Dear Editor,
This is the face of 1 in 88 who has autism. Olivia isn’t just a number, she is a person, a child. Imagine just for a moment watching your child who is almost two, lose her ability to speak, hold utensils, even walk or go down a slide. Being a parent is hard, being a parent and hearing the words autism is unimaginable.
Then imagine giving up your career and financial stability to find any possible way to recover some semblance of the child that you once had.
We research and read go to meetings. We are not the uniformed of past history. We learn our acronyms and rights (IDEAL, FAPE, LRE). We know that early intervention and education is the key to a life that we hope will lead to independence and happiness.
We then enroll our children in the Morgan Hill Unified School District. We watch and compare this district to others. We then realize what a winning team we have. Granted it is not perfect but the dedication, education and commitment is there. On good days Olivia is like any child. She is delightful, dressed in pink she is all smiles and hugs. On these days she wants to please and may even try to point out a word she can read or two. On the rare bad days however, the days where the demons take over plaguing her with unknown intolerable pain she will bite herself or may even rarely lash out at others, she may even have bathroom accidents. It takes a highly skilled and patient person to be able to deal with a child like this. And she is only five. What about the older kids whose autism is worse? Who will be managing them? Having untrained undereducated people has led to abuse in several districts.
We need highly educated people working with our children right now. It cannot be a wait and see process. The people that work with our children must be knowledgeable in ABA and sensory integration disorders. This is not something that one knowledgeable trained accredited teacher can teach a roomful of new aides in one or two years and expect to get any type of progress from the children in that room. Our children need to have hands on experience now and in the years moving forward.
Olivia regressed in four short months. One or two years to train new aids is a life time in our world.
The Morgan Hill Unified School District Board of Education will be deciding Tuesday night to go ahead with their plan to terminate the position of Behavioral Support Specialist Para Educator in the MHUSD Autism program.
Their plan as the parents understand will be to replace these trained specialists with untrained aides who have a basic AA degree. The school district will then depend on the classroom teacher to train them and will provide additional training as they see fit.
We look forward to hearing how you plan to proceed with addressing the parents concerns at this board meeting.
Victoria R. Herrick, Morgan Hill
