The Rosedale School

As most parents of special needs children can tell you, tackling the school system to make sure your child gets the services they need in a kind and safe environment is a monumental task and not for the faint of heart. Through the years one develops a hefty distrust of administrators and teachers who tell you things like, ‘We’re reducing your child’s services because they have mastered their goals in this area,’ when you know damned well and good that they have not.

I have encountered some truly beautiful souls who I know loved my child deeply, but who were hamstrung by cold administrators who held the key to their career’s longevity and based all decisions on the lack of school funding, the need to not taint district-attracting standardized test scores, and frankly, the desire to do what was easiest for the school to deal with. In California my son had the same teacher for three years who finally asked to scoot him along prematurely to the next-level teacher (thank God) because ‘I just don’t know what to do with the ones who will never learn to read or write.’ This same teacher feigned compassion by asking to exclude my son from a Special Olympics field trip the class was to take by saying she thought he’d get more out of his day staying alone with his aide on campus. This sparked one of many messed up, but hilarious-to-us inside jokes between my husband and I where we joked that we were going to have t-shirts printed up that said ‘My son is too special for Special Olympics.’ I mean, seriously! He can’t go to a Special Olympics event? And this was well before Miles started to show signs of aggression! (and to those fellow special needs parents reading this…I’ve spoken to you. I know you have your funny-not-funny jokes too!)

For those of you not living in this world, there are some terms associated with the special education process that help determine the best school placement for students. These terms stemmed from important legislation that was passed in 1975 and updated most recently in 2004 called IDEA, or Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. One of these terms, ‘least restrictive environment,’ is used to determine the environment in which a student will have the most freedom to be a child, but also allow them to be able to appropriately access their education. For some special education students, this can mean full inclusion. For some it means a resource-type classroom with inclusion with their typical peers during things like lunch, recess or electives. For some students it means a self-contained, special needs classroom with aides on an otherwise typical campus. But for my child, it became clear that least restrictive environment meant a school fully dedicated to providing services only to special education students. Let me tell you that coming to that realization was incredibly difficult and shame-filled. We have done a beautiful job of integrating people with differences in our culture alongside their typical peers while lessening the stigma associated with special needs, but at the same time there is an undercurrent of judgment within a small segment of the special needs parenting community that looks down on people who seek an education for their child apart from their typical peers. (You’re going to have to trust me on this one even if you haven’t experienced it yourself!) So in the case of my child, the least restrictive environment for him, ironically, needed to be a much more restrictive environment. The problem was that such a school rarely exists for the non-verbal student who sometimes exhibits aggressive or self injurious behaviors. And in states like California where we lived for a time, these schools-if they do exist-cost around $75k per year. (This is not an arbitrary number, but the actual cost that the district we lived in had to pay when I finally, after many years of fighting, was able to get them to agree that they could not effectively provide Miles with FAPE, or a ‘Free and Appropriate Public Education.’ (This was a small school specifically serving students severely affected by autism)

In Central Texas there are private schools dedicated to the needs of special ed students, but none that I could find that would admit a student with needs as complex as Miles’. As soon as you mention that your child is aggressive they politely let you know that they are not equipped to handle that sort of thing. So when we moved into the Austin Independent School District and were told to go the old familiar route of putting him in a contained life skills class within the typical middle school, I tried my best to provide them with as much information beforehand to ensure a smooth transition. Instead, the day before school was to start I met a teacher who thankfully was frank with me and told me that not only had she never taught a child as severely disabled as Miles, but that the district was not prepared to honor the legally binding IEP (Individualized Education Plan) and had not hired the two aides my son required. They planned on hiring daily substitutes to handle a non-verbal child with behavioral challenges and a seizure disorder. Uh, I don’t think so!

The silver lining here was that the teacher recognized how bad a situation we were walking into and asked if we had heard of the Rosedale School. I had, but assumed that it hadn’t been mentioned because there was no room for Miles. Thankfully that was incorrect, and despite Rosedale being challenging to get into because of space, Miles began school there a week after that school year began in 2016.

Though Miles’ health and behavioral challenges have become more daunting over the past three years, the one piece of our lives that has become less challenging is his schooling. ARD meetings (Admission, Review & Dismissal) are no longer something I get nervous about or wonder if I need to hire a special education advocate or attorney. If Miles misses school due to illness, surgeries, seizures or just having a bad day where I know he won’t be successful, I don’t have to worry about getting the threatening letter from the district warning me that he has had too many absences. When Miles has a seizure and as a result goes into one of his fight or flight, aggressive episodes and possibly hurts his beloved teacher, I know that his teacher is still going to love and fight for him just the same.

The Rosedale School is Austin ISD’s only public all-special needs school. It serves 80 of the most medically fragile, medically complex students, ages 3-22. The building that houses these students was built over 80 years ago and is in such disrepair that it scored in the 30s (out of 100) in a facilities report two years ago. I can remember Rosedale’s principal, Elizabeth Dickey, saying to me the first time I met her, ‘Try to look past the condition of this building to see the love that the staff has for the students who go here.’ And she was totally right. If I’d seen that place only a few years earlier in a more discerning time of life, I might not have been able to get past the state of it. But when you reach the point where you just desperately need people surrounding your child who will love and care for him despite his challenges, you’re able to look past some things. Thankfully, Rosedale was a part of a bond measure that was passed two years ago and a new school will be built and opened by the time Miles is 18. But in the meantime, the school needs assistance in raising funds to pay for much needed adaptive equipment, transportation, learning centers, sensory rooms, and the annual prom, an incredibly heart warming event that families like mine treasure since our children will not likely attend a traditional prom.

This is the 25th anniversary of the Rosedale Ride, the school’s main yearly fundraiser that centers around a wonderful cycling event in north Austin on April 6th. We will be having a grand celebration at the packet pick up party for riders and anyone else who would like to come out to support this amazing school at Silicon Laboratories’ headquarters downtown on Thursday, April 4th from 6:00-9:00 pm. There will be live music, student art available for purchase, amazing items to be raffled off, bites by restaurants like Uchiko, Gusto Kitchen, Tiny Boxwoods, Austin Cakeball and more, as well as beverages provided by Austin Beerworks and Dripping Springs Vodka. This event is FREE, but we would very much appreciate purchase of raffle tickets or a donation to the school.

Here’s what Rosedale means to me: Rosedale means that despite this journey with Miles getting progressively more difficult and worrisome, I can allow myself to breathe a bit when it comes to his schooling. My family has a hard time asking for or accepting help from others, but it has become increasingly clear that when it comes to Miles, we need a little lifting up. Rosedale is part of our family; part of the village I as an independent, I’ve-got-this kind of person didn't realize I needed as much as I do now. We’ve shared tears and worries about Miles together. We’ve celebrated seemingly small victories together. The staff loves my boy and I, in turn, love this school more than the words of a blog post can accurately reflect.

If you are able, please consider donating to my Rosedale Ride page. No donation is too small! I would be very grateful if you would share this post and the link to my donation page as well.

With deepest gratitude,

Debbie