We had our meeting today with Andy DuRoss (Superintendent), Cassie Williams (Special Ed Director) and Mary Kay Prusnick (Board President). We explained how we felt, how we felt the situation was handled and why we thought that the move was a bad idea.  They assured Joey and I that they care about Domenic and want what’s best for him.

When we asked why the program couldn’t stay at Stevenson they said that looking at the Instructional Program, it has steady enrollment that they can predict the space it needs and that the Autism Program is rapidly expanding.  We had asked why they cannot keep Domenic’s program at Stevenson and have the Autism program expand to the new school (this way it avoids disrupting the children).  They stated that Muir cannot accommodate the expansion they predict over time for the Autism program.

I asked Cassie Williams how many classrooms are available at Muir.  She said they will start with 2 classrooms for the students and 1 classroom will be the motor room for their therapies (so in total 3).  I asked how many classrooms are available at Muir to accommodate the children in the Instructional program overtime and she said that if they need to expand there will be 1 or 2 classrooms available.  So I reiterated, “okay so a total of 5 classrooms?” and she said correct.

I then asked her how many classrooms are available at Stevenson, she stated we will be starting with 3 for the program.  I asked “okay so how many classrooms total for the Autism program, 5?” and she would not confirm and it seemed as though that question was being avoided and just said “Muir does not have enough open classrooms to be able to accommodate the Autism program to accommodate the growth we are anticipating over the future years”.  She said “Stevenson will be able to accommodate the Autism program as it grows over the years” .  When we asked that it would be able to accommodate Autism program forever at Stevenson she said we can’t guarantee anything forever we have a number of schools.

She then proceeded to say that what’s going to happen is “really quite simple” and that there is not going to be a lot of construction, Muir has a washroom that they are going to be adding a changing table and a Hoyer lift and it’s a 1 stall so that will all be in one bathroom and it is adjacent to where the classrooms are.  Currently at Stevenson, the kids have a jack and jill style bathroom that was literally built for our kids.  And the District is going to downgrade to what our kids are receiving now to shove them somewhere that the district wants to put them.  This is absolutely disgusting and unacceptable.  So there will be ONE bathroom for the kids?! Is that even legal? That I am looking into next.

Since the District kept talking about data that they go off of in the prior weeks when we kept asking questions, we did a FOIA for their third party plans.  A company called RSP, an enrollment/data analysis company for schools had their booklet they provided the district that we were able to get a copy of.  I reviewed the data that they provided this year and asked how Muir doesn't have the space for the other program and explaining that it doesn't make sense, but they couldn't answer me.  The District keeps saying they need to move the Instructional Program because the other program cannot be accommodated at the other school because there is not enough room. The data numbers for Muir literally show that there is more open enrollment for students then Stevenson currently and over their projection of years--that doesn't add up or make any sense to me.  I am no data expert, but if you are telling someone "the data says" and I show the data-now can you explain it, since it still doesn't add up?

Andy Duross then told us "The program is moving to Muir". It felt like he was honestly saying it doesn't matter what we say-they "know what's best". 

I don't know if the meeting helped at all or just made me get even more upset, especially now knowing they are doing nothing special for our kids.  Throwing in a changing table and a hoyer lift-when currently they have a total of 2 bathrooms for their program that have easy access inside their classrooms, they will now be downgraded to one in a bathroom across the hall.  I attached pictures of the current building plans for Stevenson where Domenic's school is currently at to show the layout.  If you look you will see that between the classrooms is a Changing Area that had doors to enter on each side and they also have an Equipment Area for storage for childrens walkers and wheelchairs-so they won't be getting that at their new school either?

Please keep signing, sharing and standing with us in this fight.  Whether the District chooses to actually LISTEN to the community or keep doing what they want to do, we are not backing down.  My son deserves to be treated better, his classmates deserve to be treated better and we will not sit by and allow this.

The board meeting is May 19 at 7pm--everyone please make sure to attend.

We appreciate everyone in continuing to keep following with what's going on and support us in this fight.