“Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night’s Watch, for this night and all the nights to come.”
This is from George R.R. Martin’s Game Of Thrones. I’ve taken out the parts of the oath that don’t apply. We don’t need to be just parents for our special needs kids. In the Autism world, I hear about parents being a warrior for their children. We all need to be warriors for our special needs children. We fight the battles at home, we refuse to fight this battle anymore at our schools. We cannot sit idly by and watch our legislators and the DOE decide what is best for our children. This is what will happen if we do not provide input.
Special Needs Parents, we are the Watchers On The Wall! We are all that stands between bad education standards and our children. We need to unite, once and for all, and make a stand. I’ve been saying this all summer. Show up tonight at the IEP Task Force, either in Dover or Wilmington. Make your voice heard. Say no to the tests that are damaging our schools. Say no to the battles at IEP meetings. Say no to schools denying special education services our children deserve by law and right. Say no to a Department of Education that does whatever the Federal Government tells them to do and nothing more. If you can’t show up tonight, come to the next one. Or the one after that. Email your parent rep on the task force. I don’t have all that info yet, but I will get it. Don’t go to the DOE with your concerns about IEPs while this task force is running. Go directly to the task force, to your parent rep, to the meetings, to the microphone. I just don’t trust the DOE right now. Too much has happened. They are the one entity in the state who should be doing certain things for our children, and they are not. They haven’t been for a long time, if ever. I’m not clear on the the intentions with the task force, but this is our time. We have NEVER had a better opportunity to initiate change then RIGHT NOW!!!! You would be surprised how many of us there are, but we need EVERY voice. This isn’t something that comes around often. We have been given a public forum. Let’s take advantage of that. Our children are counting on us.
If you want to come at 4pm to the Dover site so we can organize, I will be there. Meet me in front of the building. Parents: We must fight, like we have never fought before. We need to show them and tell them what they have done is wrong. We must stop them from making the same mistakes, over and over and over. Our children suffer. Our families suffer. Our schools suffer. NO MORE!!!
The Season Of Myths 