You're Special! Yea!

This is it. This is my first post where I get to speak my piece on a controversial subject and actually give my TRUE opinion. I'm a little nervous, so here goes. Deep breath.

If you weren't already tipped off by the picture, I'll start by saying that today's topic is special needs kids. And by special needs, I don't mean Little Johnny who is a tad hyperactive, or Sweet Suzie with the stutter. I'm talking full-fledged, helmet sportin', diaper wearing, wheelchair-cruisn' kids. More specifically, the parents of these kids.

Let me paint you a little picture: Small town couple have no children of their own, so they decide to adopt. Sweet right? Wait, it gets even better. They adopt multiple kids. Handicapped kids. From foreign countries. These were the kids that were thrown away by their birth parents and found in dumpsters. Literally. In all, this couple adopts somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 kids, and all but one or two have some sort of physical or mental handicap, if not both. I guess once they got one kid, they felt the need to collect the whole set...

So far this story seems right out of the pages of a storybook, doesn't it? Or at least a feel-good human interest piece aired locally on a slow news day? Ah, but this is where the story takes a nasty little turn, and my contemptuous claws come out.

Everything thing is fine and dandy until this couple (whom we shall now refer to as "The Saints") have to enroll these kids in school. Aw, the first day of school. How exciting! It's a time to remember, full of backpacks and cartoon lunchboxes, crayons and milk money. At least, for normal kids it is. Remember, these kids are severely handicapped and can't even feed themselves, let alone color inside the lines. One would think that The Saints would send their precious little droolers to the near-by school designed to accommodate their special little angels. But noooo. Instead, they opt to forgo said specialized school and it's free transportation with wheelchair-accessible buses, specially trained teachers, and buildings designed to accommodate children who can't even take a dump in a toilet. No, instead they decide it's a good idea send their kids to the local, small-town public school, which, by law, has to accommodate them. All because they want their kids to feel as "normal" as possible.

This means that every time one of the Saint children (who all have very different "needs" to be met) goes through one of the three school buildings within the district, the school board has to remodel and install equipment designed to assist with whatever said-child's disabilities are. We are talking about wheelchair ramps and specialized play ground equipment. Handicapped accessible buses. Speaker systems with microphones clipped on to teachers' shirts so the kid can hear the lessons better. Bringing in aides and tutors for each of the children. We are talking $30,000 to remodel a high school bathroom so that one stall is large enough to change an adult diaper inside. I could go on and on. Get the picture? And the school system has to figure out a way to pay for all of this.

The Saints are single-handily putting the small-town school district into financial ruin. This school district has a hard enough time passing levies as it is. This is due to all the rich ass retirees and private school snobs moving into this "quaint" little town to get away from the city. They then turn around and vote "no" on new taxes designed to keep the schools running, because they don't feel the need since "we don't have kids that go there". (This is subject matter for a whole 'nother post.) Now the school board is faced with the daunting task of making required accommodations for the Saint children, as demanded by their parents, all whilst trying to keep the schools afloat with the same measly ass budget they've always had.

In addition, the Saint children aren't even required to follow the same curriculum as the rest of the student body. Instead, with the assistance of their tax-dollar purchased teachers aides and tutors, they have their own "special" curriculum designed especially for them. Basically, if the kid can learn to wipe their own ass by Senior year, they can graduate. Man, I wish I had had that set of standards set forth by my teachers. I'd be a Harvard alum by now!

But, like I said, they have to do it, by law. Now, I've always considered myself a liberal and erred on the side of equality for all, but come on! Am I the only one who sees a problem with this? Let's recap: Severely handicapped children are being entered into a public school system that financially can't afford to meet their needs, all while there is a perfectly good special education school 10 miles down the road, fuckin' designed to educate these kinds of kids! I'm not saying the laws should be changed so that the school system has the legal right to turn them away and deny them an education. What I am implying here that these dumb ass do-gooder parents need to get some common sense and send their kids to the school equipped to handle them and not the financially-burdened-as-it-is public school, turning it into a quickly sinking ship!

If the public school has to keep shelling out that kind of money, it is a certainty that the school district will end up closing down all together, and it's 1200 other students will all have to be annexed into other districts and bused to other towns to receive their rightful education. Since when is it OK for so many to suffer for so few?

If you ask me, The Saints are downright SELFISH. They choose to adopt handicapped children from poverty-stricken nations. Bravo for them, a round of applause, please. Now if only they could get their heads out of their asses and realize that they have a state of the art school just around the corner that was built for children like their own, a luxury that most parents in their situation don't have. And yet they refuse to utilize it, just so their kids can be "normal". Let me tell you something. Those kids ain't ever gonna be normal. Deal with it. Carlos Mencia said it best: "If you have err kids, send them to an err school!"

I would like to add that I am not just giving an editorial review on some story I heard on the news. I went to school with some of these kids. Now, 8 years after I graduated, these kids are still in the same public school system I attended, still draining it of it's money. I also am related to a member of the school board, which is where I received my information on just what exactly it is they are having to shell out for these kids. I have seen both sides of the situation, and this is my opinion.

P.S. If you liked this post, please recommend it to your friends. I'm trying to get this new blog up and running!