I was listening to NPR, as I usually do on my way to pick up my son from preschool before the soundwaves get hijacked by Bubble Guppies DVDs. This is my 15-minute news window, where I fill my head with as many current cultural events as I can before re-entering kid kingdom.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know what I was getting into that day. That one bout of radio news would send me into a sleepless night that I would spend erecting a soapbox from which to issue my grievances. The segment<\/a> was on public versus private school usage of vouchers in Indiana. I live in Tennessee. This should not have triggered me, but it hit me all wrong, like a sharp jab in the funny bone.<\/p>\n

The current policy of the \u201cChoice Scholarship Program\u201d allows kids who qualify and win the lottery to apply to both secular and religious private schools. According to NPR, \u201chow it came to be, how it works and whom it serves \u2014 has become a national story of freedom, faith, poverty, and politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because here\u2019s the thing: If a kid with special needs wins the golden ticket, his or her options are still limited. There\u2019s so much leeway in the private school\u2019s jurisprudence that the child can be turned away for having special needs \u2013 something a public school could not do under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Private schools have been turning away kids, not because they are unwelcome, but because their needs will not be able to be met. The funding is just not there.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s what got to me. That\u2019s what led to my insomnia and mind melt. My son is five and has cerebral palsy, which has resulted in global developmental delays. He attends a private inclusive preschool for children with both normal development and special needs. Many of his peers are siblings of other kids with disabilities or the children of the therapists that work there.<\/p>\n

The school is a magical unicorn of hope. It\u2019s been his castle on a hill since he was two. But it ends in a year. We\u2019re already pushing it, keeping him until six and past \u201csenior\u201d level. I\u2019m rallying the board for a kindergarten, but time and money are hard to come by despite the need.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

So, a year from now we will be attending assessments and requesting doctor\u2019s recommendations and touring the public elementary school in our zone. We moved to our current county \u2013 one of the best in the state \u2013 specifically because we knew this day was coming and wanted to be prepared.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a parent of a child, with special needs or not, you think toward their future more than your current comfort. We couldn\u2019t be in a better place as far as we\u2019ve discerned from backyard talk and the cross-examining of his therapists. It\u2019s going to be okay. But it doesn\u2019t change the fact that we don\u2019t really have another choice.<\/p>\n

One of the women from Indiana interviewed in the NPR segment has three children \u2013 two girls and a son on the autism spectrum. She lucked out. Won the lottery. Her daughters attend her church\u2019s school. She loves it dearly. But her son is not on the roster. They very graciously explained that, though he \u201ccan\u201d attend, they cannot meet his needs. They simply don\u2019t have the therapists, the specialists, the money to teach him.<\/p>\n

Is this discrimination? Honestly, I\u2019m not sure.<\/p>\n

Wendy Robinson, Fort Wayne\u2019s superintendent, says it is. Yet as a former teacher in both public and private schools, I\u2019ve seen the reality of government funding. I know what money can buy. It buys special needs departments, speech programs, physical equipment, occupational therapists, training days.<\/p>\n

It buys a future for my son.<\/p>\n

I had been teaching for five years at the private school where I envisioned my children would attend when I became pregnant with our son, long enough to qualify for half-tuition \u2013 the dream and the goal.<\/p>\n

But when my son was born 10 weeks early and diagnosed with CP one month into his NICU stay, I knew the dream would have to end. The school did not have a special needs program beyond general learning disabilities. They just weren\u2019t equipped to deal with a kid who would come home with a trach and eventually need a wheelchair and speaking device.<\/p>\n

They wanted to love him. But they could not teach him. To me, this is not discrimination. It is a recognition of limits.<\/p>\n

But it still breaks my heart. It still led to our move into a different county. It\u2019s still enough to keep me up at night asking \u2013 along with my compatriot in Indiana \u2013 why can\u2019t my child have the same options as all the rest, even the same as his siblings?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a realist. I get it. But I don\u2019t have to like it. I don\u2019t have to let it pass as easily as the turn of a radio dial.<\/p>\n

*This article originally appeared on Parent.co.<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Have you ever felt your school was not meeting your child’s needs (or your needs when you were a kid)? If you could change the school system, what would you do?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Save<\/span><\/p>\n

Save<\/span><\/p>\n

Save<\/span><\/p>\n

Save<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was listening to NPR, as I usually do on my way to pick up my son from preschool before the soundwaves get hijacked by Bubble Guppies DVDs. This is my 15-minute news window, where I fill my head with as many current cultural events as I can before re-entering kid kingdom. I didn\u2019t know what I was getting into that day. That one bout of radio news would send me into a sleepless night …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3670,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[86,11,26],"tags":[28,239,46,55,54,87,163,15,64,37,52],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mom-gene.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/wheelchair-2489427_1920-e1506101562688.jpg?fit=1920%2C1344&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8ca5p-Et","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2509"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2509"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3671,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2509\/revisions\/3671"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}