The trouble all started when she was ready to enter kindergarten. She knew all of her numbers, colors, shapes, and body parts. She was ready to go to kindergarten. The problem was that we were in a very small school district (the one I had grown up in and gone from first grade--no kindergarten when I started--through twelfth grade). The school district suddenly wanted to put Chase into a self-contained special education classroom, one which contained only one other student who was thirteen years old, was a boy, who had no verbal skills and was known to have violent outbursts. Of course, we were diabolically opposed to this...why would we want to put our five-year-old daughter into a classroom with a young man who was violent? Thus began our legal battle with the school district.

We hired an attorney (he was blind) and an educational specialist (he had significant physical disabilities). We planned for the ARD meeting to come. (ARD stands for Admission, Review, and Dismissal in Texas, which is the meeting that is supposed to be an annual event for parents and teachers to meet to discuss and decide on educational goals yearly). We were familiar with this process, as we were both teachers in the Texas public school system. We had no idea how familiar we would become with this process in the next few years. We met for an extended period of time (approximately 12 hours). Chase was placed in kindergarten for the year. We kept a journal that we passed between teacher and parent for the year, and we knew that getting her into first grade would be a struggle. We knew that the kindergarten teacher was trying to document her way into keeping Chase out of first grade.

The nightmare began when we had a knock at the door from a social worker telling us that there had been a report of abuse with Chase. You see, Chase was not potty-trained, and the school thought that we were abusing her. We made it through that incident with the social worker reporting that the reports were unfounded, and we thought that we were through with that. We continued through that year, trying to communicate with Chase's teacher, but it was clear that we could not talk with her and that she had motives (given to her from the principal) to move in the direction of the self-contained classroom spoken of previously). We continued to try to communicate, but our efforts were met with anger and malice. We were the enemy, even though we were just trying to get the best education possible for our daughter.

We again faced long ARD meetings that spring, and Chase was placed into the classroom of the superintendent's wife for the next year, with less time spent in the regular classroom and more time spent in special education. We tried to continue communication through written means, and it became clear to us that we were in danger of being accused of abuse. Again, we were reported for child abuse through Child Protective Services, this time accusing my dad of sexual abuse. Chase was still not potty-trained, and the report said that it was my dad's fault. Believe me, my dad tried to legally call them to the carpet, but getting that done is very difficult. A judge has to open the report, and that just is not done in a small town.

One good thing that did come of it is that they sent us to a urologist to see why Chase was not potty-trained at the age of seven. He told us that the test commonly teaches children what it feels like to need to use the restroom. It was a traumatic event for Chase...they hooked electrodes all over her genitals before filling her bladder with water via a catheter...but it did exactly what the doctor said it would do. She was potty-trained!! The school called a couple of weeks later to ask when we were going to file our insurance for the procedure, and I told them that we wouldn't be filing our insurance for the procedure. They asked for it, and the bill was on them!! They had to pay thousands of dollars to potty-train Chase...a little bit of sweet revenge. My dad got a big kick out of that.

By the time that we left my hometown, Chase was in a self-contained special education classroom with students that did not speak. Her teacher was great, but she was in an environment which pushed her backwards. It was a good thing for us to move her to a new school system where she could thrive at last.