My daughter Jeannie sat in the school hallway for seven months, refusing to go into the classroom until her support needs were met. I filed an appeal in November, and finally—just after spring break—we were meeting to discuss a potential resolution.
She’d been through hell last school year, with a boy picking on her and the school refusing to solve the situation.
When she arrived in the classroom this year, she needed more to be able to participate—still too traumatised to cope—and the teacher was spending 70% of her energy looking after another child with high needs in the classroom.
I lay on my bed and tried to relax my brain for five minutes. I got a glass of water, called Jeannie, and dutifully opened Teams.
There were the awkward hellos, the questions about whether the father was going to arrive (districts like fathers), and then we got started.
The introductions
They introduced themselves—associate superintendents, district liaisons, people who used to be principals. They were friendly. They spoke Jeannie’s name and asked her in a sing-song way about her spring break.
I was already sweating. I had written notes ahead of time. I was trying to sound warm but firm. I had written things like: “Jeannie deserves to feel safe in a classroom.” I had not written: “Don’t swear!” but I should have.
Division Two is off the table
They told us, very gently, that Division Two wasn’t the right place for Jeannie after all. They spoke about composition and complexity and class environment and how the other class wouldn’t be possible. How Division Three was the right place for her needs.
I wanted to ask: Do you mean her real needs, or the ones you’ve decided to recognise?
Instead, I nodded.
I heard: we checked the numbers and can’t have another disabled child in that classroom, due to class size and composition rules, so you have to be in the other division without your friend.
Jeannie speaks for herself
Jeannie spoke—clear, specific, brave. She said the teacher in Division Three alienates her. She said it feels like there are two kinds of autistic students in that room: the ones seen as gifted, and the ones treated as broken. She said she knows which one she is.
And I thought, you’re already more articulate than half the adults in this meeting, and they still won’t protect you.
The offer: a stranger with a title
They said they could assign a youth and family worker. A stranger, but one who would check in with her, help ease the transition, collaborate with staff. They used words like wraparound, team-based, fade over time.
I felt my stomach drop at the word “fade.” Always that word. Always the countdown to withdrawal, already baked into the offer. And “youth and family worker” sounded more social worker than education assistant. She needs support, not management.
Jeannie asked for someone younger. Someone who wouldn’t try to force her to be someone else. Someone who might see her, instead of trying to fix her. She said three months is not a lot of runway.
I had to stop myself from saying: it won’t work. It’s better than nothing, salvaging three months of the school year that she’s not in the hallway alone.
They said they understood
They said the person would be there Monday morning. They said it would be a soft start, no pressure. They said we could send information—strategies that work, things to avoid.
I wanted to send them a biography of every person who’s ever failed her, so they’d know what they were up against.
The request for grace
And then came the grace part. The ask.
Could Jeannie show the new support person some grace? This was said by someone senior, with Inclusion in their title.
My heart cracked in half.
Jeannie asked what this meant. I translated. “Give the worker the benefit of the doubt,” I said. “Remember how sometimes the people we don’t like at first turn out to be okay.”
Jeannie said nothing for a moment. Then she said she wouldn’t be rude. But she wouldn’t open her arms either.
My heart flip-flopped, threatening to stop or spark tachycardia or something. I felt so proud of Jeannie, I wanted to rejoice. She was being clear that she wouldn’t fawn, mask, or perform feminine docility for adults. She was calling it like it was: them asking her to act as if she weren’t a traumatised autistic kid.
I kept smiling. I kept translating. I kept playing parent-liaison-triage-advocate-peacemaker, while I sat, thunderstruck by how Jeannie had been. She’s an advocate now. Not that I wanted that for her, but she is one.
What happened next
This plan would turn out to be chaos. The youth and family worker wasn’t there immediately. When they did appear, it was sporadic—now and again, vague, noncommittal. For weeks there were only rumours that she was leaving. She barely interacted with Jeannie. Then it was confirmed: she would stay.
And somehow, against all odds, Jeannie got to graduate with her peers.
I knew without doubt that we’d be starting over for support next year. I knew that nothing had been structurally secured. But for a minute, it worked. And that minute was something.
Afterword: the hole beneath the meeting
This meeting nearly broke me. Not because of what was said, but because of what I had to swallow in order to stay inside it. Because of the things I couldn’t say. Because of the war in my head between protecting my child and not provoking them.
It turns out this is the second post I’ve written about this meeting, not even remembering, so apparently there’s lots of feelings still. See: She shouldn’t have to be brave: grace, grief, and the weight of a meeting.
It was also the cognitive, physical, and sensory. I have sensory processing disorder. My tinnitus was screaming. The air conditioner had to be on because the apartment was sweltering, but then I couldn’t hear the call. Teams kept glitching. Their voices were all slightly delayed and falsely sweet. I don’t believe in any of that shit.
They’d delayed for months and dragged me through a crappy non-process, crammed full of emotional labour conflict of interest, goal post shifting, you name it.
I kept thinking: You don’t need to be nice to me. You need to stop hurting my kid.
They smiled and thanked me. They said things like “we really want to support Jeannie.”
And still—we survive it. We drag our bodies to the call. We comfort our children. We translate our rage into paragraphs they’ll tolerate. We pretend we believe they mean well.
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Grace and the weight of a meeting
I felt so hopeless in that meeting. Underneath all the patronising words and well-meaning smiles, I could feel the same machinery at work—the one that asks disabled children to be gracious in the face of dismissal, polite in the face of erasure, composed in the face of harm. “We’d ask if Jeannie could show a […]
