Our son C has what’s sometimes referred to (non-scientifically) as a "scattered neurology" (high intellect, severe behavior / social deficits), the upshot of which is that it’s incredibly hard to find an appropriate educational setting for him.
So hard, in fact, that the DOE told us they don’t have a spot for him, and have recommended some schools that might. The problem is that some of these schools are up to two hours away, or don't focus on C's particular type of autism.
Add to that the fact that we’ve already been rejected by some schools who say they cannot support C’s unique neurology, and we’ve been feeling pretty down.
Then, one school appeared like an oasis in the desert, a school that could engage C intellectually while helping with his behaviors, a school that created a program focused specifically on children with the same form of autism, a loving school with dedicated staff.
Since C's been in a somewhat inappropriate educational setting for almost two years — one that does’t focus on autism, let alone children with a scattered neurology — it felt like we’d finally had a stroke of luck.
Last Friday the bad news came: we have one week to come up with a huge deposit to secure a spot in this amazing school. This is the kind of deposit that would ruin us financially; given all our past medical and therapy bills, we’re already at the breaking point.
Certainly we can seek reimbursement from the the DOE since they don't have an appropriate spot for C, but that’s risky: we could have our request denied by the DOE and end up owing the entire sum, plus legal fees. In any case, some future arbitration won't help us come up with the required deposit this week.
And now we're scrambling: how do we find a school for our son before September? Do we bankrupt ourselves, cash out our paltry 401K? Do we move someplace (where?) with the hope that they have better public services? Do we put our son into a completely inappropriate educational setting for yet another year?
And so we feel the system has failed our son, yet again. Perhaps more to the point, however: we feel we’ve failed our son...yet again.
And this is a truly awful feeling.
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Postscript: people sometimes ask how hard it is to live with autism. My answer: in our particular case, it’s not autism that makes life unbearable, it's the system and support services (insurance, schools, etc.) that do.