Tardy? Go to jail!

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Maybe the ACLU could help? I don't know, but fight this. I was a chronic late/absent kid for the same reasons. They locked me in juvenile detention for six months. It nearly destroyed me. I'm still not right 14 years later, and I doubt I'll ever trust anyone or anything again in my lifetime. The experience was absolutely devastating.

Yes, some families belong in court for these reasons, most of the time because the parent(s) are negligent. In this case, it's a different set of circumstances and being punished for struggling is nothing short of disturbing. Definitely seek some legal aid if possible. I hope things work out.

The truth is that some of these officials look around for people who are vulnerable who they can attack and destroy for the fun of it.

My mom would have killed that bus driver (well, not KILL, but an extreme lecture for sure) for that

It certainly sounds like the school is making a case against you. The woman who was leading up my son's IEP team was a total witch. She was not satisfied that I was not medicating my son and she made things as difficult as possible. CPS was never called, but that might have been a possibility if I did not get my son out of the system.

Special education lawyers are quite expensive, esp. if the school is digging in their heels, as they appear to be doing in your case. If there's anyway you could homeschool, I would do that. That's what I decided to do with my son. He gets his schoolwork done, he's not being suspended or sent home from school for disability-related behaviors, and I don't have 6 or 7 school people telling me to put him on drugs.

About your court date, you will at least need a lawyer to handle that.

School administrators are scum. Methinks they are trying to pin the blame of the OP so they don't have to be responsible for the kid's issues. My mom had to fight the school for crap like this, too. In my case the school wasn't doing anything about me getting bullied because the bullies were the top players on the football team.

It sounds like this is an automatic response based on the number of tardies. In which case, you have options. Contact the department responsible for the letter - which may have nothing to do with anyone who actually knows your child - and see what you can do. ALSO request a new IEP meeting, specifically to address the challenges you face getting your child to school on time.

Since districts have such huge issues with truancy that they have resorted to drastic measures. From what I've read, it's more about getting it through to the parents how important it is, than anything. They are doing the one thing they feel seems to work: scare the *(&Y^$# out of the parents.

The appropriate response, then, is to make it clear that you KNOW it is important to be on time, and that you really do your best, that you allow enough time, etc., but there are functional issues that you feel at a loss to solve, but desire to. The more they know you WANT and are CAPABLE of working with them, the more they will work with you.

I doubt that they want to pay lawyers to see you in court any more than you do. What they want to do is force you to think outside the box and find SOLUTIONS, instead of explanations. Play on that. Know where they are coming from, and use that knowledge to resolve it.

I do not think that is true. What IS true, is that schools are frustrated. They are expected to educate all children, all backgrounds, but it becomes impossible to do so when children are chronically late, etc. In some families it can never be solved, and I know how heart breaking that is for teachers and aides sitting on the front lines. They can talk and recommend and talk and recommend and even tutor outside of school and it all goes to naught because of functional problems within the family.

We're late at school quite a bit, but because I work with the school, they work with me. Everyone has to give and take, and advance in baby steps, so that they know a family has the desire and the capability to move forward.

Be clear, I am NOT in favor of this dragging into court thing, and our school does not do it. But the Middle School here has advanced to drastic measures, where they actually provide a police escort after a certain number of tardy's. They felt it was the only way they could get kids there (personally, I think they need to roll back the start time, but I'm not at that school yet, so my voice isn't involved). The rougher a school has it, the more drastically they act. They are held accountable if the children don't learn, but how can the kids learn if (a) they are missing lessons and (b) they are disrupting the learning of all the other students when they arrive? These are serious problems in some school districts, and every parent thinks they have some good explanation for why their child should be an exception.

Honestly, I think an AS child SHOULD be an exception, but that needs to be worked out with the IEP team.

I think there is a clear distinction between bully issues and tardy issues. A school is responsible for keeping all the children safe while there. A parent is responsible for getting the child to school on time, as difficult as that can be.

I am totally sympathetic to the original poster, believe me. But calling the school scum and otherwise blaming the system is not going to help, it will just make it worse.

I agree that some school administrators like to go off on power trips. I blame the bureacracy of special education laws and the lack of choices available to parents. I think the process should be easy for parents to get private placements for their children in specialized autism/asperger's schools...but, that's not the case. If the public school denies you FAPE, you have to sue to get it. There is no mercy for parents who can not afford lawyers, private evaluations to prove their case, etc......

Do they leave us an alternative to calling them scum? Frankly I think that the public school system has completely been taken over by sociopaths.

You do not know these people though and are being just a little presumptuous. There was no work with me attitude, never has been.



You are speaking to someone who completely understands this. Shoot, show me anyone here who does not?



Good for you, because I have been trying for years to work with this school. They won't budge.



I can't believe you even wrote that. What do you expect to happen then for every time a child comes in late or leaves early? And it does happen all of the time, each and every day. I can understand if a kid shows up late each and every day an hour or so each time, but 5-15 minutes once a week?

Maybe instead of punishing the family, the school should work with the family. Or provide transportation.



The IEP team has to work with a very volital principle. And an IEP makes no difference according to my Special Education leader in this county.

This is what I do/have done. My daughter is also frequently tardy do to a.m. meltdowns and sensory issues (she CAN'T just make do with the first pair of socks out of the drawer. She MUST try several pair on to see if they are the right texture. Also, if she gets out of sequence in her a.m. routine, she HAS to start again at the beginnning).

We were also threatened with court. This is what we have done:

I document everything about the meltdowns - what precipitated it, etc.
I email and phone and visit the principle every time she is tardy. I make very long-winded explanations about the interventions I am trying/have tried/will try. This has done two things: First, they are convinced that I am TRYING really, really hard to fix this. (WHICH I AM). Second, I think I bore them to the point that they don't want to mail me or call or send home notes, because they can't stand to sit through my detailed analysis of what went wrong! So they have started ignoring us!

One principle jokingly offered to come over in the morning to show me how to get her to school on time. I TOOK HER UP ON IT. She refused to come over. But she left us alone after that.

ALSO- we got a therapy agency involved in town. They are well-established and have a good rep, and understand what is going on. Then I got them to collaborate with the school system. It really helped.

Thank god for homeschooling.

I am an AS mother of an AS 8 year old and he stays home, does about an hour and a half a day, max, of school work for assessment purposes. We don't need to get up at set times or out of the house for anything except his karate classes.

If there was any way you could do it, it solves lots of problems.

My comment was not towards you at all, but towards the general attitude I felt I was seeing from other posters that it's always the school's fault. I see it a lot on these forums. I KNOW there are many problems with schools, and I know many officials are incompetent, BUT most of those I've met or talked to really, really REALLY care about the children, and are frustrated with all the things that makes their jobs nearly impossible and that are out of their control. No one will work with someone who can't see where they are coming from, and I'm sorry but I can't help feel when I read these forums that it's no wonder so many parents don't get what they need, because they honestly believe that they are dealing with scum (not you, this is general). Well, you know what? If someone insisted on thinking I was scum without getting to know me or understand where I came from, I'd act as scum. Often in life we create our own self-fulling prophecies. That doesn't help.

As you acknowledged later, I think an exception for those on the spectrum IS appropriate. I wrote it, I posted it, but you sliced it off here. If you can't understand what I'm trying to say in this paragraph, excepting your unique situation, then you have never tried to run a classroom. I'm not a teacher, but I have volunteered, and I have filled in, and I have listened to teachers talk about their issues and the things that make teaching difficult. Every single time someone enters or leaves the classroom all the little heads turn and several minutes of focus is lost, minimum. It adds up. There are times it cannot be avoided, everyone knows that, but the attitude that since "it's inevitable what difference does one more make" is detrimental. IT ADDS UP and before you know it 25% of potential learning time is lost. All families have a duty to work on keeping their share of that percentage as small as possible. We ALL contribute to it, but we have to at least care and TRY to keep it down. I'm addressing an ATTITUDE, NOT you, because I think your situation requires extra consideration, as I've said. But you NEED to recognize the reason they care if you are going to solve this issue. It's a necessary part of the process.

Perhaps it is time you looked for a different school. Is your child happy in this school? I truly believe that every family has the right to be in a school that works with them, that they feel comfortable with on all levels, and that the child is happy in. And, you may be surprised, I believe that this is actually possible. After long regretting leaving my son in an inappropriate school when he was very young, and knowing now that all we went through there was completely unnecessary, you will often hear me say, MOVE SCHOOLS.