The Po Show

Make it STOP!!!!

Do you ever get that screaming inside your head, and you think, Hmmm, is it inside, or did it wander outside of my head? And then you realize, no, it's still inside, but maybe, not for long...

I made a really fatal error, I see now. I had really assumed (all together now: and you know what happens when you ASSUME!) that once we got the school district to agree to Matthew's out of district transfer, it was going to be all smooth sailing. We'd just have to wait for the county BOCES to get his file, and they'd place him in the gifted special ed. program I've been talking about incessantly. I just figured that since *I* thought it was made for him, and his inclusion teacher and our school psych. went there and thought it was imminently appropriate for him, that that would be that.

All the waiting has been nerve-wracking, and I've had to do way more pushing along the way than I should have. But I still figured that it would all work out. The director of the gifted special ed. program assured me that they had spaces available, and she said that even if they determined that that wasn't the best program for him that they had to offer, an appropriate one could be found. She said that by the time we got to the intake, it would be pretty much decided already, that they're almost never wrong about which program a child belongs in, based on examination of his/her file. Well, we ended up with three psychologists at our intake, because they *couldn't* make that determination based on Matthew's file.

Still, I was so relieved when I finally got ahold of the psychologist with the autism program yesterday, who is supposed to be our intake contact. He said that they ruled out both the therapeutic support program (because those kids would eat Matthew alive) and the gifted special ed. (because they are not equipped to deal with behavioral issues like Matthew's), so they were recommending the high-functioning autism program. Which I was thrilled about, mostly because it wasn't the therapeutic program. Really, though, it sounded like it would be a great place for Matthew.

I was very glad to have gotten that call, when I went to pick Matthew up at school and found that he was outside with the school psych. and wouldn't come back in the building. During gym a kid had (accidentally?) hit Matthew in the head with a ball, and then another girl had (definitely accidentally) bumped him while she was running bases past him. He had been outside for an hour and wouldn't come in. So out of my mouth popped the news that they had decided what school Matthew would go to next year, the really cool school that has a pool (wow, that really rhymes). He immediately calmed down, and went in to get his things. Normally I would not have said anything to him till all the details were hammered out, but it just happened.

So what happened today really sucks. I got another call from the psychologist attached to the autism program, late this afternoon, saying that he found out that Matthew is officially on the waiting list, since they don't have any open spots for next year. He said it was "unprecedented" for the program to fill up. Is that, or is that not, just our fucking luck all throughout this whole process? So we are without a placement, here in the last week of school, two weeks before we are leaving for CA for the summer.

I've spent the rest of the afternoon firing off emails to people, desperate cries for help, and I got ahold of the admissions person at one of the private schools that had never gotten back to us earlier. I didn't pursue it too diligently before, since I had been so sure he was going to end up in a county program. And all the time, I just felt like screaming, like running out into the street screaming, like drinking my weight in vodka and hibernating for a couple of years.

Ross (who is in DC for work and won't be back till tomorrow night) says, of course he'll go to school SOMEWHERE next year. The school district, for all their neglect of us throughout this whole process, does have a legal obligation to put him in school. But every day that he doesn't know what will be happening to him next year, where he will go to school, what it will be like, is another day of extreme, crushing anxiety for Matthew.

And for me.