Why would I consider changing schools for a Prep Student during the middle of a worldwide pandemic? It’s a level of grief – really. I am not sure I can explain it any better than that. It’s all the little expectations that are not met along the way. It’s all the small incidences where the hope that the system will not fail my child, but has, or the response is going to be better than it’s been in the past, but again isn’t. How do you explain to a Teacher that asks “what’s the actual problem?”, that the problem is enmeshed into the very reason she’s asking the question? And there’s not a significant incident to talk about, but instead its all slowly chipping away at the edges of our personality so that we fit inside the education system that is designed for a ‘majority’.
So, it’s now June 2020. We’ve survived what turned out to be the first of many Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns this year, started my 5yo in Prep at a school that we had 18 months of conversations with, to ensure it was the ‘right fit’ (I’ll clarify the issue with that in a bit), and for most part, only had 2 major concerns with the school that have required ‘public’ conversations with her Teacher in 6 months – not a bad innings I would say. And possibly from the school records, I would suggest that there’s probably not much more on her One-School file than that. She has entered a school with 713 other students (approx), and immediately attended full-time, in a mainstream class of 23 students, with only herself and another student going into her classroom with diagnosed disability.
We met with Head of Special Education numerous times over the 18 months, and asked what we thought were appropriate levels of questions for first time parents sending a child with higher needs into a mainstream school. We even got to meet all the Prep teachers, and had our pick of classrooms (based on the identified needs of my child) and teachers that would best suit her. I would say that the first ‘failing’ of this system, was entrusting that I had the knowledge and capacity to ask the right questions of the school, given that I have not had any experience of being a parent with a child at a school – there’s something to be said for lived experience. There’s also something to be said for the Head of Special Education to not identify this obvious lack of knowledge, and guide us further in this area. In hindsight, we didn’t get any tours of Special Education Rooms, Technology Rooms, Music/Dance Classrooms, even any classrooms beyond the Prep classrooms – everything was cursory glances. I had not met either of the Assistant Principals or the Principal until AFTER my child was an enrolled student of the school. Hindsight is 20-20 though! (And as I prepare to make this article live on my blog, almost 12 months later, we did make a change to a new school, and the new school offered meetings with Teachers and Admin leaders of the school, but only cursory glances of classrooms – so it really might be a department issue.)
Mid January 2020, Teachers chosen, classrooms decided, and school books and uniforms organised, we are notified via letter to our home address (where the basic detail of my child’s name and address were written incorrectly), that my child’s teacher was not going to be her teacher for the first 4-6 weeks due to an unforeseen operation.
I should point out at this point, that my child is diagnosed ASD, but despite the label, what was communicated very clearly to the school early on, is that advance notice of change is crucial in my small child’s world. And this is where the grief starts – that relief Teacher could have been AMAZING, but we were never going to get to find that out. Because what happened for us, was that the first erosion of trust came from the letter that was sent home having the BASIC details about my child handwritten incorrectly on an envelope. That letter invited us to go into school the week before school started to drop-off books, and attend a BBQ that was put on for new families – but we had to go in and spend the time meeting the new temporary teacher (knowing she was temporary), explaining the needs of my child, so that my child had the tools to cope for the first couple of weeks. 2nd erosion of trust.
First day of School – 3rd (and major) erosion of trust – my child’s father breached a temporary DVO, and direct instructions from the Principal and turned up to my child’s classroom at 10am in the morning, and I was not notified, until I arrived at the classroom at 3pm that afternoon to collect her! It was explained as “we had it under control”. I can’t even explain further the emotional damage this event caused.
There was the Chronicle’s “My First Year 2020” Photo’s, that the promotional brochure was put in our Pockets in the classroom, so that we remembered to buy the Chronicle on 24th March 2020 (and we were under Covid lockdown by this stage), only to find that for some unknown reason, my child wasn’t in those photo’s – and of course, the school doesn’t list the names of children, so my child gets the first visual reminder that she’s different, separate, and not one of the group. And because we were in isolation, and me not being an ‘essential worker’, we really had no recourse to ask any questions as to why this happened the way it did – just left with the sense of disillusionment.
But by week 6, the actual teacher had started in the classroom, and within 2 weeks, we had the first ‘big incident’ – my 5yo believing that she was wrong on everything that she did. With some creative questioning from the OT, it was nailed down to an incident at school, and so I approached the teacher … to find that yep, she had indeed told the whole class in a teachable moment that “if they’re A’s didn’t look like this, they were wrong!” I get it, sometimes, you do have to make broad statements, but this is where the grief for me lies. The question I had at the time was, “You know that my child takes your words literally. Did anyone approach her and clarify your statement?” Nope – we have to teach for the majority. The majority of students understood what the teacher meant, and my child didn’t show any obvious signs of distress, until she was in a safe place – at home in front of Mum. How many times does my child have to hurt in silence?? And because it’s her first year in the Education system in Australia, she is yet to be ‘verified’, and so there is only one Teacher Aide for 23 students – one very amazing teacher aide, but again she can’t be everywhere at once, so the issue went unnoticed for nearly a week.
And then there have been the days where we have rocked up to find a Supply Teacher or Teacher Aide in the classroom – we have a communication system in place that DIRECT messages me, so that I can notify my child, or make a choice to keep her at home if the change is going to cause major meltdown, and consistently this is not utilised. I feel like I am getting used to it, but like abuse, it erodes a little piece of me each time. Like the time in Week 7 of Term 1 where my student won Reader of the Week, and I didn’t get a notification to attend Parade to support my darling child on Parade – my child, the Empath, the one that gets to see every other Child’s parent come and support, but their own parent isn’t there! I cannot, even now, many months later describe that heartbreak for her.
There’s been cute stories too – my child being ‘handsy’ with another child in class, which sounds adorable. It’s not – my child and another child were kissing each other – slightly more than handsy! As a parent, I don’t need to be alarmist, but I do need that information to be accurate. In the classroom, my child has been allocated a square at the ‘front of the mat’ (so the teacher can keep an eye on her), however this just feels discriminatory to me. I should point out at this stage that my child is also delightfully empathetic – so she senses emotional intent. She is aware that she has to sit at the front of the mat near the teacher because she is ‘one of the naughty students’.
And Covid – now NONE of us had this easy – really – and there was no reference manual as to how it should have been handled, because the modern world had not seen anything like it before. But, it genuinely doesn’t take away from the erosion of trust in a school system to support the needs of their community in times of crisis. We entered this particular school system, transparent about our vulnerabilities, my childs’ needs as well as my own. Early on during lockdown, I got a call from the teacher to ‘check-in’ (nice, but probably needed to happen on a far more regular basis), and I will add in here, why didn’t I get a call from the HOSES team? My child is going through Verification at this school, so they were aware of the higher needs of our family. That teacher focused on the effort she put in to do a fish puzzle for my child, and while lovely, totally missed the needs of my child during this time. All the while, it was promoted by the teacher and school communication, that any child still at school as only receiving supervision for the 6 hours that they were inside school grounds – but of course, when I finally send my child back to school, I find this to not be the case – they are genuinely learning in the Prep classes, because Supervision “would not work effectively for the Preppies”. Yep, another erosion of trust, because my child missed out on 5 weeks of school because of mis-information. And then when I did eventually have to make the call to send her back, earlier than the Government recommended timeframe, I was made to feel like a leper by the Principal because she was not a ‘child of an essential worker’.
It does lead into a side point of the fact that during the whole lockdown period, my child was a vulnerable student – we knew this, and feel that it’s a system issue. The school, along with a number of Support Organisations, aren’t the first to acknowledge vulnerabilities, and it consistently feels like you “have to cry wolf” to get the response you have a right to. While it doesn’t make it right, I do feel that being proactive in this modern world, doesn’t get you the help you need. Examples: Teaching a child that a stove is hot, rather than waiting until they burn their hand and need medical attention; Funding for exercise as a preventative measure under Medicare, rather than waiting and funding it under disability as a response measure; Funding frontline DV workers to talk to victims in crisis, rather than funding at both levels, victims and abusers, to stop the cycle; Even not getting medical diagnosis until hospitalisation, rather than believing the patient, or making it affordable for the patient to seek help in the first place. Funding, time, energy and attention seems to be given to those that are already broken, or are so very close – not really effective for a proactive person such as myself.
Now onto behaviour management. When I read the Enrolment Pack in 2019 (yep, I am one of the parents that reads information before signing it), I recall the brief sadness of knowing, that due to my child’s Neuro-diverse responses to life situations (and my support of them), she would unlikely get any major behaviour awards during her time at school – that was ok – I was prepared to support her emotional journey to be an independent thinker, and not need external validation to have a healthy sense of self. What I was unprepared for, was the discriminatory way that the school goes about explaining these awards to Preppies! At some point, over the past couple of weeks, Gold behaviour awards were explained (either directly or indirectly) to my child as “when a student is good” and “when a student is bad”, and unfortunately, this means that my child now has quite a black and white view – of her own behaviour! And the explanation came a week after she was sent to Behaviour Management classroom because a Teacher-Aide that did not understand her, missed the fact that she needs extra processing time once given a direction, and my child was sitting at AMBER (bad children) level at the time.
Explanation by the teacher, is that the Behaviour Management strategies HAVE to work for the majority. “We have to teach them the skills they need to be functional in society – would you like someone to come up and punch your child in the head without warning?” Clearly not, but I also don’t want to teach my child that the ONLY way to hurt another human being is by hitting them. I think that the premise is that you become a functional member of society if you don’t physically lash out at another human being. There have been a number of comments around this school of verbal abuse and bullying going unreported and not dealt with by the school, it does make me question the true value of that majority thinking – and most especially when explained to a small child with the terms of good and bad. And the recent incident that got my child sent to Behaviour Management, involved little Miss, and another girl in her class, that decided to be ‘balls’ (super cute, and they weren’t doing anything with mean intent), and they were kicking each other. Teacher Aide asked them to stop, and the other child (who’s Neuro-typical), did immediately, and my child (who’s Neuro-diverse, and needs slightly more processing time), did not stop immediately. Both children were kicking, but it was my child that was sent to the behaviour management classroom. The school has a policy of no kicking or hitting, and I support that, but if they really wanted to send a child to BM for that behaviour, they should have sent both girls, not just the one that already has an identified difference, that they DID NOT take into account, even though it’s on record.
Now, in the Classroom Teacher’s defence, once brought to her attention, she took action that means for the remainder of the year, all behaviour management decisions relating to my child, will go through her – and that’s great – but not effective into Grade One, so what happens next year? And if the school system isn’t able to identify and respond to my child’s difference this year, what makes me think it’s going to be any better in future years??
And then there’s the trust that’s eroded when you see the School Receptionist is nominated as the Secretary of the P&C Association – maybe it’s just me, but I do find it hard to believe that complete impartiality would exist in this circumstance. A bit like the Behaviour Management Teacher being related to the Head of Special Education. I struggle to believe that I am going to have a ‘voice’ in this environment – and to be honest, I am only getting one chance at this – I only have one child, with no chance of any more.
There is also the unsettling issue of how an email that had my name attached was handled recently by the Head of Special Education – it’s not my issue to have, but it did lead me to try and make excuses for the HOSES behaviour, just so I can continue to have a workable relationship with this woman. When I called her to task on the issue, her response was somewhat mediocre, questioning me on why I had an opinion on the matter, and completely missing the point that she had critically hurt my friend by her dismissive behaviours. Then there’s the Principal’s handling of the issue with my child’s father turning up at the school. Unfortunately, every interaction I have had with the Principal this year, I have found him dismissive – of both the impact of my Ex’s abusive and controlling behaviours, and my child’s needs relating to her ASD diagnosis. His response in each case was “he has parent’s at the school where the Ex is worse than mine”, and “his child has ASD also” – just not helpful! But then again, this is the same School Principal that will not allow a Speech Therapist to enter the school for a child that has diagnosed disability and funding for said Speech Therapist into the school grounds after Covid-19, because a Government Official hasn’t expressively stated that it’s allowed!!!
All of this means that I haven’t yet put my hand up to volunteer at the school yet …
And you might read all this, and think “we’ll, why doesn’t she homeschool?” Thanks for thinking that’s an option, but with my own disability, it really isn’t – it just gets to be another level of grief.
So, in summary, there’s a whole lot of grief here for me – I shed a few tears writing this (cathartic, actually), but I think I can relate it back to the critical point when you work out that a relationship has failed. We might cycle though the stages of grief, with the middle stage being “bargaining”, but in the end, the realisation that the relationship has failed is still there. I haven’t got a solution in place yet, but the cycle ends ultimately at HOPE. Hope for a different way. Hope that what we were learning in the education system about ASD and genuine inclusion 20 years ago, has been applied in a school somewhere. Hope there’s a school that understands how to put the needs of the children first. Hope that I don’t have another 12 years of heartbreak. Hope that I can find a community to support my goal for my child, and that is for her to become all that she wants to be, in whatever form that looks like.
12 months on, we did move schools, and entered into a small classroom Special Education Environment, where my child had only 10 other kids in her class. This has, for most part, been a much more positive experience, but it’s not smooth sailing. But every day offers a new level of learning, and a different processing of the grief.
Emjay. Doing Life Differently 🌈
Doing Life Differently 