Do You Have a Paraeducator?
I could hardly wait to hear about Dylan’s first day of school. As usual, he was far too exhausted from focusing all day to be bothered with my curiosity.
“Tell me about your classes,” I begged.
“Well my Spanish teacher really liked me. She said I was awesome, like, twice. And the English teacher is really good and I did really well in there. And yeah, all the classes were good.”
“Do you have any homework?” I asked, probably too soon.
“Yeah.”
“Is it in your calendar app?”
“No,” he said.
“Put it in your app,” I reminded him.
“Well I can remember it.”
“I want you to go to college, Dylan,” I said. “Unless you want a whole bunch of zeros and a job at McDonald’s instead, put everything in your calendar app.”
He picked up his phone and poked at it.
“Do you have math homework?” I asked. They always have math homework.
“No,” he said.
“No? Okay. Did you have a paraeducator?” Other than a word processor, the paraeducator in math is the only real accommodations that Dylan needs, according to his IEP.
“No.”
“You didn’t have a paraeducator?”
“Why would I need a paraeducator?” he asked, utterly oblivious. “I’m not a special needs kid or anything.”
If it hadn’t been so scary, I would have thought he was kidding.
“You’ve had trouble focusing in math since you were born,” I told him. Then I went into a four-minute lecture about the new state law, math requirements for graduation and what colleges require.
“What does this have to do with whether or not I need a paraeducator?” he groaned.
“You need to pass Geometry!” I said.
“I don’t need a paraeducator just to help me focus,” he spat. “You haven’t sent me to public school with medication in, like, years!”
I didn’t say, Gee, that’s because you haven’t been in public school for a year, and we couldn’t find a suitable medication that worked.
Instead I calmly went to my computer and emailed his case manager to check on the availability of a paraeducator for 7th period Geometry. And he doesn’t. But that’s a story for another day.