After a routine ARD committee meeting in November, during which I updated the team about Paul’s progress, the director of special education for the county gave me the name of an attorney who she said may be helpful in seeking county funding for my plan. I was grateful for the tip, which I acted on the same day, but was surprised—and touched—that a person in her position was arming me with what I needed to challenge the system she represented. I didn’t know where we would land but, that aside, I was reminded of human goodness and the merits of teamwork.
The attorney, Wayne Steedman, was located in Towson, Maryland, and couldn’t have been more different from my former special education attorney. There was no high-rise office building and no slick facade. In fact, there was no firm. Formerly a social worker serving special education students, Mr. Steedman had seen too many children whose needs had slipped through the inevitable cracks of the bureaucracy and decided a law degree would further empower his advocacy for these deserving kids.
Mr. Steedman found Paul’s case compelling, and I retained him to represent us. As I peruse my files, I’m reminded of the many back and forth letters, including declarations from the county attorney, that were initially upsetting to me. But, without going to court, we came to a resolution by late winter. While the school year was more than half over, I was pleased with the outcome and grateful to have encountered another good person along the way.
At the end of each day that year, Paul was dropped off at my office, located in an old three-story house that had been converted to office spaces, where he quietly entertained himself from 3:30 to 5:30. He had a box of things he played with, mostly paper clips, string, and sundry office supplies he had accumulated, which he kept in the eaves on the third floor.
In the grocery store one winter day, Paul picked up a pack of valentines and put them in our cart. “Paul,” I said, “you can have the valentines, but who are you going to give them to?”
“All my friends in your office,” he replied, as if it should be obvious—“Rene, Charlene, Irfan, and Uncle Goldblatt”—a name, to the amusement of all, that Paul had somehow adopted for my boss.
The teacher Paul spent the most time with that year was Gretchen Nyland, a veteran art teacher whose dedication to providing multidisciplinary experiences for Paul was matched by her endless creativity. In one of their many projects, Paul made a pinch pot mouse out of clay, which they glazed and fired. Paul loved the experience and wanted to make more. One thing led to another, and Paul ended up producing dozens of these little guys. Subsequently, Gretchen convinced Annapolis Pottery—a well-known shop in downtown Annapolis—to sell Paul’s mice. These tiny creatures were placed on the counter near the cash register with a little sign that said, “$2 each.” Several of my friends and family members bought one, except for my mother, who I think bought five! The day I came home with my purchase, Paul looked at it, then looked at me, and said, “You bought the mean one.”
Annapolis Pottery gave Paul the option of selling all his mice to the shop or stopping in at regular intervals to collect his portion of the proceeds. He chose the latter, and Gretchen helped him open a bank account, where they made frequent deposits and kept track of his money.
Sarah Hyde, Paul’s primary academic teacher for the year and a highly respected and experienced special educator, wrote a brief summary as the year came to an end:
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Paul is intellectually curious, expressive, well-behaved, charming, exceptionally empathetic, and fun. His strengths include his visual perception, his memory, his sense of humor, and his ability to get along with others. His weaknesses are his fine motor skills, his written language, and his math concepts with his primary weakness being his inconsistent attention span.
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Paul probably learned more during this particular year than any other of his life. Some of his learning was rote—he memorized his multiplication tables, for example—but also his curiosity about the world and his interest in history, politics, music, and art soared. In general, he had a lot of self-doubt regarding his differences and had noticed that every time he left a school, the other children stayed. But he felt good about himself during this year, and I think we both had turned lemons into lemonade.
Chapter 5
Craving Connection
Then there’s my heart that craves
Mostly connection
And a good deal of rest
In between conversations
So that I can be recharged
And ready to talk again.
My life… It means everything
That I get the chance to connect
I don’t know how else to put this into words
I’d give you a hug but my hands,
They’re behind my back.
I WAS WORRIED. Paul was making progress, but he needed a peer group. He continued to be sweet and good-natured, but he needed a place to belong. It was 1995. Paul would be entering seventh grade, and his pending adolescence ramped up my sense of urgency. I was determined to get him in a school where he would thrive—and stay! A school that would recognize his strengths and engage him. A school that knew how to accommodate his unique challenges.
I feared his being underestimated as much as I did his being overwhelmed. Or worse yet, overlooked.
Of all the schools I came to know, The Lab School continued to be my favorite. Designed for children with language-based learning disabilities, it stood out as a place that could inspire and support Paul. When I visited there, I saw creative teaching that didn’t short-change intellectual development and a broad curriculum intertwined with the arts. Without question, it was a place that wanted kids to blossom more than it wanted to keep them in line. And, at the risk of sounding corny, it spoke to me; I just knew it would make a big difference for Paul. It was my dream.
The school was located in Northwest Washington, D.C., a good hour from our house, which, as Paul got older, seemed more reasonable. When we’d applied there before, it was late in the season, and spaces for new students were hard to come by. During Paul’s year of homeschooling, his application for seventh grade was submitted on time to Lab and a couple of other approved schools.
To give Paul a fighting chance, attention to his medical needs in light of his deficits was a top priority. Even though it was tempting to leave well-enough alone, I wasn’t prepared to settle. I knew we needed to keep pursuing the right therapy, one prong of which was medication management.
During Paul’s year of homeschooling, we had experimented by substituting the combination of Prozac and Dexedrine in place of the imipramine, something more doctors were finding a good option at the time for hard-to-medicate attentional issues. Even though imipramine had proved to be most effective in helping Paul pay attention, it was prescribed with caution due to its risk of cardiac arrhythmia—irregular heartbeat. Routine EKG tests monitored this risk for Paul but, if the combination of medications could provide the same benefit, the absence of risk would make it preferable. If not, we would double back. Even without a school setting that year, it became clear to me that the imipramine was more beneficial for Paul and I was in favor of resuming it.
I wished Paul could have been easily characterized and summarized, condensed on paper with standardized testing results and conventional school records. But this would never be. Test scores were all over the road, and most often reflected glaring weaknesses. As we’d known for years, test results for Paul revealed his performance on the test, not his ability. Paul had significant deficits, without question, but test scores in isolation simply didn’t align in a way that provided a road map for his programmatic needs. It was anecdotal information from firsthand experiences with Paul—tapping into his thought