....and so we fight on.

My husband just got back from a meeting with our school district about school placement for our special-needs daughter. Before the meeting I felt and acted very detached about the whole thing. Kirk, with his usual optimistic outlook would say, "MAYBE they'll see that we're willing to fight this all the way and just give us what we want...." To which (having grown up in the cynical-making lap of the US government) I'd roll my eyes and say, "Yeah, in your dreams." So, in fact, I was right. Hypocrisy and greed win out as usual; placing a child who only learns by ABA/discreet trial methods in a class where no one's trained to teach that way is clearly the "most appropriate placement."

But when Kirk told me the outcome of the meeting, I literally began shaking and I felt something very tiny and hidden crumble inside me. And it was optimism and hope: hope that the world would go the way it should; that these educators who, no doubt, went into the field because they wanted to help kids, would really try to understand what is best for Charlotte the girl rather than than look in fear at Charlotte the precedent. Silly me. I'll know better next time.