How Our School System Failed My Son

My son is high functioning autistic and in the tenth grade. Yesterday I found a certificate for honor roll. And in any other family it would have been celebrated, but instead it was not mentioned, in fact it was found in my son’s room under a bunch of garbage. Which breaks my heart, but when your child has gotten passed his entire life instead of taught properly like the other kids you can’t take a honor roll certificate at face value. Because you know they just passed him like all the other teachers. And the worst part is, my son knows it too.

He knows a child that is missing 22 assignments just a week before grades are due and has an F doesn’t magically get an A on his report card while he is still missing 16 assignments. He knows there’s no way he could make the honor roll like this. This is the situation for almost all of his classes. And it’s been the story his entire life.

DISCLAIMER: I support teachers and have many friends that are teachers. I am only speaking of the school systems in my area and the teachers my son has had. I am not discriminating against all teachers; I know there are some great teachers out there. I just don’t feel my son has had any.

I wouldn’t be blaming the school system if it wasn’t the truth. Every year either my husband or I attend the student parent teacher nights and we always say the same thing, “please reach out to us if he’s missing anything or if he seems to be struggling.” And with no avail, we receive no email, no phone calls, no nothing! Ever!!!! Even when he was getting bullied by a “friend” the school knew about it, but didn’t mention anything to us. So, when I found out a kid threatened to stab my son 17 times with a knife, I went to the school and the principal told me they already handled it. And followed it up with, “you know kids say the darndest things at this age.”

Ummmmm no! They didn’t handle it. The kid was still in all my son’s classes and he had no disciplinary actions taken. Which was not okay with me and my husband. It wasn’t until I threatened to file a police report against the child did they finally apologize for not taking the situation serious and removed the student from all my son’s classes and the first lunch so he could have minimal contact with my son.

It’s stuff like this that has gone on his entire life. Another example, he’s been in a special reading class his entire life and he is still only reading at a 5th grade level. I use this an example because when I was young I too was in a reading class because I had comprehension issues. But after two years of being in the “special” class my teacher tested me and decided I didn’t need it anymore. I had done so good with the help of my special education teacher that I tested two whole grade levels higher than my class in reading! And I’ve been working with him on his reading since his father and I got married and he came to live with us, 3 years, and in three years he has jumped from a 3^rd grade level to the 5.6 grade level that he is at now. It has been hard and on most occasions he has fought me, but I stuck it out and I feel that is all he needed, someone to work with him.

Now don’t get me wrong I know he’s high functioning autistic but according to his doctor, the autism specialist, he is so high on the charts that he’s barely on the spectrum. But because he got that diagnosis early on in life the teachers have all treated him like he wasn’t capable. And I’ve read through all the Drs. reports from every appointment over the years. He’s been high functioning since he was diagnosed. So it wasn’t like he was lower on the spectrum then got better. No, he’s been high functioning from the start. But again, people hear autistic and they automatically assume he’s incapable of achieving anything.

This frustrates me to no end and he’s about to graduate high school in two years with a reading level of a 7th grader if all our efforts in these two years work! What kind of future can you have with a 7th grade reading level?!

This is why I say the school system failed my son!