The Victors

I travel too much for work, so I'm going to defer to [wife] on the best way to proceed with the in-person meeting she's requesting. I'll start by saying I truly believe you have positive intent with these interventions. You have a lot to balance and manage across students, parents, teachers, and administrators. You're probably doing everything you can to simplify and enforce consistency. I'm in the business of leading large organizations; I get it.

Special needs require special levels of care, even exceptions to rules. You may view [para] as another resource that needs managing. We view [para] as an angel who enables [daughter] to be enrolled in mainstream classes. [Daughter's] challenges could easily relegate her to the special needs wing of the school system. However, her intellect shows she can mostly keep pace with the other "normal" students, but she requires that assistance. And we, as a family, could use a little empathy as we work through all of this.

When [daughter] has a meltdown at school (thankfully, it doesn't happen as often now), email contact isn't sufficient. Further, if [para] is absent, [daughter] won't receive a substitute well. She has an attachment to [para]. The other kids shun her at this age, and [para] is pretty much the only friend she has at school. She struggles with change, especially when it isn't communicated ahead of time. I could roll with it, and you could roll with it, but she can't. I've tried for 14+ years to help her, but that outcome doesn't seem likely.

Our older kids, [2 older children], went through Centennial without issue. We try to raise good kids and avoid making waves as parents. In the closing of your email, you thank us for our understanding and flexibility. That needs to go both ways. As you realign your expectations for paraeducators, I ask you to not lose sight of the children the paraeducators are there to support. They don't need to do this, they choose it. They sacrifice to make things as easy as possible for parents like us. Please don't make their job, or our job as parents trying to do our best, more difficult.