Last week, I wrote about the “attempt” by the district to get some input from The Boy regarding his future for our upcoming IEP meeting during which we will discuss the transition to high school. The amount of effort put into getting his input was exactly one worksheet, borrowed from another school district. At that time, I was too busy shaking my head to know exactly what to do next.

I took that worksheet and put it into a digestible format (PowerPoint), and added some possible answers for The Boy to choose. I didn’t send anything in on the “due date” which was Friday. Over the weekend, I sat down briefly with The Boy and the roughly 15 slides with questions about his future. “Hm,” he’d say. “Go to the next one,” and “I haven’t really thought about that before,” were common responses. To summarize, I got nothin’. Monday, I sent in my responses to the parent survey (it is now Tuesday morning, and they are still in his backpack, by the way), and emailed his special ed teacher to explain that he didn’t have much response to the student survey, and it was either because he really doesn’t have any idea, or he’s not comfortable sharing his ideas at this time. Her response was that she had a simpler survey format she could send home. No doubt copied from the same school district… I replied that I didn’t think it was the format, as I had modified that for him, but the content was the issue, and that he really has no response.

What do they expect? Mom asks 15 questions or hands him the worksheet and they’re magically going to get profound and thoughtful answers to just what is going on inside my son’s brain? For the umpteenth time in the past three years, I have to ask, “Are you NEW here? Do you not know ANYTHING about autism?”

A serious, thoughtful, student-centered approach would be to integrate some of this transition planning throughout the 8th grade year, directly within the “social skills class” curriculum… You know, that curriculum that the principal wants to change willy-nilly based on what she feels like is important for my son? But what do I know?

I sometimes wish I didn’t know how half-assed they are approaching my kid’s education. Maybe ignorance would be bliss. But I do know, and I’m powerless to change the culture of the school and the district. That change has to come from within. I can scream and shout and threaten legal action all I want, but change is terrifyingly slow in education, and even those on the inside are mostly powerless to change it, as well.

My only course of action is to muddle through and shake my head.