Wow.
This was not a simple journey.
But a few weeks into the school year, my daughters finally, finally, finally both have a school. Two separate ones.
I can breathe a sigh of relief, and, quite frankly, so can my girls.
When I last updated you, it was September 4, a few days into the school year, and I had paid so many visits to the various municipality offices, including the one in the area where I live, as well as the city where my daughters had been learning until this year. Both had said they had no available schools for my daughters. Both basically left me with no options available and doing research on my own.
I called organizations meant to help Americans living in this country with the local special education system, but they didn’t know how to help me, unfortunately.
I called various schools in the nearby city, but all of them said they didn’t think my daughter would be appropriate for their class.
I had a meeting with a school that sounded promising, but after meeting with their autism coordinator, she was concerned that it would be too much of a transition for my daughter to go into their regular large classroom, and suggested a class for autistic girls… which was full.
Because of hitting so many dead ends, my older daughter, Anneliese, was willing to make an effort to see if a school in a further city would be appropriate for her. It is an English-speaking high school, and it is the sister high school of where my oldest son graduated from and where my second is a senior.
At first, we weren’t considering it seriously, for two reasons. Number one, it is a long journey there. There’s first a bus to the nearby city and then a school bus to a different city from there. This is a journey of an hour and a half in each direction. Second was the concern that being in an English-speaking environment would stop her from improving her grasp of the local language.
But after we got nowhere with finding a school for her, we started considering it. Anneliese decided she wanted to check it out and was willing to make the long journey that first day to see what it was like, and then once she had a trial day, she loved it so much that she was willing to make that trip every day. She came home and told me, “Mommy, I actually understand everything being taught in class; I can read my notes and remember what the teacher was talking about!” For the first time, I felt my daughter was actually really excited about school.
As for the local language… we thought about it, and the fact is, my daughter has already been in full immersion in the local language since kindergarten and is now in ninth grade, and if she didn’t learn the local language enough by now, another 4 years in full immersion won’t make her grasp of the local language any better. We need a different tactic. The school has a program to teach immigrants the local language, and my daughter, though not an immigrant, will be part of that program. Because she is eligible for special ed, she’ll be able to get special tutoring and will be using that to help her with the local language.
My daughter’s teacher from her special ed school last year told me that if my daughter was in an English-speaking school, she probably wouldn’t need special ed at all, and from her first two trial days there, she seems to have fit in quite nicely and understood the material really well. We’re really excited about this.
So while Anneliese found a school, Rose was still without a school. I went back to the municipality a few times, and one time they told me about a school in a community about 20 minutes away from where we live, but said that their seventh grade special needs class already had 10 kids in it, which is more than they want to have, and if she joined, she’d be kid 11.
They invited us to an interview anyhow, and we went and checked out the school, heard about the class, they met Rose… and then said that the class is really too full. They said there is an 8th grade class that is for a different type of special ed needs, this one for emotional special needs, and she’d be the 8th girl in it, but they’d have to consider if they could put her in that class, because it would mean skipping her a grade. I kept telling them that they were our last option, that if they didn’t accept her, we literally had nowhere else to turn.
They said what really needs to happen is for another 7th grade class to be opened, and for us to pressure the municipality to open another class, and they’d do the same. When I told Rose what they said, she was so dejected. She was really looking forward to going to that school.
I went to the municipality right after my meeting with the school to try to pressure them to open another class, and I called the American help organization again. They recommended calling the truant officer, and I did, and she mentioned a brand new special ed school that was 45 minutes away that I knew nothing about. Ok, so we had one other potential school option.
By now, Rose was ready to give up. She was tired of rejection after rejection after rejection, and said that, fine, she agrees to go back to her old school, and she’ll work on her behavior so that the school writes better things about her in their report and other schools will be willing to take her.
But I wasn’t willing to give up just yet.
I went back to the municipality one final time, and when I got there, the head of the special education department introduced herself, and when she heard who I was, told me that Rose was accepted into the school that she’d interviewed at, the school 20 minutes from our house. She said that the school was really impressed by her and wanted her, and they’d be putting her in the eighth grade there, and they think it would be more on her level scholastically anyhow.
When Rose heard this, she was so happy and so relieved. So was I. There are a few other English-speaking girls in her class, so that’ll be helpful, and it’s close and convenient and there will be a ride to and from her school.
The girls haven’t started school yet, though. Both schools are on a short break and will be starting again at the beginning of October, so my daughters will be starting with everyone else when they come back from the break.
Here’s to hoping for a good school year for them, even if it started a little late.
