Saying Goodbye to our families was hard, but I had
no idea at the time how much I would end up missing them. We had never lived
more than twenty miles from them before. I was excited to get out of the desert
and live somewhere that actually has seasons, and real trees. I had planned
everything out; the move, getting Braden into school, contacted the state to
find out about the process of applying for therapy services, and I knew it
would all go exactly as I planned. How is it that I have still not learned that things never
go as planned?
Moving went like this: Jeremy and I in our car with
Braden and our puppy, Bella, followed by a very large rented truck driven by
Jeremy's brother, Brian. I'm pretty sure three days of the trip were spent
driving through Texas. We had to stop about every three hours to change
diapers, and let Bella do her business and clean up any mess she had made in
the meantime. Thankfully, Braden loves being in the car, but we discovered on
our trip that he also loves staying
at hotels. Note that I did not say sleeping
at hotels. I'm not sure any of us (including poor little Bella, who had to stay
in the car because the hotel didn't allow pets) got much sleep. Braden's
vocabulary was pretty basic, but he recognized shapes and had names for his
favorite places; Wal-mart = Star, Target = Circle and now, Holiday Inn Express
= Square. Every time we would drive by one he would say he wanted to sleep at
"Square" it took us a minute to figure that one out until we actually
looked at the logo of the hotel. We finally made it after about four days I
think. Several people from our new ward showed up to help get us moved in. It
was all fun and exciting until we were settled and life began again.
I was completely in awe of the beauty of NC and all
of the trees! There are so many trees and there is so much green during spring
and summer that it actually took me a few weeks to get used to seeing it. I
loved it! I still love the beauty of it. We would spend hours driving around
aimlessly through the countryside. It's a good thing we invested in a GPS
system though, because you can't find anything without one. There are no
straight roads, and the trees are lovely, but they block everything from view,
so even with GPS you don't know you're there till you've almost passed your
destination. It was just amazing to us. I was so used to the straight square
grid set up of Mesa, that I wondered why they had set up a city without a
straight road in it (seriously, I'm not exaggerating). We had lots of fun
exploring the area and especially knowing we were only about a two-hour drive
from the beach, but it was time to get Braden into school.
Thank goodness I came here with a diagnosis and a
confirmation diagnosis, and a complete history of his services (I was anal
about keeping documentation on everything and this time, it really paid off). I
showed up at the school district offices with my gigantic binder full of
documentation on Braden's medical, and therapy history. They made copies of
what they needed and thankfully we didn't have to go through more evaluations
when we got here. (I had grown to hate evaluations because we had done SO
many.) The other blessing was that I already had an IEP in place (and a copy of
it) for him, so they had to take that and use it. At this point I realized that
ALL STATES ARE NOT EQUAL in their treatment of children with disabilities such
as autism. I thought I had done enough research, but I really, really didn't do
enough. The school districts here are done by county, not by city and the
county we moved into is ginormous!
(I've come to learn that's not a good thing.) Getting him into school wasn't
extremely difficult, but the thing that completely blew me away was how they
handled the transportation of special needs children. When I asked how it
worked they said "Oh he'll ride in a cab." (I pictured a yellow cab)
and the thought of just tossing Braden (barely four-years old) into the back
and hoping he made it to school. I asked for clarification on that one. They
said that they hire "transportation companies" who hire drivers (I'm
guessing they get minimum wage) who drive SUV's and transport several special
needs children to their school. I was not really comforted by their
explanation, but it was better than the thought of throwing my child into the
back of a yellow cab.
So, time came for Braden to start school. I took him
on his first day and I met his teacher for the first time. She seemed nice
enough. He was in what was called a "Cross Categorical" class They
called it CCK for short (I have no idea what the K stands for). Cross
categorical means that Braden would be with all sorts of disabled children, not
just children with autism. There were children with Downs Syndrome and children
who had severe learning disabilities. I wasn't allowed to ask about the other
children's disabilities because of HIPPA. Braden's school was about 7 miles
away from our apartment where we decided to stay until we could settle on where
we wanted to buy a house. The day before he was supposed to start school, I got
phone calls from his two drivers (he would have a different one picking him up
and bringing him home). I warned both drivers that Braden liked to get out of
his seat and roam the car sometimes, so they would have to keep an eye on him.
They didn't seem worried. He would be in a car seat, so I assume they thought
he wouldn't be able to get out of that. They clearly underestimated him. Things
seemed to be going ok at first. His teacher sent home daily notes letting me
know how Braden's day was and I had not had any complaints from the drivers. My
issue was that they didn't always show up at the same time, so I had no idea
when to have him ready or when to start worrying that he wasn't home yet. I was
trusting these people with my whole universe and if something happened to him…
I got a phone call from Braden's teacher one day.
She said that Braden was fine, but they had to file a report with the police
because of behavior she observed from his driver. This is what I was told had
happened. Braden had apparently gotten out of his car seat and made his way
into the back of the SUV without the driver noticing, though it was beyond my
comprehension how that happened. In
the back of the SUV, Braden discovered a can of car wax and immediately opened
it and went to town. He got it all over the car and all over himself. I'm just
grateful he didn't eat it. When the "Cab" made it to school and the
driver got out to get the children out he realized what Braden had done. With
the teacher standing there, he proceeded to grab Braden by the arms forcefully
and yell at him in his face telling him he was stupid and no wonder his parents
had so much trouble with him. His teacher intervened and removed Braden from
the cab, and took him inside and directly to the principal's office where they
called the transportation company and informed them they would not allow that
driver to pick up any more of their students (this doesn't mean he wouldn't be
transporting other students to other schools). They then called the police to
file a report. When she told me all this, I was shocked and ticked off as any
parent would be. I immediately called the transportation company to demand his
termination. He should not have been transporting ANY students, period. They
basically told me they would do their own internal audit of the incident and
his behavior; he was never fired. I began driving Braden to and from school
myself after that incident.
I had no idea that my troubles were only beginning.
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