Libby McCullough on her Son, Aspergers and the School to Prison Pipeline

It began with “he doesn’t need Special Ed.”

After that, it included numerous suspensions, hours in locked rooms, delayed meals, restraint and, later, handcuffs. It included endless meetings for his Individualized Education Plan (IEP), numerous phone calls at work, tears, family medical leave, medications that did not work and the loss of TWO jobs in only three years. It included endless research, assumptions about my parenting skills, retaliation, and ignored requests. It also required labels such as EBD, SEBD, and others. But it never included P.E., art or music, field trips, making friends with kids at school or learning challenging materials.