So, we have just had our final ARD meeting...if you don't know what that is, it is a meeting to decide services for the next year...Admission, Review, and Dismissal. This is our final meeting before she "ages out" of services from the public school system. We have just entered the era of adult services. It went well, and I think that she will keep her job at Subway. It is scary for me, because I think that we have just become more responsible for her well-being than ever. You expect that your children will grow and leave the nest. The only problem is that some children are never ready to leave the nest. I don't want for my child to become a ward of the state. I want for her to be as responsible as she can...isn't that what every parent wants for a child?

So, now we have to make plans for her life when she leaves school. We have our last ARD meeting on Tuesday, and we embark on a new era in her life. I want for her to be able to keep working at Subway...they have been so good to her. I just have to figure out how to make it work. I need to find a way to have her cared for during the day when she is not at work. I still do not feel comfortable having her at home alone. She is fine under normal daily circumstances, but she is not at all prepared for any kind of emergency. I'm not sure she would know what to do in an emergency, such as a fire or a break-in. I think that she would panic, but I don't know that she would have the mind-set to call 911 or to get out of the house if it was burning. I know at the very least that she is not able to lock the door on her way out. I have tried to train her to do this, but she has not been successful with it. She is able to unlock and come into the house and lock the door behind her. I am comfortable with this scenario as long as she doesn't have to spend too much time at home alone. The only thing that I know she does when she is home alone is that she eats nonstop. She makes herself a sandwich and continues on from there eating whatever she can find to munch on. I don't mind her having snacks, but I don't want her eating everything in sight, either.

So, Chase's teacher at her high school had her best interests at heart. I am forever grateful for her contribution that she made in the development of Chase. She made sure that Chase went into a "post-graduate" program that would foster independence.

Chase entered this program and she got a job at Subway. These people welcomed her and fostered her in a way that no other could. I am forever grateful to these people for this. They welcomed her in and trained her and offered her a way to make some money, while at the same time taught her that she needed to work to earn a buck. This is not something that I could have taught her. Chase has learned the value of money, when money made no sense to her (and still really doesn't). She just knows that she likes money (like we all do), and she likes to have something to spend. This is a lesson that all parents want to teach their children, and Chase was taught this in a way that we were not able to do. It is a great program, and I am grateful that the school system taught her this. It is now my duty to keep this up and to make her know the value of the mighty buck.

So, we made it past this episode. We were more motivated to make sure that Chase was going to be in a safe place. We knew that there were other students in her class who would be threats to her, and we had to protect her from them.

She moved on to Lee High School the next year, and we avoided the dreaded two years at the freshman school. We loved (and still do) the teacher at Lee. She always had the best interests of the kids at heart. I so much respect and revere the job that she does. She has students to deal with and she has to deal with disabilities that she should not have to deal with. She deals with students, gets them into jobs, and she deals with students who should not be in her classroom. She should not have to deal with kids who have no business being in her classroom. It is a situation that she should not have to deal with. I don't know the solution, but the students who can not have any chance of being productive citizens should not be in her classroom. There should be some sort of support for her, and she should be trying to produce productive citizens in her classroom. She has the chance to get these students to be productive, and we should be giving her as much support as we possibly can. She has gotten Chase to graduation, and we should support her as much as we can.

After the brush with danger that Chase and her friend encountered, we thought that the school personnel would be on their toes when it came to safety. We were sadly mistaken. Chase and the same friend would face something just as sinister as before. They were in a homemaking class as an "out class" with some of the other students in their class. The homemaking teacher left Chase and her friend with a boy in the classroom without adequate supervision, without any supervision at all. The boy proceeded to expose himself to them and suggest to them how they could "help" him out, if you get my drift. Chase's friend knew this was wrong and got the teacher from whatever rock she was hiding under. We got a call that sounded like a plea for us not to sue, which immediately scared the pants off of us, no pun intended. We met with the principal and teachers the next day, and let me tell you, they had one angry papa bear on their hands. My knight in shining armor was ready for battle, and he was going to make sure that everyone in that room knew that he would slay anyone who put his princess in danger again. We didn't sue, though the thought of revenge was an attractive one. We chose to use this episode to move her on to the high school the next year. We would not stand for her to be in the freshman school for another year (and we dreaded the thought that her sister would soon enter the same campus).

Choir was a major equalizing factor for Chase in middle school. It was the only class that Chase was allowed to join as a peer, and it introduced her to the "regular" population and gave her a place to belong. The other choir members proved to be accepting and encouraging. They treated Chase with respect and kindness. Any one of the choir members who sang in proximity to Chase knew that she couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, but they encouraged and accepted her as one of the choir. The director was wonderful in taking her in as a member of the choir...he didn't seem concerned in the least that she might sing out of tune or out of place. He was a major godsend in Chase's life in middle school. Chase still encounters fellow choir members in the community, and she is always greeted with kindness and acceptance. What a wonderful thing choir was for Chase while she was in middle school and beyond.

Every child in our new city would face the ninth grade at a separate campus. Ninth grade was segregated from the rest of the educational system for some reason that I have yet to figure out. There are two campuses, one for each high school, and the ninth-graders attend them according to the high school into which they ultimately feed. This would prove to be a real challenge for Chase, and we would once again find ourselves trying to navigate the public school system in such a way as we were not inclined to do. We found out that the system wanted for all of the children in special education to spend two years in the freshman schools. Unfortunately, the freshman schools would prove to be inferior to all of the other schools in the district. Chase's school was in a part of town that was not safe, and it was located very far from our home. The many times that I had to go to the school took a very long time to get there. Our school system has chosen to bus the students in ninth grade to this campus, and there is no telling how much cash it has cost the taxpayers to bus all of these kids all the way across town. That is a whole different story, and I won't get into it now.

The point is that the freshman school is in a bad part of town, and we, as parents, expected that our children would be supervised closely and protected from any dangers in the area. That did not happen, however, and one afternoon, we eluded a danger that would scare us for the rest of Chase's time there (not to mention Chase's little sister, who would soon be attending the same freshman school). Chase's teacher did not properly supervise the students in her care, and one afternoon Chase and her friend were waiting for the bus without any supervision. They were both trusting and innocent, and they would soon face other students who would take advantage of them. A student approached Chase's friend, tell her that he had something to show her, and he would give her a necklace if she would come across the street to see a pretty necklace that he had to show her. Chase's friend followed him across the street to see what he had, and he intended to assault her and to do other things that we didn't have to find out about, thank God. Luckily, there was a parent waiting for another student to come out of the school who witnessed this whole interchange and saw it as abnormal. She followed Chase's friend across the street and intercepted an exchange that could have ended in a sexual assault or worse. Chase's friend only wanted to get a necklace out of it, and she completely trusted this student who lured her away from the school and across the street to an abandoned building. I am so thankful that she had someone looking out for her and that person stood in the gap between goodness and something awful.

This would not be the only horrible thing that would happen while Chase was at the freshman school. School supervision would once again come into play, and we would have the opportunity to interact with the administration of the school once again, even though it would not be pleasant.

So, things went well our first few years in the new city with Chase. All of the educational objectives that we thought were important for her were taken seriously. We were met with cooperation and respect, something we had never gotten before, so it was like a bright ray of sunshine. We had no idea that we could be treated in such a respectful way, and it was so nice. We felt like we had entered the dawn after being in the dark for such a long time.

Elementary school was great for Chase in the new city. We were given everything we asked for, and it was great to have the feeling that we and the school were "on the same side" for the first time ever. We felt like it was a united effort instead of a war for the first time since we had entered the public school system with Chase when she was three years old.

Middle school would prove to give us some challenges. Middle school is always difficult for any student...who would want to be thirteen again? Kids can be very cruel, and it is hard to fit in even under the best circumstances. It is an awkward age for anyone, trying to grow up, and the "kids" always seem to be competing for the "top-dog" position in every situation. My hat is off to anyone who feels "called" to teach these alien beings (thanks, Kim), because they seem to be the most vile beings on the planet (in my opinion). They can be mean, and their aim seems to be to promote themselves and demote others at all cost. This would become evident to us in our first few years there with both of our older daughters. Fortunately, for Chase, this would not be evident to her. She was oblivious to it at most times, but our her big sister would suffer from this, and it would make life difficult for her in many ways.

Our first challenge with Chase occurred when she was in middle school. We got a call from the principal that there had been a problem in a P.E. class. Apparently, the kids were getting dressed out of their P.E. uniforms into their school clothes, and Chase was not able to keep up with them. We thought that there was an assistant that was to be there to make sure that she was getting things done as she should, but we were apparently mistaken. The other students got dressed and were ready to get to their next classes, and Chase was left behind. She panicked and thought that she was being left behind, so she left the dressing room having only gotten her shirt on. She had no pants on yet. She walked across the entire campus in her shirt, socks, and tennis shoes. She had no pants on. Along the way, she encountered jeers, laughter, and whistles. She had no idea of how to deal with this, and she was horrified. She arrived at her destination, her classroom, and her teacher had to take her back to the gym to retrieve her pants. I finally got the call after all of this had happened, and I was horrified, to say the least.

My first response was to call her dad and let him know about what had happened. As a dad, he immediately wanted to call someone on it and let them know that he felt that his daughter had been violated. By the time he got home from work, the teacher had called to let us know what had happened. We really flew into a rage at that point and wanted to hurt someone. About that time, Chase arrived home on the bus. She was crying, saying that all of the kids had laughed at her. To a parent, having your child laughed at is so much worse than having your child beaten to a pulp at school. The emotional trauma lasts so much longer than a physical trauma, and it hurts your heart to have your child cry in your arms over being laughed at. I can think back at the time when I was in junior high school...laughter was the ultimate humiliation for me, and I think of Chase. She doesn't understand any of the normal social crap that kids have to deal with...she only knows that they were laughing at her and that it hurt her feelings. How does a parent try to explain that to a kid, much less a kid that only sees good in others? She had no idea of how to get angry about it, she did not understand that kids do this to make themselves look better to others, and she could not transfer any of it to the kids that did it. She only knew that it hurt her feelings, that it made her cry. Try comforting a child like this when there is no way to comfort her. It will hurt you to your bones, to your very being, and it will enrage you in a way that you had no idea was possible. You will feel an anger and rage that will probably scare you. It will make you understand the guy on the highway who shoots a fellow driver who has cut him off from an exit. You will wish for a firearm and want to search for the culprit.

We made it through that debacle, and by this time we were ready to move on to a new school system. Chase's dad took a new job in a city two hours to the west, and we were on the move again. We purchased another "fixer-upper" and were ready to start anew again. Chase's sister chose to stay to finish her senior year, and it was a difficult and heartrending decision for us to let her do it. In the end, we arranged for her to live with her Sunday School teacher for the year. She had made it through her middle school years well, even though it was a challenge, and we wanted for her to finish her high school years with the peers with whom she had built relationships and the adults with whom she had learned to trust. We would have to deal with the distance between us, but we would be as supportive as possible. Her grandparents would be there for her, which was a comfort to us, and we would try to move on in the new city with her sisters.

We were pleasantly surprised with the new city. We met with school officials about Chase, and we were assured that they had Chase's best interests at heart, and we actually believed it. She started out in a middle school, and we chose to put her back a grade from where she had been previously. We felt that she had been treading water in the last school, just coasting, and we wanted to get her into a position where we thought she should be.

Chase met new teachers and new friends. She was readily accepted into the choir program, which surprised and thrilled us. You see, Chase can't carry a tune in a bucket, but she has a passion for singing. Even if she doesn't know the words to a song (which is most of the time), she will sing along with unbridled enthusiasm. She loves music and anything to do with it. It is such a joy to listen to her sing...it brings joy to even the hardest heart, because she gives it all she has.

We were so pleased with the acceptance with which she was greeted. The director was not worried about Chase disrupting a performance, and we knew that this was a possibility. She sang so enthusiastically, but it wasn't always on the same lines or pitch as the others. She was never singled out as missing a line, a pitch, or a note. This makes me eternally grateful to her choir teacher. He was never worried that Chase would make the choir look bad...he continued to put her on the stage at performances. It is so great to see a child performing, but it is such a complete joy to see a child with a disability, who may not know all of the words or all of the music, enjoy performing with the rest of the choir. This gave Chase such a sense of belonging, and it is probably one of the most important things in which she was involved. These are the kids who showed us the beautiful acceptance that was possible. They gave Chase the acceptance that she had craved, even though she didn't have a clue that this was what she wanted.

I can't tell you what a joy it was to run into a student from Chase's school and have that student stop to talk to Chase, to give her a hug, and to make her feel like "one of the crowd."

Belonging is such a fundamental need to humans, but it is not usually something that we think of. It's one thing for adults (like me and her dad) to feel welcome and accepted, but it is completley another prospect for a student to accept, respect and embrace someone when that person is coming in from a foreign place (even though it may be only hours away). The physical distance is never as significant as the intellectual and emotional distance. A person may choose to live in a location of his choice, but on arrival, this person may find the locale to have less to contribute to his life than his previous address. We didn't find it too difficult when we made the move to the new city, but we also knew that belonging would be a major endeavor for us.