LEAD Elementary

LEAD failed my child. My child was miserable there and suffered long term social-emotional damage as a result of how this school treated him, especially long term damage to his self-esteem.
My son is autistic. He was tested and screened by LEAD and placed in a kindergarten class. An IEP team was formed and a plan was developed to address my son’s needs. That plan was not adhered to by school staff and I was never notified that the plan was not being followed. Even at our IEP update meetings, I was never told that staff was not following the plan. My son trusted this school to care for him and they could not even follow their own plan.
A safe environment was not provided for my son or the other children. I was told by a teacher that children were bullying my son throughout the day with the goal of triggering him to lash out. When the bullies were successful, my son was disciplined and sent home.
I regularly arrived at the school to pick up my child at the end of the school day only to discover that he was waiting for me in the office, having been sent there by his teacher for disrupting the class. This was contrary to the IEP plan. My son was too ashamed to tell me what was going on and, again, I was not getting any regular feedback from school staff or the IEP team. Two weeks before the end of the school year, I arrived to pick up my child. As the children were leaving class, one told me that my son had been sent to the office. I had not been notified by the school, again. I walked into the office and my son asked me if he was going to be punished. We did not use that word in my house. We do not punish my son for being autistic. He learned this word at school. He learned that he would be punished for being autistic at this school. It was only then that I found out that my autistic child was being sent to the office three, four, even five times a day where he was forced to sit still and remain quiet for a minimum of fifteen minutes at a time. This was contrary to the IEP plan. Three, four, five times a day, my autistic child was forced to sit still and not make any noise for fifteen or more minutes at a time. That is torture. I walked into the office the next morning and told staff that my child would not be returning, ever. When one of the office staff asked why, I was so angry that I could only say that it was because they had failed my child. She just nodded. She knew exactly what I meant.