“Thorin shouldn’t have the obligation to be included. This treatment of him—like he is the problem—stops. Kari, we’re in over our heads.”
“Yesith!” My response gave us both a much-needed laugh.
Ward decided to send an email to the superintendent of schools in our district and our school board members to apprise them of the summer events. Our superintendent was relatively new to our city and the position.
Dear Superintendent Samuel,
Welcome to Portland. I hope your tenure here is filled with positive experiences and personal triumphs. This isn’t one of them. I am writing to you and our school board members to register my family’s extreme displeasure with the shabby treatment of our son, Thorin, throughout the recent failed attempt to integrate him into a summer school class.
Ward went on to enumerate the challenges since April when the principal said Thorin couldn’t attend inclusive summer school. The responses from the superintendent and the board members, who responded, were diplomatic. They offered thanks for being notified and gratitude for the resolution of the problem for Thorin. There was no acknowledgment in any of their responses that they were troubled that the director of special services had lied about an inclusive classroom or that Thorin’s aide was hostile to working with a child who had Down syndrome.
Ms. Charles was true to her word. She worked with Thorin on reading and loving school. She suggested we get copies of the books she used. She also made arrangements for Thorin and me to meet his first grade teacher, Mrs. Bruce. On the last day of class, the four of us met in the cafeteria. After introductions, she asked Thorin to take Mrs. Bruce’s photo for his iPad.
Turning to Mrs. Bruce she said, “See, he uses this to communicate! It’s awesome. He’ll put your photo in here, then we’ll label it with your name.”
Mrs. Bruce had a blank expression on her face, but she did stand patiently while Thorin took her photo. Ms. Charles and Thorin then huddled at one of the tables to upload the photo. As I watched them, I was struck by how well they worked together.
“Thorin, I’m all thumbs! Help me!” Ms. Charles said.
He laughed and leaned in to see what she had done. They figured it out then proudly showed Mrs. Bruce. She gave a tepid response, but I decided not to judge her by that. Ms. Charles was a firecracker, and most people looked tepid compared to her.
My mom found another set of selfies on Thorin’s iPad. We figured out from the photos he was in the spare bedroom at Aunt Betty and Uncle Matt’s apartment. Thorin had changed the photo setting so his photos had a Warhol-like silkscreen effect. All the photos were bathed in neon green, florescent yellow, electric blue, and tomato soup red with Thorin in various poses: sticking out his tongue; making more funny faces; showing half his face and his arm above his head; raising an eyebrow; and zooming in on one eye with an elbow over his head. Also, there were some photos of Uncle Matt working at his desk in the room.
“Did you know Thorin was taking photos during his visit?” I asked my sister.
“No,” she said, “but he did say he was working.”
Before school started in the fall, I ran into someone from the school district at the grocery store. The person shared with me that the whole summer experience was disturbing and wrong and counseled us to retain a professional disability advocate. If we were interested, this person would set up a meeting with an advocate on our behalf. I called Ward and explained the brief conversation.
“We have a Deep Throat on our side!” I told him.
“We’re doing it! Set it up!”
I met the advocate, Trisha, at a playground. She wore an oversize T-shirt with built-in shoulder pads and black slacks. I brought Thorin, and she brought her two children. While they played, we talked. Her first order of business was her appraisal of Joan Croft, the special services director.
“She’s a liar! She’s lied to all my clients. You said you wanted an inclusive classroom for Thorin, so she made one up! If you said Thorin needed a pony, she’d say they just bought a horse farm. Got it? She will say anything to get you off her case.”
As we continued talking, I remembered something that didn’t seem important before, but listening to Trisha made me think of it differently. Trisha must have noticed a change in my demeanor.
“What’s going on?” she inquired.
“Joan Croft was insistent Thorin take the bus to the other school. I insisted on driving him.”
“Well, you probably wouldn’t have caught on as fast if he took the bus. It isn’t like he could tell you,” Trisha said and then went on to her next thought. “And forget Superintendent Samuel; he’s gone in another year or so. He took this job to have the title of superintendent on his resume. He wants to be in a big city. He’s marking time.”
Trisha sounded angry and knowledgeable about the scene. I wondered if Ward and my naiveté about all things school had made things worse for Thorin. Angry and knowledgeable sounded about right.
Our main concerns for first grade were for Thorin to have a communication device in the classroom and a proper aide. At home, Thorin was using the iPad for communicating if he got stuck, and we wanted him to use it at school. I talked to the principal and told her one of his substitute aides from the previous year knew the program and was looking for a position. She informed me it didn’t work that way, and Thorin would get who was available. When I told Trisha what happened, she told us to get a device included in his IEP. She also wrote up a list of parental concerns for us to submit.
Joan Croft was included on the request for a communication device. She offered to bring in a
