On The Lam...

It's official, we have reached an historic pinnacle for Ethan in high school. Last year during an IEP meeting it was discussed and concluded that it was time to begin transitioning from academics to a more vocational oriented education for Ethan. With that in mind we've been anticipating the meeting we finally had last week. That meeting was designed to coordinate with Youth Transition Program faculty and complete the necessary paperwork to enroll Ethan in Vocational Rehabilitation...

That's not completely true. They actually called it YTP and said we were there to discuss Ethan's entrance into the VR program, though they occasionally called it 'Vo Rehab' if they were really daring. They described it as being separate, though recognized by the DDD, a division of DES, and may be included in services provided through his ISP, but did not have anything to do directly with his IEP. Entrance into YTP for VR did require an evaluation such as when he enrolled in ESY.

Apparently it is too time consuming to say entire words when dealing with special needs program - the only thing worse then acronyms are labels.

Some days I feel like Quarterback Peyton Manning calling an audible at the line of scrimmage:

3J X Jagger Zebra right...hut, hut, Bingo, Bingo, Texas 42, hut, hike!

...back at the meeting we discussed the possibilities of the class, the student makeup and the dual teachers.  I asked questions about what types of vocational skills they would be learning. I suggested nothing involving knives, as all knives, in fact, all things sharp are considered swords. One person chimed in that the Butcher (meat dept.) class should be excluded from the potentials, and I added we should exclude anything that involved heavy equipment or machinery, oh, and matches!

As the meeting was concluded we were left with the wink and the nod assurance that nothing should preclude Ethan from qualifying for the class. Everything looked good; they have been doing this for several years, and though they couldn't say for sure, it was pretty clear to them...

Perfect, I thought, his school year is scheduled, now we just needed to face another year of high school homework.

Not so fast.

Today we got a call that Ethan was denied entrance into the class. The person on the other end of the line went on to explain that based on his history, Ethan did not qualify for the class as he required too much attention, and additional services - you can substitute the word Aides for services. To top it all off she said Ethan was considered 'a flight risk!'

flight risk /'flIt risk/ noun

1. A likelihood of evasion of a course of events by voluntary withdraw, removal or secreting away from a jurisdiction in order to avoid detention, arrest or interrogation, or the institution or continuance of civil, criminal or other proceedings.

2. A person characterized by the likelihood of such evasion.

Really? A flight risk? They must have read the blog about Cujo and the doggy door, or the Code Adam incident at Wal-Mart. 

It is hard to image, my son, a flight risk. Actually, I guess if you look at it from an historical perspective, it is kinda cool. Consider who else has been a flight risk over the past 100 years...

1. Daugherty siblings - a modern day Bonnie and Clyde and her other brother Clyde.
2. Julian Assange
3. James 'Whitey' Bulger
4. Adolf Eichmann - arrested by Israeli Mossad in 1960 for WWII war crimes
5. Sirius Black
6. Ted 'Unabomber' Kaczynski
7. Dr. Richard Kimble - escaped twice, once from 1963-67 then again in 2002
8. D.B. Cooper
9. Imelda Marcos - her 3000 pair of shoes remain at large
10. O.J. Simpson - the Bronco finally ran out of gas the second go around

So, we have taken corrective action. We have revoked Ethan's bond, and changed the locks on the doors. I even thought about marking his clothes with a number, like they do with prisoners, so we can keep track of him. How about 2-4-6-0-1? - blast it, I knew I was forgetting somebody on the list!

All is not lost however. After breaking the bad news to us, they did at least have some alternative elective classes to offer him.

1) Guitar - Genius, especially if it is a guitar dismantling class. I can hear it now:

'This is a G sharp... You know, when you see a dot with a line that points up from it, like this, and there is a thingy right here that - hey who colored in the sharp sign? - that is the sign for a sharp it looks like the 'pound sign'... you know the 'pound sign' its two vertical lines with two horizontal lines... vertical, that's when the line goes up and down, and then lines go across, like in a game of tic-tac-toe...'

2) Drama - even more genius!

'Today we present a play, well I'm actually not sure what the play is - it's probably more like an improv - it all depends on how he feels. It might be The Emperor's New Groove, could be any of the dozen or so Land Before Time movies, he might even quote Muppet Treasure Island - you know that part where Kermit is on board the ship and Mr. Erroll does the roll call '...Big-Fat-Ugly-Bug-Face-Baby-Eating-O'Brien...' - we're just hoping it is something appropriate. Either way, it will star only Ethan, and it might last a while. Though it might be very short, in fact he might decide all together to just stand there with his arms folded and refuse to cooperate, either way... Hey, put that down, that's not a sword... To get on with the play, we're not sure what to call it, we'll play it by ear, but I'm guessing we'll call it something like, "I Feel A Blog Coming On..."'