I will apologize in advance for the length of this blog. The rough draft in my head is lengthy and there really is no way to tell this story properly by keeping it short and sweet. I beg you though, don't let this deter you from reading. I want nothing more than for people to understand this part of our family's life.
I guess the best place for me to begin this story is by taking you back to November of 2011. Our youngest son was dropped off at school that morning and seemed to be in a delightful mood. More so than most 8th grade boys are at that time of day. Imagine our surprise when later in the day we receive a call from the school saying that our son was in the office for saying something to the effect of, "I just want to blow up this school." Naturally, my heart sank. I wanted more information because the information we were given at the time was vague. Joey and I immediately go to the school to get more answers.
This is where I have to interrupt the story and tell you that neither my husband nor I are very fond of the principal at this school. She has been rude to us in the past and is, in my opinion, less than understanding. I am not naive enough to think that either of our sons are angels. They mess up sometimes and say things that most kids say. Cullen had an incident a year prior where he let his mouth get him in trouble with the school. Aside from that, he is a very good kid. He doesn't pick fights, he doesn't bully others and he's almost always a very kind-hearted child. However, he has always had a problem with 'holding his tongue' when he gets upset. All reason and repercussion flies out the window and he says exactly what is on his mind.
Back to the story at hand. Apparently Cullen, being the over-achiever that he is, was reading a book for his next class while he should have been paying attention in science. Naturally, he missed something that the teacher had said and asked her for help on what the class was doing together. I don't know if the teacher was rude with her response, but I do know my child and she must have said
something that 'set him off', so to speak. In typical Cullen fashion, he sighed/growled because she refused to help him. Again, I'm not defending him and I understand that his reaction was wrong. However, I did work with children for over 14 years and I know that the best way to handle this negative reaction would have been to ignore it. Unfortunately, this response warranted a trip to the principal's office.
What we were told is that as Cullen and said teacher were walking to the office, he mumbled to himself that he would like to blow up the school. Again, I don't condone this at all and I know most people would never think to say this with an authority figure within earshot. But I do know that Cullen, like many of us, says things out of anger and frustration that he doesn't mean. He always has. Keep in mind that he doesn't get like this often. He is usually very happy. However, he has been known to have these social melt-downs when something just doesn't go his way.
We never did get to speak to his science teacher to find out her side of the story. As we entered the office at the school, Cullen sat there in tears. Obviously he knew that he had messed up and was starting to regret what he had said and done. The principal, on the other hand, was on a power trip and our son just become Undesirable No. 1 in her book. The end result:
expulsion. We ended up having a hearing at the administration building where we fought to get our son back in school. He is and always has been a great student...honor roll, advanced classes, good attendance, etc. The end result of that hearing:
indefinite expulsion.
For the sake of the length of this blog, I won't go into all of the details of that hearing. If you want to know, ask and I will explain further. Basically, they decided that Cullen could not return to school until he had completed an anger management course by a certified psychologist or counselor. If that was done, he might be able to return to school for the third trimester (which starts tomorrow, by the way).
We were ticked off. We know our child and I know without a doubt that our child would
NEVER blow up that school, nor would he even know how to go about doing such a thing! He has never done anything even the least bit violent in his life! When his brother would pick on him when they were younger, we would give Cullen the opportunity to give his brother one good punch (in front of us) to settle the score. But he never would. Instead, Cullen's eyes would fill with tears and he'd say that he couldn't. We would ask him why and he would tell us in a small voice, "Because I don't want to hurt him."
We were faced with a problem because of this ruling. Due to our insurance, we had to go through our doctor to get a referral to seek anger management. The problem was that we were between doctors at this point and the doctor covered by the insurance wasn't accepting new patients until after the first of the year. Thus the waiting game started. We weren't able to get him in to see the doctor until February 2. I will say that the light at the tunnel was starting to come into view at this point. Our situation was explained to the doctor, so she spent some time with Cullen, talking to him and observing him. And just like that she says, "He has Asperger's." Apparently she has a son with Asperger's Syndrome and she said that she can spot it a mile away and Cullen fit the traits and tendencies.
The doctor directed us to go to Centerstone which is a center for behavioral health. We met with a lady who did a more thorough evaluation of Cullen. It wasn't long before she said that she had no doubts that he had Asperger's. She proceeded to tell us that she has a twin brother with Asperger's and that she is positive that Cullen will be officially diagnosed with it as well. More testing and meetings with certified counselors and therapists is required, but I feel that we finally have the answer to many questions we have had over the years. After doing research on Asperger's Syndrome, I'm shocked at myself for not discovering this years ago. It is so blatantly obvious now. How could I not have known?
There is so much more I could write here, but I will wrap this up by telling you that we did go to the administration building again with this new information. Needless to say, they were more than willing to try and get Cullen back into school after learning about this turn of events. He has already missed a full trimester of his 8th grade year. I feel that they have cheated this bright mind out of the education he deserves.
I'm sure some of you are wondering how this has anything to do with the reason why he was expelled. I will do another blog about Asperger's Syndrome soon, but until then, there is tons of information on the internet about it. It is part of the Autistic spectrum and each person exhibits different traits. When I blog about it, I will describe which traits our son has. Until then, I want the world to know that we will never stop fighting for our son! He is not a bad kid, he is just misunderstood.
