESE KIDS.




It is real. It is criminal. Suicidal children are a source of income for lawyers, a point of contention for schools and a terrific straw with which to drain tax payer funded school budgets. . They also fall outside any protection their ( state mandated ) caregivers may offer, how's that for scary? It cost our family 50K so far to try to keep our kid alive. It's part of their fun, lucrative game.  Billable hours rack up when you're trying to keep a kid alive. Like domestic relations court, who wants anyone to get along? There's no profit. ? We actually had a school try to press truancy charges at one point, when he was in a psych ward. So- mandatory attendance v. suicidal kid v. the school's ability to claim there's nothing wrong with a suicidal kid. Trifecta. So... you tell a suicidal kid he's not. See how many hours he's alive. But no one is charged with murder. I want to know why. Tell you what. If we had lost this kid, I'd have filed in every, single court, every, single crime committed against a child.  Murder. I'd have screamed all the way from California to Maine to Florida to Alaska. It's too serious to be flip- murder. We could still lose him.




That time, his psyche admission was because the school was attacking his status as a suicidal kid. Yep. Shocking? Nothing shocks me any more. Not the mess in reptile infested swamp Washington, DC, not the vermin supporting those reptiles, not the well-lined pockets weighing down officers of the court- nothing. Especially not-shocking? Kidnapped kids in government detention camps. Nope. Given what we saw? What would have been shocking to the point of incredulity would have been this government treating children as if they were, well, their own. Heavens. But I didn't mean to accuse anyone of potential kindness resulting from any such scenario. Sorry.




Our government- i.e. our school had several very commendable shots at killing our kid. Really, kudos. Only one was so blatant as to be a direct physical attack but they got a little sloppy after awhile. This kid must have been a little frustrating for everyone. He just wouldn't agree to die.  What gall? The others? Tax payer funded lawyers fed from school districts' bottomless financial aquifers were not able to quite suck it dry but hey- always the next kid. Yep. That there was a next kid is a big, fat problem. That we met quite a few parents from this district with pretty much the same story is  a HUGE, dangerous problem. And a class action suit.




" A class action lawsuit is one in which a group of people with the same or similar injuries caused by the same product or action sue the defendant as a group. " Interesting.




Well, it's both but at least a class action suit would sure make things interesting in big hurry. Seem to be quite a few folks who don't have a problem parting with other people's children. Parting with money? A whole, ' nother story. That'd suck huh?




You know that oleaginous, symbiotic  relationship existing school admin and lawyers? I mean the oleaginous, symbiotic relationship between lawyers and OUR tax dollars? The one where they get to discuss details in something called ' executive sessions ' where the public can't peek ( despite that pesky law? )  That. It's called a "floating budget". You can see why.  It floats strongly downhill, from admin to law firm, that's why it's called a floating budget, yep, yep little know fact. If I just made that up all that means is I'd make a terrific lawyer. Add a big stick with nails pounded into it, a check book and a weasley vocabulary, I'd be a terrific school administrator.




Look. This happy little missive will not make a blind bit of difference. We know that- there's been a bunch of years where screaming silence just got louder and lawyers got wealthier.  Correlation?  We asked. Then asked again. Again. Then pleaded. Pleaded more. Begging piteously for someone to step in and quite literally save a kid from dying went on for awhile. We were privileged meanwhile to behold let's see, anti-bullying programs, some hazy ' safe sc hools ' proposal, once in awhile lip service paid to teen suicide. Oh, and ' thoughts and prayers'.


Where's Truman's buck when kids would like to live awhile longer? Who IS the someone?  I know. Too many bucks floating downstream, fetid chunks bobbing in law office account books, that's where. Kids For Cash. It's here. We saw it.




Here's the deal. Teens commit suicide at rates unfathomable because no one cares. There's a price on your kid's head. Here's another deal. You hold your kid's hand in the watch hours of the night, with a phone on the pillow connected to his sister, too- both hoping he can't slip away and kill himself. You do that. You lay on the floor of the ER observation room for 24 hours with your kid, under fluorescent light, while a genuine professional searches frantically for a bed in a psych unit. You follow the ambulance there. Then. You listen to your school, it's alleged psychologist, it's lawyers, school board and assorted scumbuckets tell you all about how there's nothing at all wrong with this kid. You might be privy to whatever back room deal where billable hours changed hands but you're too busy visiting your kid in yet another psyche ward. You do that.




You people times my kid's story by 100's. Times their faces, families, stories and pain. They're all different, terrifyingly so. Our son? Honor roll athlete, never in trouble, quiet, funny, bright and kind. 4th kid through PA's system. Then he became ill. We hadn't had a previous look at PA's corrupt underbelly. It's like maggots found it so repulsive they left it alone so it's still in the middle of the road.  Legislative, legal road kill. You know, just because graft, greed, corruption, cruelty and barbarism is possible to pull off doesn't mean ' please line up '. It means someone please stop it. ' Safe Schools. Please. Oxymoronic, heavy emphasis on moronic.




I've been to auctions where broken down horses were sold. There's an avaricious gleam you get to recognize when there's a chance to make a few bucks, however sordid.  We saw that, exact thing. That we've told you people these kids are literally being bought and sold without one response over years worth of contacts is terrifying.




Pennsylvania. Taking care of the planet's over population problem. One kid at a time. There's your license plate.


Sincerely,


A Parent

Your Pennsylvania Student's Suicide Is Big Business Or, What's A Dead Kid Between Scumbuckets?

Suicidal teens. Once in awhile a particularly horrendous story hits media. We'll pay attention, sigh, send thoughts and prayer then forget it again. We know why so many choose this awful alternative to pain. We know how to prevent it, mostly. We know much more than any time in history how to identify, treat and plain, old love these kids back from that dark end. And they're still doing it by awful numbers. Kids seem to me to be incredibly logical. ' This pain has no end. So I'll go away. '


What we're doing is so barbaric, for each teen we lose there should be accountability. These are children. Suicidal kids do not get there alone, how would they? Adults, and no, not parents alone have impacted a child's life with such extraordinary cruelty they make the decision not to stick around. When it's on purpose it's murder. There's no other word for it. When the kid manages to survive? Attempted murder. If the outcome of what we DO to kids during custody ' battles ' for instance, better believe a lawyer is culpable too. There's no law against legal bullying. Interesting.


What pain, why is it unrelenting, why are we still losing our children? If we have the tools, why isn't it a crime to NOT step in before they've gone away forever? Seems criminal to me but I'm no expert on law. Thankfully. As usual, the kids are right. Not in their final decision to get the heck outa here, it's their beautiful simplicity. Bet a gajillion dirty bucks each one carefully explained their pain, bet each one was failed horribly somewhere if not everywhere, bet behind each one a parent screamed into the wind for help. From someone, anyone. Help? Yes, it's there- professionals pull these kids back from That Day all the time. But. If we don't remove the source of their pain, we're using the mental health system as a garage. Broke the kid, fix the fix, send him out there for more. It's not the mental health professionals bleeding for each one lost, it's the barbaric institutions around here carefully turning kids into wreckage.




Any time there's an apparently baffling lack of movement over humanitarian crisis, part the curtain. Little men and more bafflingly a few women  behind it slapping hands, counting cash and popping corks may resent the intrusion but look anyway. Best, glaring, bit of illustrative porn would be our- because they're allllll ours, people- children in er, ' retention camps '. New orphans created for the sole purpose of generating income. Immigration? Nope. There are government contracts and billable hours nicely generated by a simple, successful call to hate. Racism. Smoke and mirrors albeit wildly effective. Who doesn't want to hate brown people? Better, brown kids, what's not to hate, America?


Promise this has relevance to suicidal children, not that there aren't quite a few headed that way. Being kidnapped is thought to be bad for them, who knew? . But they're just kids. What do they know?  Hang on. They're your kids.




You know how a dangerous intersection has to be the scene of ' x' amount of fatalities before it qualifies for a stop light? They call it statistics. ' X ' died in some bloody fashion because it's a stupid place not to have a stop light. XXXXXX and X all had to go as well as XXX, the one removing the mom and 2 kids. Guess what. They've had their last X at this intersection. My kid is no one's X. He has a name. Not anyone's kid will be X'd the blazes outa here because billable hours and corruption make dandy lovers.




 Kids have no power, no voice, ( which is pretty much the whole point of gazillions in billable hours, in custody court, a whole, ' nother story ) no ability to defend themselves. It's been revealing. Your child is vulnerable, they're just taking out the brown kids first. Think about it. The most vulnerable little money makers disappear first. Those victims  are gone, now what,  huh? That's it, stuff  children under the handy ' criminal ' heading, rest is easy. That way, the white population screaming brown, bloody murder over ' immigration ' will have no choice but to follow this particularly putrid train of logic to the end. That would be watching while your kids are bought and sold too. That isn't an extreme statement. it's just what is.


It's like a billable blueprint.  We're all in this together only hate occludes vision.  Worst feature is, all the ubiquitous ' theys ' out there know it. So not so fast, screamers- ' My kid's white. She has a big test in honor's bio tomorrow, needs her sleep. Go away and while you're at it, take those brown kids with you. " The Trail of Tears " isn't history. We're just out of Native Americans to murder and shove around, our black citizens tend to shove back, elderly are mostly squished into nursing home beds, our Jewish population packs a punch- who's the next voiceless population? Once they've run through all the rest of brown folks- your kids are bringing up the rear. Picking them off is almost too easy. Isn't it?






" What's the difference between a rattlesnake and a lawyer? "


answer  " Rattlesnakes aren't really slimy. They just look that way. "


Too easy I know. Just made that up.




answer " Three years of law school "


Can't be the only person coming up with that.




answer " Rattlesnakes don't take phone calls. Oh wait. "




answer " Rattlesnakes take you out for free. "




Rattlesnake; " Alright, very funny. Ha. Ha. Are you people finished? It's not all joy out here y'know. Frogs taste terrible, those dam hawks are everywhere, rock mattresses suck and when some moron steps on us, everyone gets upset. You'd bite someone who stepped on your head, too.  Now we're dragged into this lawyer conversation? Just thanks. Go pick on the skunks. Rabid, smell up the place,  short sighted, eat worms and they're not very bright. Sounds like a better match. "They'll bite you too, don't say I didn't warn you. Just go away. "






We know an attorney who goes right up a scorching wall over lawyer jokes. I can see his point, mostly. Firm does endless, tireless pro bono work. Jokes aren't reflective of his ethical standards. These are indeed wonderful. Still, being one of the brethren it cannot have escaped his notice what in blazes peers are up to.  It was terrific seeing attorneys show up at airports, too, ensuring Trump's blockade didn't give him quite the thrill he'd been going for. But. This profession  managed to claim the right to ' police itself 'and put themselves outside the law ( irony so strong you can taste ferrous metal ) like some branch of special forces in a 3rd world nation presided over by a series of tin pot dictators. 'Ethical lawyer' may sound oxymoronic ( again, oh the irony ) ; there are a few. Pennsylvania's may be absent, on  tour with  Smithsonian's rare species exhibit but they're around. I suspect one withdrew rather than participate in a blood bath that almost killed our kid ( twice ). You can't contact her though. It'd be unethical.






What IF  bar associations meant it? Take a look at prosecutions and disciplinary actions taken when an er, investigation is launched over a filed complaint. A few child abusers, maybe a spouse beater-upper. Drugs. Nasty stuff anywhere, good to see it nailed. But. Wish there were script three stories high it's such a big ' but '.






Where's the rest? Anything related to professional violations? Having encountered let's see, ten attorneys, 3 of them ours to the tune of 40K over the past few years, one - I mean one- was ethical. We might excuse him from the  ' attorney ' accusation because he's a parent whose kid nearly left the planet. He went to law school because the system is so corrupt he thought it'd be a good use of his time here on the planet, saving a few. Another withdrew; we deeply suspect her of honesty. And our single honest attorney seemed intimidated by those 8. He tended to duck behind rocks when engaging, like any good sniper. Who can blame him?






We paid 40K a. to keep a kid alive and b. because a school district said we had to. Back to this country's  apocryphal free education.


To be continued.

Selling Our Kids Stops. Now.

Try reading any on-line inforama on " Special Education ". You can't. The words are in the right place, punctuation is pretty good and they're all sentences in the right order ( I think ) glued together forming  paragraphs.  You still can't read it because the on-line translator is missing. That would be a lawyer. Somewhere between your kid and the probably excellent resources schools are required by law to provide your kid are layers and layers and layers- there are several layers of attorney fees.




While some schools bafflingly are willing to spend tens of thousands of tax payer dollars becoming embattled with parents - over your free education and their right to not provide it - the parent gets to foot the bill for theirs. Constitutionally that's just illegal. They get to do it anyway. Our son's free education following a psychiatric admittance for suicidal ideation cost us FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS. Not by choice. We begged, pleased and tried to reason ( like idiots ). Our school insisted on dragging this suicidal kid through h*ll. I've also wasted more than enough time writing it out.




 IF SCHOOL DISTRICTS HAD TO PROVIDE EQUAL REPRESENTATION TO THOSE GLEEFULLY SPENT TAX PAYER DOLLARS WE GIVE THEM TO USE AS WEAPONS AGAINST CHILDREN you better believe the entire scenario would change in a big hurry. Someone told me that using bold text sounds like you're yelling. That's ok. I'm yelling.




Horror stories proliferate. Our family rocketed into a bizarre underbelly of which we were unaware. I'm not sure how we missed it. Encountering other shattered children and their bewildered, shattered and debt ridden families has been an eye opener. There are a LOT of us out here.




Which is a handy piece of information. Just sayin'. Excerpt below from criteria for a class action suit. Our kid spent more time in a psych unit, devolving in a matter of months from an honor roll athlete to a kid wondering why it'd be worth hanging around on the planet. We're quite simply done expecting reasonable behavior from a school. We're more than done watching other children suffer the same fate or worse. If this state refuses to step in to these putrid little money churners, well, sure, we'll go away. But. Someone will be held responsible. These are children, not billable hours. These are OUR kids, not someone's stock portfolio. If no one-  and we mean no one will do a thing- will step in to stop what amounts to selling our kids, $$$ for heads, well, we're not the only family who likes having their kid around resents being bled dry to keep them here. Nothing gets attention like cash, nothing, not suicidal children nothing.




Class action, folks. it's where we're at. I don't know how many thousands more may sign up but what do we have to lose? A lot of us almost lost our kids- to no response from this state's oversights. Oh wait. There is no oversight.

" Plaintiffs seeking to certify a class under Federal Rule 23 must plead and prove: (1) an

adequate class definition, (2) ascertainability, (3) numerosity, (4) commonality, (5)

typicality, (6) adequacy and (7) at least one of the requirements in Rule 23(b), namely:

(a) separate adjudications will create a risk of decisions that are inconsistent with or

dispositive of other class members’ claims, (b) declaratory or injunctive relief is

appropriate based on the defendant’s acts with respect to the class generally, or (c)

common questions predominate and a class action is superior to individual actions."

Pennsylvania's Grimm Fairy Tale, The Special Education Process

You know how, when you're mugged, preferably ( for the mugger ) bleeding on the street, some nice, reassuring officer obligingly arrests the er, perp? You can't go around mugging people. It's against the law. Which law? The Law.  Ah. Well, it depends.






 It transpires ' school law ' operates, ( in our Fairy Tale script,) somewhere off shore, as it were. Like teeny, backwards sanctuary cities. You can pretty much begin in these rarified atmospheres  by chewing up the Constitution, wipe your feet on a few Civil Rights, blow your nose on the sleeve of a suicidal teenager, coerce private, American citizens into parting with 50G's ( or else ), chase HIPPA around the secretarial pool, run legal cases inside Federal buildings and  beat kids up. OH yea. And function as medical offices replete with legally supported diagnosticians. Who aren't.






But all of these unlikely scenarios exist inside our Fairy Tale. It would be unimaginable, an unfolding narrative inclusive of any of these shocking claims. What would be more shocking would be the deafening silence. None of this was at all out of the ordinary. Or against any law anyone seems to have heard about. The imaginary child in this made-up story nearly lost his life. Twice. That was just fine with everyone, too. No, really. Ask them.






Our much vaunted American Freedom  is a good deal. We agree to be law abiding folks, pay taxes, contribute to society, don't spit on anyone, agree across the board it's a bad idea to drive on sidewalks and mostly agree it's just fine, eating food that'll kill us. Freedom. We're free to send out children to safe schools, too. Right? Right?




Not so fast.




Tragic tsunamis rolling over our children have their genesis somewhere. A lot of shrugging, for one thing. Gun laws, school law, law-law- none of it marginally associated with law and order, have collided in a stupendous, largest, bloodiest show on earth ( if the best paid ) . While wildly culpable, ' guns ' are the tool. Pretty handy, blame the problem on ' guns '. Sure, we'd lose less children without those idiotic things and they must go. Not talking about the other billion dollar, billable hour elephant in the school board room guarantees we'll still leak students. We won't talk about it, be sure. That would mean lawyers. And law, meaning something and schools being allowed to be structured around children.

Image of a student who began having headaches around 4th grade. If anyone knows what they're see- it's a brain abnormality. A good kid, one of the bright ones, a little quiet. Funny, very bright. Your proverbially ' good ' family, 3 honor roll athlete siblings, all through college. It would have been his path. No drugs, no  gasp ) delinquent, a good kid. A nice kid.  A lot of missed school was dealt with initially in a professional yet compassionate manner. Bright and willing, he caught up. Then Ugly happened.

By age 19 the same student had become suicidal, missed a grade, had been savagely beaten inside the school, re-diagnosed by schools whose staff does not include a single employee with those qualifications, turned in as truant, threatened with police intervention and pursued inside the psychiatric unit  trying to save his life. That was the first time. He was to spend a total of two months is a psych unit, balancing the idea life was not safe with the idea adults were the reason. And wondering if it was worth it. The school stated he was faking headaches, seizures, tremors, anxiety and depression, common symptoms suffered by those with this 'issue'. He remains in cyber school, struggling through a final semester still weighed down by trauma inflicted by a school administration.

 A Fairy Tale? Grimms?

 

No one did a thing.

The family, social services, mental and emotional health services and clergy sent up flares-  to the state, to organizations pledged to uphold our schools, in increasing panic, to the governor- to the president. Anywhere. It transpired either no one cared a child nearly died and still could or- more terrifyingly, it was all perfectly legal. Schools were allowed- encouraged,to terrify a child and terrorize a family of private citizens. They sure do not fill you in, when you show up for Kindergarten orientation.  None of this was against ' The Law '. Nothing, so far.

There's a hazy kind of field, ' Educator Misconduct '. But wait, we said- this is all criminal- crimes, out here in the Grimm world- Come Get ' Em! Well, no, please fill out this form. Then, they said, the criminal and yourself will sit down and we'll all talk about it. What we're telling you people is, our son nearly died. Because a school interfered. Please come do nothing.

Prehistoric, deafening crickets, if there were  meat eating crickets.

Update, a few months later. No one tells parents schools come with Black Box warnings. He declined to graduate and why? With one class credit to go, once again the inevitable happened, The Ugly. Ending this jolly little tale for this post. The next introduces a cast of characters that would give Mueller more gray hairs.

Once Upon A Time, In A Nightmare Not Far Enough Away

 

You have to be awfully careful, relating events when it comes to truthful events. People dislike that kind of nonsense. You know,  truth. Those packing pre-paid, cocked and loaded lawyers, whew, well, now we understand  the whole open carry controversy. Not a thing to do with guns- it's attorneys. And the high caliber cash  pulling a trigger.


 This is all a fairy tale. It takes place in Pennsylvania; various settings, a make-believe school, center stage. This whole state may be a fairy tale, who knows? Our fairy tale is in the nature of a nightmare. In our nightmare, our son nearly died. Twice. Again, please remember, for all intents and purposes this is a fictitious blog. In our fictitious  nightmare, we could still lose him. In our bit of undigested -potato- dream, tax dollars were weapons. Yours, ours, state, Federal. Probably because it was all a fantastic dream, no one seemed concerned.


" See Something, Say Something " , 4 default watchwords, sopping consciences belonging to men whose can't see the dam, much less bother holding thumbs to those holes. We saw a lot. In our dream slash fairy tale, we said an awful lot, to an awful lot of people. Transpires those words are kinda just bumper stickers, you know? How many, many parents said words, their own ' somethings ', as we did, across time, across this country? The current tragedies are  inevitable results, gargantuan, granite chunks blown from a structure  neglected,  eroded and poorly regarded as anything but a bottomless coffer, collecting tax dollars. That'd be great, if those budgets went to teachers and kids. They don't. Getting there, in this make-believe tale. Hang on, please.  Shells populated by our most precious assets, our schools. Kids are pretty handy. Without them, it'd look a little silly, all the tax money funneled their way.


As I said, getting there. Part of a chapter includes Pennsylvania's enduring, unendearing budget woes. OH the gnashing of capped teeth, we're all so poor! Meanwhile a tiny, little school district carries a million ( that's a million ) dollars in something called a 'floating budget'. In our Fairy Tale, this fiction-filled story, the main, made-up, invented, entirely fictitious characters use a nice chunk of that for attorney fees.


Which makes it handy ( and hang on, I'm getting there, to the Fairy Tale ), our compulsory attendance laws. That's an awful lot of kids, compelled to get into little yellow tubes ( no compulsory seat belts, just get 'em there  ), compelled to go sit around our compulsory shells called schools. The more students you compel, the more tax dollars you get, too. Handy kind of law. The ' or else ' is interesting. They've been arresting kids and parents since 1840 or so. In those days, the claim was, all we peasants were compelled to clean ourselves up. ' Or else '. It made rich people look bad.


So when it all falls apart in such an obvious way, and parents notice children who will never some home again, en mass, teachers who did their jobs despite paltry paychecks disappear in a our American, time honored hail of bullets; when it all falls apart that way, we still look no further than the usual collapse of society, usual lack of concern over safety, usual clash over those idiotic weapons. It's all so gosh-darn usual around here. Anyone ask how in blazes we got here?


Taxes, lawyers, compulsory education, mass tragedies, conscienceless men, black box warning ( may be some females in there somewhere, our novelette consists almost exclusively of the male of the species, don't ask me why ), where is the connection, please? To use the onion simile is unfair to onions. It is a horrifying fairy tale explanatory of far too much, a three year forced march as veritable ( fictional ) prisoners to a system so far outside anyone's understanding of what this society, or any, single parent signed up for, it's our belief, in our fictional family, schools, like certain toxic chemicals, be required to carry Black Box Warnings.


Next post, " How We Just Paid $ 25.000 To Attend A Public School; Or, Cashing In Your Retirement, A Pennsylvania Student's Parent's Manuel; Or,  How To Successfully Complain About Your School Forcing You To Fork Over $25.000, No, We Really Would Like To Know