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