This is kind of a long story, but I am amazed at the dedication of my wife, and the willingness of our school district.
Basically we have been battling for months (really since last year) to get the school to start "mainstreaming" my youngest as much as they can, well finally this year, they have started, of course he has an aid with him at all times, still he has been going to a "typical" kindergarten class for about two hours a week.
This all came to a head when my wife discovered that another student in his class (His Adaptive Ed) class was being abusive towards him, and the techers and aids alike were having a hard time controlling this violent student. My wife went to the normal ARD meeting that those of us with special needs children are all familiar with and basically challenged the district to start mainstreaming Aidan full time, effective immediately (basically per Texas law, the district HAS TO make every attempt to MAXIMIZE the potential of each Special Needs child even if they have to hire a full time aid specifically for that child).
Now the school is obligated BY LAW to uphold the suggestion based on the concept that Aidan is in fact more capable than what they have offered in the way of a challenge to him.
Last week my wife was told that one of the faculty was going to give a little q&a to the class Aidan has been going to on Autism, my wife interjected and told her "Wouldn't you think it would be better, for somebody who actually deals with Autism everyday to do this?"
She agreed. Off my wife goes Wed. to read a small book about how children with Autism are different, but the same as well. AND YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE how the children responded, kindergarten children talking about how cool it was that they could play with an autistic child and not "catch it" and how much they loved Aidan, and how cool they all thought he was.
The faculty told my wife that what she did was amazing, namely because she stood up and basically told everyone that her son was Aidan, and he was autistci, they told her that most parents would never have the courage to publicly label thier child as "autistic" because of the stigma. My wife said "Well why wouldn't I? children love Aidan the way he is, only adults look at him like he's mis-behaving, it's adults that do not understand, children....now we can teach them".
Anyways, now my wife is booked for a series of tours around the school district to promote "Autism Awareness" to kids, the district feels as though it could really help mainstream other children like Aidan, if the children they are in class with understand how they operate, and what they need.
I simply cannot explain how wonderful and how strong that wife of mine is, what a battle all this has been for all of us, but mainly her, who is home with it all the time, and is at the school all the time fighting for our kids and all the other kids....I am simply awestruck.