Hey... some of you have been following this on Facebook, but I feel the need to share...
Two weeks ago (8/19) my 12-yr-old son Michael had a confrontation with a teacher. He was trying to turn in a "packet" -- several papers stapled together. She refused to accept it, saying that he needed to do more work on it. (This may well be true, but he was very upset about it, feeling he'd put a lot of work into it already.) He put it on her desk, visibly upset. She picked it up and handed it back. He lost it, and was thrusting the papers at her, trying to get her to take them. In the process, the papers touched her chin.
Sounds bad, right? Terrible behavior from my son, but he has autism so it's not inexplicable. Unacceptable, but understandable, if you see what I mean. We've been trying for the last six months or so to work with the school to help him better deal with these frustrations, and to help teachers to deal with him. The week before we'd specifically talked about teachers not getting caught up in arguments with Michael.
The exact sequence after that is unclear to me, but it ended with Michael in the vice-principal's office, who called me to come get him. Michael was still upset, and had been crying. The VP then informed me that he's been suspended for five school days. For assault. The official school write-up, which we received later, said that he "agressively" shoved a paper in her face. Oh, the horror.
But wait, it gets better. The school has a police officer on campus. He wrote Michael up and told us that charges were pending. The form he originally mailed to us said the charge would be "possession of a weapon on school grounds." To refresh your memory, the "weapon" in question was a piece of paper. I asked, did Michael actually touch the teacher. He said no, but if a student were to, say, swing a baseball bat, that would be assault just as much as punching. But it's a piece of paper, I cried! I could almost hear him shrug.
The officer wrote up a police report and filed a petition in juvenile court -- that means Michael was formally charged. It turns out that the "weapon" line on the form was a mistake; the officer had copied/pasted from another form, which was about a different child who had brought a weapon (the mind boggles; could he perhaps have had a pencil?!?). No, Michael was actually charged with "assault on a government offical."
Isn't that much better?
Yeah, not really. When the police officer told me that on the phone, I said, "Oh, that's so much better" -- then I had to explain I was being sarcastic.
Late Friday we got another notice in the mail, from the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) requesting our participation in a conference downtown. The juvenile court counselor will interview us, "evaluate" the complaint and decide whether this has to go to an actual court or if it could be dealt with in some other way. That interview was originally scheduled for this afternoon, but we've been advised not to go to any meeting like that without a lawyer, and we haven't got a lawyer yet, so I called to reschedule.
The police offer advised that we take something along to prove that Michael has autism. You know, just in case it's relevant at all.
So, for the past week, I have been scouring the web, and living on my cell phone, trying to contact anyone who could help us. The Governor's office has a group called "Disability Rights NC" -- they told us to call the autism society. I called the autism society -- they suggested I call the Disability Rights NC people. A friend of a friend does student advocacy for a living, and she's been offering advice. I've staked out the pediatrician's office to get something about his autism in writing. I've visited his school several times, gathering paperwork.
The pastoral staff of our church invited us to a meeting, to come up with new guidelines for Michael's church attendance. That wasn't fun, but they are helping us with the whole fiasco. The director of the church's special needs ministry is keeping in close touch, also working the phones, etc.
If it weren't for the bills piling up, it'd be a good thing that I'm currently unemployed, because chasing all this around has been a pretty hefty time commitment. Did I mention that I hate making phone calls? Somehow that hasn't been a factor this past week.
Up until now, we've pretty much gone along with whatever the school personnel suggested. That's worked out real well, hasn't it? As far as we can tell, they haven't even been doing the little bit they'd agreed to. We're gearing up for a meeting with them (Sept 16th) to basically tear up what they've got and write up a new plan. I just know they're going to whine about going to the extra effort. Before, I'd have been sympathetic. Now I'm thinking more along the lines of "suck it up, people; you only have to deal with this for a small part of the school day; Michael is dealing with his autism 24/7."
Before this, I was laid back, cooperative, laissez-faire. My husband has given me a new nickname: Mama Bear.
PJ
