This was not done by an isolated deranged social misfit. This was the result of a policy at a public institution that has decided to use a process meant to protect to rather save money, with distraught families and harmed children as, to them, just an unfortunate consequence.

One week till school starts and the Public Schools will not offer our child a place other than the one that tormented her, in spite of many letters, in spite of many requests, in spite of too many worthless and exhausting meetings. They know the legal process to fight them is costly, beyond nearly every [ ] Public Schools parent's means, they know they can play bureaucratic games with immigrants and the poor, they know they can make the most affluent and demanding parents move away, so in a careful reasoned, but immoral act, they have decided to fight. Fight each and every family, families stressed to the limit emotionally, financially and with so little time. [ ] fights each and every family who even knows to ask for their legal right for an appropriate education for their children.

This is a universal problem, it is system wide. But parents are too taxed, too exhausted to have the time to lobby and fight. Beside the hard work of taking care of our complex children we pay eleven times over. We pay for the services the school will not provide, we pay real estate taxes, sales taxes, car taxes, state taxes, federal taxes, we pay for expertise, we pay for advocates to try to get services, we pay for legal help, we pay for medical help and still we need one parent not working just to support our children, and the schools know this. They know it is easy pickings to fight us.

So then we also pay dearly with our hopes and dream purposefully and methodically truncated, with the happiness and future of our child and family shot down, and in our case, with our only dear child coming home dazed and confused each day, not getting the early intervention that could effect the quality of her future and our lives for the better for decades to come, that could offer society an employed citizen rather than a dependent one. Instead we gained "interventions" that turned a happy girl into one with unrelenting fears and tears.

Parents drop out of fear, too little funds, inability to muster or allocate resources. Those that can muster the resources to fight, families we know, end up bankrupt, with nervous breakdowns, exhausted and broken. Why? The [ ] Public School legal team has mastered the art of exhausting intransigence. And to add to this sin, for we also foot the bill for them to do this to us all along as well.

It is an unspoken tragedy, a too little talked about tragedy, yet the schools continue to get away with it. Every one seems to have heard a story from some parent, everyone who heard a story shows shock and disbelief, but the overall pattern is not public. The few that know the overall pattern are members of the [ ] legal team and they use their wide experience, at every step, to squash the hopes and desires of tenderfoot, new coming parents, distraught and with the chronic sadness of recent discoveries that their hoped for perfect child will not, perhaps ever, be perfect. These parents, caught between the love of their child and the purposeful intransigence of the bureaucracy, have their hearts torn asunder, and not one seems to know.

Our [privately contracted] experts have been blocked from talking to our daughter's teacher on the supposed grounds the individual experts were hated, when in reality all administrators wanted was to cover up the emotional violence being done to our daughter. We were systematically discouraged from viewing the class. I overheard the principal saying to the teacher, "the parents will never know as they are bussing their child here." In fact the school goes so far as to reprimand parents when they exchange contact information on school grounds. Their goal is to continually divide and conquer. Taking advantage anew of each family's ignorance.

I am not a lawyer, perhaps one might tell me, but these seem violations of civil rights, constitutional rights, disability and education laws, perhaps other civil and criminal laws., violations that need to be made public. The voices of all parents with similar distress need to be heard. The pattern and picture of what is going on needs to be made public. If only someone would create a forum for this communication to happen, I am sure the outpouring of voices and tears would be deafening.

I am asking you please be a part of the solution. It is the right and moral thing to do. You can start by sending this email to friends, media and leaders. It is time to take this hidden atrocity and make it public.

This is pertinent not only in [ ], as parents all over the US are having similar experiences, but to date they have no unity of voice. We all need to share. This is a country wide problem. Some schools are great. But there are systems that have decided to fight the most vulnerable of families. This is a sin.

Two weeks to go till school and we do not have a place for our daughter. We have promised her she would never return to the school that tormented her. Two other principals of [ ] schools feel good about have offered to take her. They have stated there is space. But this space is controlled by the Special Education central office. [ ] will not work with our desires, they will not do what is best for our daughter, they would rather do whatever they can to fight us. As the dirty little roomer goes, to [ ], parents of children with special needs are the enemy. Too many schools can only see these laws as a burden they do not want. Law's without adequate education as to the intent of the laws, leads to the horrific attitudes such as the one [ ] Special Education Bureaucracy has.

It is maybe hard for others to understand what it means to support a child who finds doing what is easy for every other child a major hurdle. But I am sure you understand what it means to have a bureaucracy that wants to fight you every step of the way. Well, put these two together, and this is hardly the recipe for the American dream. We do love our children, enormously, but reaching out your hand for help to where the law demands and common sense suggests, and having it bitten, again and again, is just wrong.

Thank you very much for listening.

SELECTED EXCERPTS FROM FATHER'S LETTER TO SCHOOL OFFICIAL I asked [ ] if he would use these methods on all students with disabilities at the school. He said that well if the disability was blindness, then it would not be appropriate. This shows ignorance of what would be appropriate for an Asperger's child, and for my daughter. This shows his ignorance, his willingness to consider restraint on a five-year-old girl. In fact if restraint had never been used on our daughter, would it only be logical that he would have used her as an example under these circumstances. An analogy with the blind child is apt. My daughter is blind to understanding many social interactions. His implications that these methods are appropriate shows total ignorance as to the sensitivities of this neurological disorder. This approaches cause harm of a unique order to this set of children. To blame her for things she is incapable of comprehending and specifically to use punitive measures is basically abusive. [ ], and clearly no one else at the school, seems to understand that. Why was blindness chosen as the contrary case, and not children with these kinds of neurological disorders? This shows his blindness. Expertise consistently agrees with me on this issue. If he knew more about her disability, and was sure she was not restrained, wasn't she used as the contrary case? The subtext is that my daughter was restrained and he feels it was legitimately done.

I find it very interesting that you would state that all parents who send their children to this school know that restraint is used there. I said in reply that I did not know, how was I to know? Did you pass around a letter? Is it specifically stated somewhere? At the same time you seemed very concerned that other people, parents, would learn of this fact. That my presence there would allow them to know this. Your very concern proved the point that it is not only NOT generally known, but also you and [ ] carefully work to make sure it is not known. If you were not concerned about keeping this fact secret, why weren't you engaging me out there in a public place? You seem concerned about this coming out, but not that children in that school have to endure the frightening scenes there that I witnessed. Once again you always follow a twisted logic. You use the name of protecting the children really only to cover your posteriors. (Smoking gun number three)

.....There is no credibility to your statement that restraint is used at the [ ] school as a last resort. I have seen it, and other parents know that it is consistently used as an inappropriate and simple solution. In other cases I have viewed the use of restraint on other children at the school, I could see no one in danger, no child capable of causing danger, only small young children screaming, usually suffering from the restraint itself. There could be no purpose, but the misguided belief that this would change a child's behavior for the better. You should be aware that not even animal trainers recommend this form of learning. My daughter's IEP specifically states the requirement of positive approaches. You clearly do not get it. I figure if you feel comfortable about changing my IEP without informing me, then you equally feel no obligation to work within the bounds of it. What value is it then? I actually have no evidence that many of the services agreed upon were rendered at all. But I do have plenty of evidence that the services that were rendered were done so by people who do not have the skills needed I have to ask you , why would you never allow me to talk to my daughter's speech and language provider? This in spite of the fact that the person should have been one of the point persons in her program. This is quite suspicious. Why would you not let our daughter's psychologist to train anyone? Why did you move a psychologist from my daughter's IEP without my permission? You have no reasonable answers to these. (Smoking gun number five)

......Why do you want her to return to this school? You have never given a legitimate reason for this. have stated repeatedly, and you have agreed, that she emotionally fell apart at your school, a pattern that other children with similar profiles suffer at your school. Yet you continually maintain it is the right place for her (Smoking gun number 8)

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