Abuse of the law...read this article and know that this is happening to that sweet family down the road, your cousin, or to a family in the grocery...

http://www.lowellsun.com/todaysheadlines/ci_16122745

Our children deserve better. The money spent on litigation at our expense...and harassment...at our expense...and retaliation...need I go on. The money could go into feeding, educating and accepting ALL of our people. Does this discrimination ring a bell? We as a community allow the fear of the unknown exclude our children. We pinhole success and create mediocrity, rather than a place for success on an individual level. What taxpayers need to know is that thier money is not being spent on our kids. It is being spent on lawyers and administrator who band together, pat one another's rear ends and create ways to save one another's rear ends...none of which actually EDUCATE our kids or our communities on how to be compassionate, inclusive and expressive. When will we, the voters, say, "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!" Are we even being taught how to change the system, through actual knowledge of the very system we supposedly create thru our votes. WAKE UP. Talk to one another. Research. The myth is that our kids are exhausting the budget, the reality is, that those responsible for the budget, Special Education Administrators and their hopefuls, are mis-managing the budget and overspending on their defense, rather than proactively being on the cutting edge. 1.2 million dollars on out-of-district placement in private schools, and 35 thousand dollars on litigation expenses...half of which were instigated by the district...all of this spent by our little itty bitty school district last year. Think how that money could have bettered OUR community...OUR kids...OUR educators...OUR economy. Not to mention the negativity, damaged relationships and overall exhaustion caused the families whom are already pressed to the wall on every level. As the article says...this is harassment, illegal, and a blatant abuse of the law. You are funding criminal activity against my family and many others. Would you allow this to happen to your family? Please PLEASE...recognize this abuse of power and be the change...stand up for the people without a voice. Literally, I feel like I am representing my nonverbal son...but no one will hear my voice either...especially not the school distict administrators. Inclusion Revolution is complex and coming to your community...be involved, not left behind.

a year of stalling, failing and manipulating should be a criminal charge

I recently sent this message to an activist group here in my new home state...Spedwatch.

I have had it with school districts predetermining my children's potential and acting as if they are experts, when in fact the only thing they are experts at is cliques and social manipulation. It is what schools have been doing for years. The top layer of school districts all over the nation, not only those in Massachusetts, are poisened by the egos of our highest-payed administrators. They pull out all the stops with the help of their lawyers. This is not only an outrage because I am paying them to harass my family, but also because the BSEA, DOE and other regulatory and governing bodies have no power to fight this, yet we also are funding their offices. How about using this "fighting" money to actually educate and encourage greatness. We MUST change the IDEA law to better suit all families. And we MUST protest to our communities the harm that is being done to OUR families who are already facing daily challenges that most do not endure within a lifetime. This must stop...and the CIVIL SUIT must be full force for the sake of all budgets, all citizens and for the sake of families, kids and teachers. Everyone needs a better education. We MUST tell this story. INCLUSIONREVOLUTION.blogspot.com Please tell your story. I am a mom who moved my two children on the spectrum across the country because Massachusetts won my nationwide search for Autism support for older children...I was tired of being a trailblazer in Washington State. Public Schools here heard that I filed a citizen's complaint in WA, then left, and now the entire year has been a political game. What a waste! Single mom...very tenacious, but tired and have no trust left in me for this system. Anyone?

Out of sight. Out of our minds. Abandoned.

Do you people even care?
Care if we are scared...
Scared everyday
wondering, waiting, fighting for life
a life
any life
where he's loved
she's accepted
an education beyond meanial tasks:
like washing your hands after urinating
shredding paper or wiping tables
YES valuable for independent living, but being known, visible and challenged
are essential to school, community and family life.
my family
my babies
with feelings
intellect
spirit and fire
clearing away the mess of those who do not see, connect or grasp
the beauty within them
is heartwrenching to watch.
I sometimes feel trapped in an alternate world.
One where I cannot be heard or considered valid.
I ache for my children and other individuals trapped here too.
Sweeping floors and handwashing are hardly tools to those whose concrete reasoning,
makes no sense of the nonsense we call culture.
Scared of love
will love, intimate, baffling, mind-blowing love
be a part of thier lives?
And if the answer is yes,
will the expression of that love meet the required etiquette of society
or will it be thrown away as invaluable or not as valid
due to our awkwardness with it?
Scared
that the teens may be the tragic end
of either freedom
or life.
by freedom I mean, the freedom to develop as an individual
with friends
foes
feelings and family.
the tragedy would not be death
but to live...
to live
as expected
and rejected
in a drug-induced trans
quiet and sentenced to live with caretakers and similarly-silenced souls
rocking,
but not too hard
singing,
but not too loud
reaching,
but not too high.
Scared that the experts will tell ME
when to give up on MY
child
as they did long ago
when their expert training ceased.
Scared that when they give up
the wavelength of thier doubt
played out with my defeat
will eventually form a chord
no longer dischord
but a tone
flat and broad
that travels over the valleys and hills of our culture
a culture of sameness
denial and complacency.
Scared that the toxic world that created
the very disfunction
and malfuction
not of our children
but of society's values
will implode due to disconnection.
when those in need
of specialized care disappear
in the busy combustion of consumption
and the consumption is so great that
we no longer notice, regulate or respond
to cries, concerns and coersion,
then I can no longer weep.
I can only be
Scared.
Friends, romans and countrymen and women
lend me your tears
find them and weep once again
for the loneliness we all share
and the inclusion we must dare
to create.

me- 7-2-2010 first edit
me- 7-3-2010 second edit

School budget myths revealed by a blogger in Cali

My son and I are having a tough time convincing the district we recently moved to, that inclusion is the law and until they have effectively tried it with the proper tools in tact, then I cannot agree with an out-of-district placement. The alternative placement would likely require a driver and an aid to transport my son at least 45 minutes away from his home community and sister who is one year ahead of him in school. The "school" he would attend is surprisingly NOT held accountable to any state or federal agency...nor would they write the IEP. So, the expense that has already taken place for over a year now, just to employ the administrators to say no and intimidate their staff rather than educate them. It has been topsy turvy and I feel that with the amount of time spent acting as if they were following the law...when they were not...they could have taken the five admin's salaries and brought back all the students with ASD in their district, in alternative placements and started their own school for half the money. With budgets being cut, I often wonder if we could rid ourselves of the middle layer of administrators and get more done in the educating department.

This article is stellar...http://www.squidalicious.com/2010/02/we-are-not-sparta-real-justified-costs.html

This made me laugh out loud, which I often need to do...you may too

This is a blog about special education law that I stumbled upon and although my children don't have any physical challenges aside from SIB's and sensory EXTREMES...I did relate to this woman's "list of terms." Read it and laugh...then add your own here:

http://specialedlaw.blogs.com/home/2010/04/special-needs-as-a-second-language-by-lori-miller-fox.html#more

He's really happy, means he is squealing and giggling uncontrollably and pretty soon he is going to run fast and hard into that wall to complete the cycle. LOOK OUT.

bro (poem I wrote about my son)

bro

What could the boy do?
He can’t speak to you!

The label you gave
Says he misbehaves.
Scale fixed.
Outcome mixed.
Your every doubt
He’s figured out.
Due to years…
And lives evolved.
Witnessed tears…
And problems solved.
He understands
And he demands
ATTENTION!
Empires, governments, churches and rules
Taming life with useless tools.
Shaming the wise. Idiots! Fools!
Too conscientious
and conscious to swim.
Afraid to drown making waves with him.
The fearless dolphin swims
with pleasure and pain
In circles, with giggles, in love and insane.



10.01.05

Be the Change, Be the Change, Be the Change

I repeat the mantra as if it will bleed into the lives I come in contact with. Sometimes I believe it will, and today...not so much. I believe that those resisting the change I am attempting to be...those who are in the position to reject change, must be now put to the test of the legal system. The only way to defeat or better yet, win over this audience is to band together.

Once we gather as a force, the decision must be made..."What sort of change do we wish to be together?" I envision a change for all children, adults, animals and, what the heck...the universe.

Today, I will create a list of resources and save my personal story for the next few hundred entries. I will divulge one detail of my daily life. With all of these many resources, support and intentions, the fact remains, change must be created and I have not been as convincing as I thought I could be...if that makes any sense at all. I have found that passion alone cannot complete the task...a community of passion is required. A passion that looks tangible to the less passionate.

So, I share these links, books and tidbits as sparks to create a communal passion for change...change that includes all. It is possible. Anything is. We can look at our own children as proof of that.

Read, learn and get fueled up for the passionate endeavor of being the change!


Author Paula Kluth
The Autism Checklist
Just Give Him The Whale
http://paulakluth.com/inclusive-schooling.html


Author Barry Kaufman
Son-Rise: The Miracle Continues
http://www.autismtreatmentcenter.org/index.php

The Movie Autism is a World
http://www.inclusioninstitutes.org/index.cfm?catID=8&articleID=58

My son is using this device independently and we just randomly introduced it at home last December. Very inexpensive and fully equipped. I do all the programming and I am soooo low tech.;)
http://www.proloquo2go.com/

Author William Stillman
Autism and the God Connection
http://www.williamstillman.com/about.html
http://www.udservices.org/communityResourceslinks.asp

The Horse Boy
Movie and Book