School Starts in 9 Days- I Have No Idea Where My Daughters Will Be Going

Its the end of August, and everywhere you go, you see the hustle and bustle of the new school year; school supplies are on sale everywhere, parents buying their kids what they need, going according to the lists they got, picking up supplies and the school books… and school starts in nine days, and I still have no idea where my daughters are going to school.

My daughter Anneliese is going into 9th grade, and my daughter Rose is going into 7th grade. They both were in a school that went from 1st through 8th grade, that was pretty conservative with strict dress rules and other similar type rules that my daughters bristled at and just really weren’t happy with the school.

Anneliese anyhow graduated from it, since she finished 8th grade, so we needed a new school for her, but Rose couldn’t handle another year there, so we needed one for her as well. 

We found another girls’ school that we’d heard lots of good things about. It goes from 7th grade through 12th grade and, most importantly for us, it has special education classes for girls with autism. It sounded like it could be a really good fit for both my daughters. 

Already months ago, we sent in paperwork to try to get them accepted there.

But when we did that, we were told that for the autism classes, they only have interviews at the end of August, after the placements are done by the city.

This is ridiculous to me. How are you supposed to only start interviewing kids for school at the end of August when the school year starts at the beginning of September?

But that was only the beginning of the bureaucracy.

Trying to Get Them Placed in the School

The school is in the city and we live in the suburbs around the city, so there is an extra step involved for us. We need our local government to request placement for our daughters in the special education classes in the city.

I had the teachers from my daughters’ old school write end-of-the-year summaries about my daughters, and we submitted everything to our local municipality.

Since I thought the idea of waiting until the end of August to be ridiculous, I asked a friend whose daughter just graduated from the autism class at this school if she had any suggestions or could give me any help getting my daughters in. She gave me the number of the advisor for the autism program.

I called her, and she was really helpful. She asked for information about my daughters, including their paperwork, and after hearing about them she told me there was room for my daughters and that the classes sounded appropriate for them.

Great.

Then she told me I needed to call the special education supervisor who works for the municipality.

So I did.

She was really rude to me, told me there was no room, and basically told me to go away and leave her alone. (She seemed peeved that I had the audacity to call her; she wanted to know how I even had her phone number. Google. Duh.)

This was especially confusing because I’d just been told by the advisor for the actual autism program that there was room and that the program sounded appropriate for my daughters.

But okay.

I kept trying.

Stuck Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Then last week, our local municipality told us that they couldn’t submit the paperwork requesting placement at the school until they got approval from the school that the girls were accepted.

So I called up the school last week and told them what happened.

They told me that everyone was on vacation and that they couldn’t give approval until after there was a placement request from the municipality.

Wait, what?

The municipality was telling me:

“We can’t submit the paperwork until the school approves them.”

And the school was telling me:

“We can’t approve them until the municipality submits the placement.”

So I was stuck between a rock and a hard place, with both places telling me that the other one needed to do something first.

And meanwhile, the school year was getting closer and closer.

The school told me to call back in a week when people got back from vacation so they could even check if there was room, so then they could see if they could schedule an interview with my daughters.

I waited a week, and when I called back they basically told me the same thing, that they couldn’t help me out; that these are special girls that don’t get accepted based on interviews, they get placed there by the municipality. (Then why were they giving me this ridiculousness about interviews after placement by the municipality back a few months ago???) And I need to deal with the municipality.

More Phone Calls

I called the autism program advisor back and she gave me the number of another woman who worked at the school, who then gave me the number of someone who worked with the special education supervisor, the one who had been so rude to me earlier.

Fortunately, this woman was really nice and said she’d try to do what she could to help us out.

She said she’d look and see if she could get my daughters into the program, but she didn’t know if she’d gotten their paperwork.

And, well, she hadn’t.

Because my municipality hadn’t sent in the paperwork.

Because they said they needed approval from the school that they were accepted before they could send in the paperwork.

So I called up my municipality again. This time I begged them for help. What exactly did they want me to do? The school couldn’t give approval that my daughters were accepted when they never got placed there, and no one would place them there without paperwork.

“Well, how do we even know there’s room for the girls there?”

Ahh, now this one I knew the answer to.

I gave them the number of the advisor for the autism program, the one who had told me there was room and that my daughters would be suitable for the program.

And finally, they sent in the paperwork.

And That’s Where It Stands

That’s where things stand right now.

Nine days before the school year starts.

I have no idea where my daughters are going to school.

I don’t know if this school will accept them. I don’t know for sure if there is actually room for them, because I’ve been told both that there is room and that there isn’t. But I’m pretty sure that there is, its just that that woman from the municipality was something that rhymes with witch…

And if they don’t accept them there, I have no idea where they will even go.

Anneliese graduated from her old school, so she can’t go back there.

Rose technically could go back to her old school for 7th grade, and would still have two years left there, but she couldn’t handle another year at that school. That’s why we’re trying to move her in the first place.

And my daughters keep asking me if this school accepted them yet.

All I can tell them is:

“It’s in the process.”

They don’t know where they’re going to school in nine days, and neither do I.

We’ve been dealing with this for months. I got the paperwork. I got the summaries from their teachers. I submitted everything to the municipality. I called the school. I called the advisor. I called the supervisor. I called the municipality again. And the school again. I called someone working with the supervisor. I called the municipality yet again. I tracked down phone numbers and passed contact information from one person to another just to get the paperwork sent to the people who are supposed to decide where my daughters are going to school.

And now?

I guess we wait.

Hopefully sometime in the next nine days, when my daughters ask me again if they’ve been accepted, I’ll actually have an answer for them.

Because “it’s in the process” is getting really old.