My son has Asperger’s Syndrome. When we moved to South Carolina he attended school in one district for the first two years. We had a psychological assessment from the school district’s psychologist as well as a report from a psychologist we hired privately. Entering my children into public school in this state was the first time I was confronted with corporal punishment as a still-common practice in public schools. The school sent a permission slip home with my boys, requiring my signature to allow them to administer corporal punishment if and when the school administration felt it necessary. I didn’t sign the slip, but I did send it back (in a sealed envelope) to school with my boys. On each slip, in big red letters, I wrote, “HELL NO!”

(By the way, ALL the schools here employ armed police officers.)

Two years later we bought a house in the neighboring school district. Once again I sent the permission slip back with the big red “HELL NO!”. I told the school of my son’s disability and even offered the reports from both the other district psychologist and the psychologist we had hired. I was told that my son would receive no special needs assistance until THEIR district’s school psychologist had assessed him. The waiting period for that assessment: 6 months.

So for 6 months my poor boy struggled to keep up with regular students in a class for which he was ill equipped to handle, for which his teacher was ill-educated to assist him, and for which his needs were not being met.

One day, while at a grocery store, I received a call from the school from the principal, “Your son refused to exit the classroom during a fire drill. He is sitting in his desk and refuses to move. The teacher feels this is disruptive and upsetting to the other students. If you are not here in five minutes I will be forced to have the school police officer arrest him.” My boy was eight years old.

In a blind rage I drove like a bat out of hell to the school. I stormed past the receptionist’s desk and straight into the principal’s office and demanded she turn my son over to me immediately. She said he’d been removed to a private detention room and would have to be brought to her office. She thanked me for coming so expediently and extended her hand to shake mine. I left her hand hanging while I verbally blasted her.

Asperger’s children do not understand sudden change. They are alarmed by sudden loud noises. They tend to “shut down” or “lock up” in moments of crisis. Of COURSE he froze in his chair!

After I got done screaming at that nitwit of a principal for the district’s molasses slow red-tape bureaucracy, her ignorance and inattention to the immediate needs of special-needs children, her goon squad cop, for the incompetency of her teachers, I had my child formally discharged from the school.

I home-schooled a child whom Autism experts suggest require the best therapy through socialization.

This was a wake-up call to me. I have since, as a responsible parent, spent a lot of time learning my rights and my children’s rights and I have used those same rights as a cudgel to get what was needed from a state that won’t do crap for your kids unless you demand it first.
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