Friday, July 2, 2010

"You're not going to let physical barriers get in the way of your daughter's education, are you?"

Hey, so this is an old story. When I was in the 1st grade I went to my neighborhood public school. I was fully main streamed- not in special ed. But one day I told my mom I was board about 60% of the day. So that propted her to start looking for other schools. So she called 11 schools and explained about me- extremely bright and very physically disabled. Nobody was interested. Even though I brought a one-on-one aide with me to school, so the school didn't really have to do anything in terms of helping me physically or adapting lessons for me.

So the 12th school my mom visited was a good 45 minutes away. When my mom got there, she saw that the entire school was completely inaccessible with stairs going everywhere. She took the tour with 10 other parents but knew the school would not work even thought it would make an absolutely perfect match in terms of philosophy and teaching style. When the tour was over, my mom asked the principal if she knew of any similar schools that were nearer to where we lived. The principal rattled off names of schools but they were all ones that had rejected the idea of me. Not to sound like a jerk, my mom finally told the principal why no other schools had worked and why this principal's school would not work. She loved it, but it was not accessible. The principal looked at her and said, "You're not going to let physical barriers get in the way of your daughter's education, are you?" My mom was speechless (that's very rare for her). The the principal took my mom around the school and figured out what they would need to adapt. Needless to say, I ended up going to this school and loving it. I was the first physically disabled student the school had ever had but by the time I left, 3 more disabled kids had enrolled.

13 comments:

  1. Wow, more schools need principals like this one! Great story!

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  2. And the school paid for all the modifications? That's amazing.

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  3. When I got to the "You're not going to let physical barriers get in the way of your daughter's education, are you?" bit, I thought the principal was being clueless and not realising what would be required (and additionally putting blame on someone else), but it seems they were anything but!

    I'm going to need to watch out for that sort of thing and realise that not everybody who might appear clueless actually is...

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  4. This story makes me smile. Good for the principal and good for your Mom!

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  5. Hi EVE, this story made me teary eyed... Why?
    Because there were so many ways it could have turned out which others have written about.
    However I just knew that it was going to turn out exactly as you had it written.

    But that I "know" your spirit and that is why I knew that it would make be cry tears of joy and happiness.

    LOVE

    FF

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  6. What a great principal! Awesome.

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  7. Wow, I am so impressed with that principal! And surprised too. I never realized how clueless the school system is. My high school admitted student of every level of physical and mental ability. It was great to see that kind of diversity. It seems that you opened a new avenue for disabled students at that school too. That's progress at least!

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  8. Always refreshing to read a story with a positive ending! Eva I always enjoy visiting your site, keep up the great work!

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  9. Yes this is the type of principal every school needs there are very few out there although i have met a couple of the few congrats on your mom's ability to let people know what is gooing on and what is neeeded for you. all it takes is finding the right person and that is just what she did and also congrats to you for making the school accessable to others with disabilites if your mom had not gotten a special child so many others would have been left out too awsome store eva

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  10. I know this isn't what your blog is about, but if you're ever in the mood to share more backstory I'd love to hear a bit about the process by which you learned to communicate and how early your intelligence was recognized. I've been following the story of a non-verbal little girl and have grown to really appreciate the challenge of assessing intelligence in the absence of complete communication. It's great that you had already achieved that by age 6 - and that you were able to benefit from a great education from the beginning.

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  11. I love that the principal was up for the challenge - but it's really shocking how many schools were unco-operative before hand.

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  12. Wonderful, wonderful story.

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