I don’t care where Tommy’s graduation is next year, May 2008, as long as the entire family is there to cheer for the diploma that so many people said he would never earn. The scary part is what happens next? Parents spend so much time and energy worrying about therapies, medications and IEPs when the children are little. Even parents who home school still expect schools to provide services for their special needs child. What happens after high school? Tommy’s peers are starting to make their own life choices. One child is dropping out of school to stay home where he feels safe. One child graduated from a private school and now lives in a tent in Big South Fork. We are talking about extremely intelligent children who are failing to become part of society when they reach adulthood. What should Tommy do now? Go to a special school? Get a job somewhere? I could really use that time machine to peek at possible futures.
Have you looked into Voc-Rehab? They provide a huge array of services, everything from funding college classes (in addition to Pell and Hope) to vocational training to job coaching … whatever he wants to do. I got Justin hooked up with it, but the meathead has thus far refused to take advantage of it, or make the appropriate lifestyle choices to enable himself to do so … grrr!
I don’t know how to get hooked up with them, they approached us towards the end of his senior year at KAEC … check with the SpEd folks at Tommy’s school. I like the idea because it gives them several different choices, and they are not locked into anything, and they offer a lot of support too.