I’m Going to Turn Them in Tonight.
Dylan had to get his own accommodations this year. Unlike high school, where I handled everything, Dylan was responsible for getting his own accommodations.
He learned that he got just what he had in high school: time-and-a-half for testing, a copy of class or online notes provided for each class, and access to a computer for lengthy writing assignments.
All Dylan had to do was to arrange a meeting with the student support services office. This is something that could only happen after classes started, when his parents were long gone from campus.
Dylan’s meeting took place during the first week of school. It happened at 10:30 on a Friday. I know. I remembered. I panicked all week long that Dylan would forget to go to the meeting, and thereby forfeit his accommodations.
But he went to his meeting. There’s a chance I asked him too many times if he was prepared, if he knew where it was, if he remembered what time it was taking place. But he made it.
Then they told him that he needed to meet with each of his professors, and have them sign a paper. He had two weeks to get the papers signed, and then he needed to return those papers to the student support office.
He didn’t tell me about this for a long time.
In fact, when I found out that there was something beyond the initial meeting, I was floored. How on earth would he remember to get papers signed in every, single class? And worse yet, how would he accomplish it in two weeks – and get it back to the office to finalize his accommodations?
I panicked again. But this time, I didn’t say a word. Dylan told me that he had to get the papers signed. It wasn’t my job anymore.
Yee-haw!
And Dylan mentioned that he’d gotten three out of four of those papers signed, even when I didn’t ask about it.
I wondered about that last paper, and I wondered about the looming deadline of “two weeks.” I didn’t keep track. I didn’t ask. And I didn’t know if he was handling it, or not.
Rather than drill Dylan about it for the entire two weeks, we visited him. And I casually asked him, over pizza, “So, you got your accommodations papers done and everything?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m going to turn them in tonight.”
It was well past closing time on a Friday, and we were at a restaurant off campus.
“Tonight?” I asked, trying to be calm.
“Yeah,” Dylan said. “Today’s the last day of the two weeks, so I have to turn in the papers before midnight. I got them all signed; I just have to turn them in.”
My mind flashed back to all of those times Dylan had spent hours on a homework assignment, and then forgotten to turn it in – for weeks.
“But it’s really late,” I said. “Won’t the office be closed?”
“No, I just have to drop it off,” he said. “The building’s always open.”
“Okay,” I said.
Trying. To. Remain. Calm.
Three days later, from my home ten hours away, I texted him: Did you ever turn in your accommodations papers?
Yeah, he texted back. The office was closed when I tried on Friday…
(Oh, SURPRISE! I thought.)
… but I turned it in on Monday and it was fine.
It was fine.
If I’d done more than I did, it probably wouldn’t have been fine at all. But Dylan handled it. He was late; but he did it all by himself.
And it was fine.