Aspie Parent at High School - Getting the family placed

It was always going to be a challenge to support my neurotypical children in high school. Why should it be any less challenging then when I was a student. The first issue was determining the school that would suit my children alongside supporting my Aspie parenting needs. The school that would best suit these considerations needed some guidance.

I asked an educational psychologist after an assessment of me and my children's personal styles. I was found I had two very different children. Th eldest was effervescent and the other cautious and guarded. The educational psychologist informed me that there was only one school that would meet my criteria and the personal styles of my children. It is a zoned school and I was outside the zone. After checking this by visiting both our neighbourhood school and the zoned school, the psychologist was correct.

I made an out of zone application to the school suggested by the psychologist and was rejected. I made an appeal to the school with medical certificates and evidences yet was rejected again. I made a formal appeal to the region and was accepted under special circumstances as a resonable adjustment for disability.

The argument was that the nearest neighbourhood school for my family was not based on physical distance, rather accessability modifies the departments test determined by disability reasonable adjustment. The school in question was unable to conceptualise that they had to comply with the legislation. "The Disability Discrimination Act 1992 protects individuals across Australia from unfair treatment in many parts of public life. The Act makes disability discrimination unlawful and promotes equal rights, equal opportunity and equal access for people with disabilities" (https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/disability-rights/about-disability-rights).

The determination by regional appeal was interesting as they had not considered that the neighbourhood school policy may be descriminatory in light of disability. There are two parts to the test. First a student may be descriminated against by the neighbourhood school policy when it is inaccessable. Secondly, if the parent can not parent when associated with a particular school due to its characteristics, then that may be grounds for discrimination towards the student by association with the disabled parent.

Accessability was a contested idea. The department goes to great lengths for all schools to meet minimum standards. However, the psychologist and reports in the media had different views of what those minimum standards may be in practice. Some very diplomatic medical reports implying certain characteristics about some schools brought out some home truths the department did not want to know about.

In the end the first hurdle was complete. The process was unsettling, I had to disclose much private medical information to the school that my children will attend. This created a potential expectation by the school that I was going to be trouble hence potentially labelling me and my family. This was a reasonable fear as in time it bore out to be true in practice.

The other concern is how this appeals process is inaccessable to parents without an advocate. I could not envisage that all disabled parents are personally or economically resourced to find a way through such adversarial processes. It requires legislative protections pieced together with education policy knowledge. This needs to be articulated in written form with compelling evidentiary requirements. Such submissions command high level conceptual ability often only aquired through significant education and experience.