By Linda Newland

As a mother of two disabled children, I read your articles about complaints about Oregon’s programs for disabled kids and the editorial response (Right Answer, Wrong Question," Aug 14), with great interest.

It is apparent that the Department of Education sees this issue differently from parents. As your editorial said, adding extra help to deal with a backlog of special education complaints isn't enough, because Oregon standards of what constitutes an acceptable education are so low to begin with.

One of my three children, Cass, has Asperger’s Syndrome, or high-functioning autism. Another, Brittnay, has attention deficit disorder and dyslexia. My journey through the school district has been an uphill struggle for my children’s basic education. I have been told many times by attorney’s and advocates that it is hard to believe any school district would make these kinds of mistakes the Oregonian’s reported. We both know that these mistakes are typical and characterize the atmosphere of the entire public special education system.

I have tried to work matters out with my school district in a nonconfrotational way. Even mediation failed. Yet I continue to try and get the minimum educational support for my children.

The only reason I have not turned to the courts has been lack of money. I wish parents had legal insurance, as school districts do. That would level the playing field.

If parents do not have a local state complaint-resolution process open to them, thousands of children will continue to be denied the free and appropriate education to which they are legally entitled. The failure of the complaint process is responsible for many parents voting their feet; leaving the state or taking their children out of the public system into expensive, self-paid alternatives.

Even with these measure, we as a society have to ask ourselves, "Who is going to support these kids once they are out of school if they can't be provided with a minimal education to make their independence possible?"

Figures tracking the increase in autism reveal and epidemic related to multiple casual factors, each theory horrible in itself. Some believe chemicals in our environment contribute; others think some children react to childhood vaccines.

At the same time, changes in effective educational practices beneficial to our children have been slow to come, but our children do not have the luxury of time to wait for national and local educational bureaucracies to implement them.

Little wonder that last legislative session was spent arguing about privatizing public education, encouraging more home, private, charter and alternative forms of education. Instead of working to fix a broken system, legislators pandered to the worse cynicism and the basest motives of critics of the system and emerged at the end of the session with a situation worse than when we started.

It is now more than two months since the Oregon Advocacy Center’s report critical of the Department of Education for dragging it’s feet in resolving parents’ complaints about school districts over special education. So far, the department’s response has been a thundering silence and the hiring of several additional contract investigators.

And the center’s report listed delays in resolving complaints as only one of many problems afflicting the system. Without an overhaul of the philosophy of the department, I find it hard to believe that Oregon parents won’t see more of the same.

Follow up: [9/2004]

It has been five years since this article appeared in the Oregonian as a commentary and Oregon parents have continued to see a decline in special educational services with the roll numbers of those entering into special education, especially autism continuing to go through the roof for various reasons.

The numbers of those entering special education are unlikely to decline and one day the Oregon Department of Education will have to get their head out of the sand and address this issue as the price tag to the public is becoming astronomical. 

If we lived in a perfect world, we would be proactive and place our money in Early Intervention.  Our great state of Oregon seems to ignore all the good research that comes from our state that is farmed out and widely accepted Nationally and yet shunned in Oregon.

Oregon has no one to blame but Oregon and Oregon parents need to remember this when our Legislators and powers to be come up for re-election.

Since this article I have co-founded:

• BRASS - Bend Redmond Asperger Syndrome Support

• ASPIRES - is an on-line resource for spouses and family members of adults diagnosed or suspected to be on the autistic spectrum.  Our approach to one another and towards our "significant others" is directed towards solving problems in our relationship with a spectrum-sitting spouse.

• T.A.L.K. - is no longer active.

My current contact information is: opu@bendbroadband.com

Linda Newland

"1 parent = A fruitcake
 2 parents = A fruitcake and a friend
 3 parents = Troublemakers
 5 parents = "Let’s have a meeting"
 10 parents = "We’d better listen"
 25 parents = "Our dear friends"
 50 parents = A powerful organization"  ~ Author Unknown