Feeling extremely deflated after school meeting

Post Reply New Topic

I'm angry and i want to cry.
This wasn't an IEP meeting, it was a filling in the school and finding out if the school will offer support to my son meeting.
It all seemed to be going well, till someone asked if the school would consider an aide for james. A flat out NO apparently he wouldn't qualify. How bad does my son need to be. I think because he isn't being a hasle to them, his stress at home and his not wanting to talk about school isn't even considered. He tells me kids call him names or wont play with him. He tells me the work is hard. He thinks I will be cross with him because he tells me he made a mistake but he couldn't fix it in time. He tells me he couldn't finish his work in time, this bothers him, he thinks I will be cross. He wont show this side of him at school. He has to pretend all day. I feel sick, I feel deflated. I don't know what to do. I'd be very interested to hear how you guys got an aide for your kids. The psycologist asked if the school could put something in place so that J would have some where to go during lunch time if noone would play with him or if he need a safe place. We were told that lunch is only 45mins the staff and kids all have their breaks at the same time, the breaks aren't staggered so there aren't the resources available to have someone extra supervise, and all they offered as some where for J to go would be to join a knitting club or a drawing club. I told them that J has fine motor issues. I was immediatly told that that doesn't matter J could still join. He has no interest in knitting or drawing. . What am I to do?
I just talked to my sister, she wants me to pull him out of this school and find him another school. It's just so frustrating and scary my son comes home from school depressed he is 9 he should be full of life and happy. Because he isnt acting up, because he isn't complaining to them, because he loves to learn and is eager to please everyone including those kids that wont play with him he isn't bad enough to need help/support. Am I asking to much. I am stressed and at a loss. Advice/ feedback would be great. We didn't even get to mention J's sensory issues today. I kind of feel like why bother? What difference will it make?

The schools attitude sounds (excuse my french) piss poor.

When I was 9 I would come home from school very depressed but what I think did not help was that when asked by a psychiatrist how I felt I said happy I said I was always happy because I did not understand I was depressed and being out of lessons away from the class made me happy at the time. I think I could only understand how I felt Now.

If that can make any sense.

I really hope you can resolve these issues, good luck.

Thats funny in a sad way. When I said to my son today, "you must have had a good day you seem happy". He said "no, I'm happy to be home".
I wish I could do something for him.

i'm so sad for you

not quite sure what to tell you to do from here.......

aurea, I don't know about in Australia, but in the U.S. at the end of an IEP we are given papers to sign agreeing to the proposed Plan. I was recently told by a Special Ed teacher not to sign them until we had gone home and carefully looked them over even if we did think it was a good plan. If this is true in your situation take them to J's doctors and get them to tell you if they think the Plan fills his needs. If not get letters from them saying so, make copies, and deliver them to the school. Keep a set for yourself because we are finding schools seem to conveniently lose these types of papers. Check into your local and national laws and if needed threaten to have them enforced. We've reached that point now and the school is beginning to cringe when we walk in.

This will not be extremely pleasant but it can be very satisfying and we seem to be the only advocates our children have. Good luck!

I feel really bad for you. We were always denied an aide for my son because he's not MR. Yeah, they actually said that. They said, "No one in _____ County gets an aide if they are not MR." (that was illegal for them to say that).

The school dug their heels in our case and the only way I could have fought them would have been to hire an attorney. I didn't want litigation to take over our lives, so I opted for homeschooling. That was the only way I could assure that my son would 1) have a good teacher who cared about him, and 2) receive individualized curriculum for his learning style.

Where I live, they pride themselve on their superior standards of learning. (i really hate public schools)

sue them... or drop out... i am dropping out and homeschooling using an online program.. f**k the schools

This wasn't an IEP meeting, and at this stage I don't know if I'm going to get one.
J's assesment team were with me. The school still didn't budge. Its because J isn't creating sceens, he isn't going to them each time he has a problem. He is suffering in silence. J's vice principle said she didn't believe that kids were being nasty to J or that he was having any problems during playtime. This is not what J is coming home telling me. I believe my son, a few kids have come up to me in the past and asked me why is J so weird, they have said to me in front of J he is a freak, a nut, a baby, he is gay(this is a put down word doesn't mean they think he is), he is stupid he's an idiot. Even if all of the nastyness is a figment of my imagination, it's a figment of his to and it needs to be delt with, not ignored.

I realized that too. If it wasn't for my son's behavior issues at school, they wouldn't even have given him an IEP. If my son would have sat there quietly (even if he sat there and didn't do any work), that would have been fine with them.

It's good that your son tells you about the teasing though. My son was silent about that and I only find out about the teasing when it became clear to me that he was suffering from major depression.

It makes me really, really angry when the quiet ones don't get what they need.
I really hope you he gets the help he needs...

I am so sorry to hear that! Don't give up!! We moved to a new state and had issues with my ds being picked on, hit, harrassed etc. I made sure to go to school at lunch/recess and go out on the playground to observe. They were not too happy with this. I saw him being hit at and when I said to the social worker, did you see that? Do you know she denied seeing it? He was being called peon and she insisted that is a "Pokemon clan name", sorry, Pokemon is one of my sons fixations, it's NOT!! They did have a "lunch Bunch" start - certain kids would be together with a teacher to play games. We also have something called Best Buddies, kids volunteer to do things with our kids and just be a friend. Although it only for middle school and highschool I believe.

I'd say if you are intending on keeping him in that school - fight, you are his only advocate!! Be there everyday if you have too. Maybe you could see if you could start up a lunch group (if your able to go there daily). Its hard believe me, I get so tired of the world sometimes, but I have to keep going. I am in the US, so things are probably much different where you are. Otherwise, consider homeschooling or switching schools.

Seeing this happen to our kids is just so heartbreaking!!

There are two issues with the aide.
1)unless Australian law is different from US law, they can't claim financial reasons for denying an aide. One school denied us and then took it out of the IEP. While we did pull him out of that school, we failed to reinsert the aide into the IEP. We were hoping the "programatic aide" would work.
2)Is the assessment team you are referring to your own private team? Or is the school's team? IF they their own people are making these suggestions, then they have no basis to deny their own results. That's just dumb. If this team is your private team, then you are out of luck. Schools don't have to honor any outside dx or Rx.
BTW, we had an aide in kindergarten because he wouldn't have been able to attend otherwise. He lashed out, invaded space and needed almost constant interventions to keep him on track. The aide also reported directly to the special ed teacher and thus, streamlined communication and new interventions as needed.


Again, this is bogus. If they are just saying this upfront then they are not looking at your son's best interests at all! Even lazy people will lie and promise to do stuff. That they are telling you this at this point means they have no intention of meeting your son's needs. You need to decide at this point whether to fight this or pull him out and go elsewhere.
My own experience is that the teachers would make promises then I'd find out a week or two later that nothing was being followed through. My son has outward presentations of his issues (behavior) so after a while, they might give in to some of my requests because it helps him calm down. But it's a fight that requires threats, multiple meetings and a lot of frustration.


It's true that the introverts seem to get less services than the "behavior problem" autistics . However, when my son is "good", they don't keep track of what he is doing and why. So, when he is "bad", they are surprised and treat him like an NT. It creates a terrible cycle of negativity towards his autistic traits and points out to his peers that he is bad because he is autistic. We've made the decision to quietly pull him out at the end of the year. It's a whole semester but I think it's okay.

Sorry to hear the meeting went that way.

Has the school received, or indeed applied for funding in relation to J? If not why not? The flow of funding should make positive things happen.


As you may have gathered, I've also been recently looking into school's obligations, funding, etc. I've only skimmed a whole lot of documents but it seems to me that Vic gov't schools can apply for funding for diagnosed ASD kids from both the Vic & Fed govts.

Here are some links:

Vic gov 2008 handbook

More Vic gov info & links

Fed gov info


This talks about a School Visit service that Western Autism School offers:
Western Autism School services

Good luck. All the best to all & keep fighting.

My parents were in a similar situation.

For one, I had a regular counselor I saw outside of school. He helped myself and my family deal with the school system by doing things like talking to the administrators. That might help, since a good professional would be able to bridge the gap between your son and his school.

Another thing, though, that I parents wound up doing when they couldn't get any special ed or ANYTHING for me is they went to the school district's office and flat out told them that they would sue the district if proper accomodations were not made. This got me some help.

This is the very thing I would like to help stop someday, being AS myself.

Aurea, I feel for your situation, but based on what you've posted I'm not quite sure if your kid would qualify for an Aide where I live either. Aides are given here to acclimate higher functioning, Autistic children into a mainstream environment based on the "least restrictive" environment philosophy which normally involves full inclusion. They're generally support for kids who otherwise could not make it in an inclusion environment without the added support. If your child is actually making through the days sucessfully, even though it's a challenge, the school is thinking, "What would an Aide do?" If the child is having problems finishing work on time, the teacher needs to be consulted with in order to find better ways to help or teach him. But, the teasing is a social issue for schools and the administration needs to come down hard and put an end to it. Typically, kids don't get Aides in order to avoid teasing, even though if a kid qualified for an Aide overall, the Aide would shadow the kid on the playground and intervene in such cases. I would have them explain what those qualifiers are. My kid has an Aide, but the goal is to wean him off and complete the day independently.

I spoke to some one in the education department yesterday, not to get the school into trouble, but to try and find out why the school would say no.
This woman was very nice, I read threw some of J's reports to her. She asked me if a vineland test had been done. I don't know I dont have a copy of that test. She acknowledges that J probably does have a lot of problems, but depending on how bad each of those problems are and what his test results were with a vineland test he may not qualify for an aide. She suggested I find out if this vineland test was done and if not ask the school to do it.
Look I agree J probably doesn't need an aide in the classroom all the time, its more in the play ground and during freetime when he is getting lost, confussed and anxious. His teacher ultimatly I think is probably going to do all she can, but even she said she has 4 kids in her class with additional needs, two of whom get aides. She is run off her feet. I just need to know that J feels safe and his needs aren't being over looked.