Hard Moments

While I normally like to look at the funnier side of what I do, sometimes I have those rough moments as well. This post is one of those hard moments that will probably stay with me for the rest of my life.

It was my first year working in an inner city school and it was the first year that the school I was at was open.

At open house the week before school started I met D and his family. They found me as D had an IEP and they wanted to make sure they knew who I was. D was a 4th grader at the time. D had been home schooled up to this point off and on but was also very active in his home school group.

I knew that D had been identified as being on the autism spectrum. My gut told me though that something more was going on. I gave it some time hoping that my gut was wrong. It wasn’t. Quickly found that D was working multiple grades below and he had also been retained.

I obtained permission from mom to do a re-evaluation. I explained I wasn’t questioning the autism, but I wanted to see what else was going on so that I could best meet his needs. Mom agreed as she was concerned with him having to take ISTEP when he was so far below grade level.

We went through the eval process and it was time to meet to go through the evaluation. When I saw the report, my jaw hit the floor. D’s full scale IQ was 54 – moderate mental retardation. Luckily I had time to prepare for what would not be an easy conversation.

At the meeting, my school pysch was great, but mom and dad were just not understanding what she was saying. Mom wanted the moon for D and Dad whose an engineer wanted the facts straight. Couldn’t fault them for that.

So I went and sat next mom and dad, and summoned a strength that to this day I don’t know where it came from.

“Mom the good thing, is that D doesn’t have to take ISTEP. We can exempt him from that test. We have bigger things to consider though. I am going to drop all of the politically correct terms and use terms that I know you are familiar with. My apologies for any offense because that is not what I mean. (Parents knew that wasn’t my intent and were grateful for the plain English) Where we stand right now, D has moderate mental retardation. (Light bulb went off in his head he now knew what he was dealing with) Honestly Mom and Dad, I don’t believe that it is appropriate to keep D on track to get a high school diploma. I think that it is D’s best interest that we consider a certificate of completion.”

Mom wanted to know if we could bring up his IQ- No, sorry not that much. By his age it may vary a few points but not enough to get him into the average point. Mom wasn’t too keen on putting D in a self contained classroom, based on things that she remembered from school .

Dad got the big picture and wanted to do what was best for D.

I don’t remember all of the conversation. I do remember my staff sitting behind me at the table. My school psych was doing her best to be supportive, the Gen Ed Teacher wasn’t giving any contact and the other SPED teacher was crying. (In her defense she was a first year teacher and this was hard to hear)

I do remember being in this intense tunnel conversation for about 30 min with mom and dad discussing that that their son was moderately mentally retarded and won’t graduate with a high school diploma. Everything else is kind of a blank.

I remember after the meeting being incredibly drained. My other sped teacher immediately wanted to debrief and give me tons of kudos for what I had just done because she couldn’t have done. I remember saying… I just devastated two parent’s dreams by telling them their son won’t graduate with a high school diploma. I can’t talk right now. I need to go and decompress by myself for a while. I walked to my office, shut the door and cried for a good 1o minutes.

Mom and Dad chose to have D go back to home schooling instead of a self contained classroom and this works for him.

To this day Mom hasn’t ever quite forgiven me for this conversation and I understand. We do have a great relationship as she does have a son that is now a 9th grader with us. L has been with us since year 1 as well.

To this day telling the family that D wouldn’t graduate with a diploma is the hardest thing I have ever done.