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.




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