AND BEFORE YOU KNOW IT, KINDERGARTEN STARTS

1st Day of Kindergarten

Jack has a late August birthday. Turns out, this is very awkward timing once the school days roll around. Jack barely makes the school deadline, meaning he is pretty much the youngest kid in his grade. For my other kids, I probably would have kept them home another year to allow them to mature a bit. That was my plan with Jack. Until plans changed. Until he received a diagnosis and began special ed preschool each day. I realized he needed more than I could possibly give, and he wouldn’t have any school services if we didn’t start kindergarten. So that decision was easily made: he would go to school in the fall.

There was never a thought to try him out in a typical kindergarten classroom. As his IEP* dictated, he would be bused to attend the autism class at one of the schools in town. I heard good things about it and was ready to go scope it out and talk to the teacher. It sounded like a great fit for our Jack.

And then—as life happens—everything changed. Our story is unique in that we were suddenly making plans to move out of state for a job. Oh the anxiety of moving after just setting up a very helpful and comfortable support system…only to begin again in unfamiliar territory.

Gathering up all the documentation we could, we sent it on to our new school district. As much as schools try to honor the current IEP and keep similar services, different school districts and different states are just very…different. Again I was told he would be bused to a program across town. I know it was unfamiliar and I was new and hadn’t researched it, but it felt kind of lame.

Oh, I need to back up to before our move for a moment. As soon as I felt rumblings in the force that there was a chance that we might be moving, I looked up an autistic charter school that my mom had told me about. There were two locations and I figured we might live close enough to one of them for Jack to attend. I entered the school lottery, without much thought that anything would work out…

But, as you could probably guess (since I mentioned it), something did happen.  After firming up our plans on where we would be living, I got a notice that no, he wasn’t chosen for the school. Whatever. However, the day we closed on our house and were moving our things in, I got a call that Jack was in!

I took a tour of this autistic charter school. Wow! It is so catered to what these kids need, right down to the expensive light bulbs that don’t hum or flicker. The walls were quite bare to help them focus and not get over-stimulated. There’s a calm-down room where kids can be sent to sit with headphones in pillows to get as comfortable as needed. There are scooter boards in the hallways for teachers to send students who need physical movement. Most of all, there was so much LOVE. From the principal to the teachers to the receptionist, there is UNDERSTANDING. I felt an attitude of HOPE from them: they see potential in these special kids.

There were two things that really penetrated me in my visit:

First, there was a mom who has 2 autistic kids attending there. She said they had been in a typical school before. She said that her boys had NEVER been invited to a play date or birthday party, until they started the charter school. Now they hang out with friends, go to parties; they feel like they’re part of a group. She was thrilled with their happiness and progress.

Secondly, I saw this quote in the main hallway:

It hit me—this place was EMBRACING autism. They didn’t want their students trying to hide it or “overcome” it. It is part of them and it makes them all of these traits. Honestly, I hadn’t come to this realization in myself yet, that Jack’s autism should be embraced, not just be an excuse for why he isn’t “normal.”

Ok, it would seem obvious to everyone that there wasn’t even a choice in which school situation I would pick. This dedicated school with understanding flowing through its hallways—awesome.  I know this is strange, but I went home and started kinda panicking. I didn’t want to jump into one thing without evaluating my options. I dunno. I think I was holding out hope that Jack would one day be integrated into a typical classroom. At the charter school, he wouldn’t have peers modeling typical behaviors. Would his behaviors get more defined and would he pick up other traits from watching classmates with different challenges? I was having issues with him being “that weird kid who goes to a special school” when he was with us at church or activities with his siblings. On the other hand, if he did go to a neighborhood school, he would be “that weird kid who goes to the special class”, so maybe that worry canceled itself out. It would be much easier to sit back and have him bused to whatever the school district picked for him, instead of finding carpools and driving a distance to a charter school.

Moms worry a lot, don’t they?? After my episode of questioning, I decided to go the route of embracing Jack’s life, even if it meant taking the trouble to go to a special school. Hey, he might even go to a birthday party one of these days! I figured we could re-evaluate after his kindergarten year, but after an awesome year of growth, we’re all in.

>> I realize there aren’t special schools all over the place. I understand that every situation and diagnosis is different. And I know public school districts have amazing programs with talented teachers. This is just our story that may help guide you in your decisions. I hope your schooling miracles and blessings appear, too! <<

*IEP stands for Individualized Education Plan. Once a student is diagnosed with special needs, they must go through a testing process and meeting with a team at the school where a written plan is formulated to get them the help they need to succeed.