Jay's Story

Good Morning to all. Most of you (probably all of you) are from VVNG, thank you for continuing to follow this story. I am still updating this, it's long, so bear with me... Both my mother, Julie, and I will be updating this blog. Not sure how long this blog will be active, but our goal is to, of course, get Jay a proper education, but also to educate the public about discrimination and special needs being overlooked in rural areas. So regardless of Jay's education outcome, I will hope to keep educating everyone because he has struggled so much in his 9 years and I don't want any other child to go through what we went through. And families deserve to be educated in their resources, something that is lacking in California, especially in our rural area. Anyways, I'm just blabbering and will post as frequently as possible on here, but for now, here is Jay's Story. 'Jay' was adopted at a very young age, and I hope you all understand we would still like to keep his private life (outside of school) and his life story as private as possible until he decides himself to share it one day :) So after he was adopted we knew he was special. He was so smart, and craved information and took it in like a sponge, as do most children, but even more so and for higher learning than normal kids his age. But as he continued to grow we knew there was even more to him and his mind than just the urge to learn. Jay became a troubled toddler and preschooler, a great and wonderful child, but had outbursts and tantrums that were much more difficult for my mother, and different than any of her 4 biological children (all grown now). After going to countless doctors, psychiatrists, etc. (over a course of a couple years mind you) Jay was diagnosed with: Asperger's Syndrome, Sensory Disorder, ADHD, PTSD and also had a vision problem, leaving him legally blind in one eye before we took corrective action. This is where my mom will have to update... Although I try to stay as active as I can in my brother's education and all his hardships and battles, of course his mother (my mother..) is the best person for 110% accurate information. Anyways.... Jay has gone to multiple schools in his 9 years. To name a few: of course, Phelan Elementary, County school at Del Rey Elem. in Victorville, Mohave Ridge in Victorville, Mountain View (located in Hesperia), and our favorite (joking of course) Provo Canyon School in Springville, Utah. He also briefly went to daycare/pre-k at Head Start in Phelan. When Jay was in Kindergarten he was almost killed by a teacher. The teacher, was 'restraining' him against a school desk, pressing his chest against his desk until he stopped kicking (passed out) resulting in petechial hemorrhaging from the top of his head down to his chest. He had it in his eyes, inside his eyelids, inside his ears, inside his nose, inside his mouth and tounge, his entire face and all of his skin. It was horrible! Then they sent him home on the bus like that without so much as a call or an incident report! After that school, Jay bounced back and fourth between Phelan Elementary and a home "independent" study program, after he was expelled from Phelan Elementary due to "distributive" behavior, due to Jay's outbursts which, at the time, were physical and all due to his disability. Jay was expelled and re accepted numerous times to Phelan Elementary, over a year or so, while we tried to work with SELPA on getting a Special Needs Aid to help him through normal school, or home school Jay. We home schooled Jay for a year+ where books and supplies were provided to Jay from Phelan Elementary. The school even sent over some teachers, to do things like science experiments and book reports. Jay loved it, and did really well, except the work they were providing was less challenging then Jay would have preferred so boredom struck frequently. The teachers and staff were uneducated regarding children with Aspergers, or any Autism for that matter. They were sending teachers that were not special needs, and had no clue about the disorder or how to handle (and teach) a child with any of Jay's disorders. So, after a while they stopped allowing the teachers to come, and eventually stopped the home schooling altogether. Again, my mother would be best for details during this time since I have not lived at home for the past five years. Lets fast forward a little to early last year. After hard pressing and kind of threatening that Jay would end up in jail by the therapist at SELPA we agreed to try the so called wonderful residential school. but it would have to accept Jay and it would take a while. We finally got on the waiting list for a residential (live-in) treatment facility, a place Snowline & SELPA promised would be Jay's saving grace. They were to teach him how to be social, interact properly, understand social cues, etc etc while getting great education and socializing with children his age. They would have doctors and other medical staff watching him even in his sleep so they could try to find out why he had such bad sleep issues. They gave us two choices; one near Provo, Utah and another in Florida. Of course, my mother wanted somewhere close, so Provo, Utah it was. The waiting list was long, but Jay was a priority on the list so we hoped for the best. Come October, they called my mom to set up a flight to Utah. Jay and my parents (mother & stepfather) flew to Provo, Utah to see Provo Canyon School and admit Jay. They left late October and made sure to pack everything needed for the cold expected in Utah, plenty of clothes, sweats, jeans, gloves hats, personal care products etc. everything that was on the school's list of thing they are allowed to have, lots of warm clothes for the fun hiking, skiing and camping activities they promised. When the staff removed his items from the suitcase and returned it to us they said "Mom, you packed really well." (more on this later) Jay of course had a hard time when my parents left; he had never been away from home for even one night, in his- then- 8 years of life. We were allowed to call Jay on the weekends. My mother called every Saturday, I every Sunday. He sounded down most days, but some days he had a good day and started making some friends that would come and go. To avoid this being pages long, I will focus more on the key points rather than all the little details of his stay at Provo. When Jay had a "bad day" they would put him in the "time-out room." Which was literally a concrete brick room, no padding, with a door that they would hold him in for hours at a time if he was misbehaving and a drain in the middle we found out later cause the kids get so upset they throw up. At first, we bit our tongue because we had hope for Provo, thought, they must know what their doing and figured it was just a part of their "big picture" to help Jay, so we just reassured him every weekend that he is doing such a good job and some days will be bad and that was okay with us and we loved him even when he was in the time out room or any other sort of trouble. Actually, the very first Sunday I was allowed to call, Jay was in the time out room and they denied my call to him and wouldn't tell me why he was in there, if he was okay, let me try to calm him down etc. Of course Jay hated the room. We later found out he was placed there the his very first day before he was even familiar with their rules etc. They would give him additional drugs during his bad days that would keep him in a down mood and lethargic. They would tell him how bad he was being, and denied our calls on a few occasions during his stay.
At this point, we didn't know he was being physically abused, and we didn't look at the punishments as mental abuse at this point because we were trying to stay positive and try to see it from their "big picture" professional perspective. Now, I can only speak for Sundays, and the conversations I had with my brother, so mind you this is not everything that went on there. Jay would tell me some Sundays that Provo denied him lunch time, which started out as him being denied the privilege of eating with all the other kids, which was understandable but Provo Canyon's favorite thing to do was to put Jay on the "NOTHING LIST". The nothing list was just that, leaving the child with virtually nothing. They would provide the child Provo's own clothes. Which consisted of shorts and t-shirt and someone's old shoes. He was not allowed his own clothes, toys, books, eating with others, no outings, nothing. Even when he was good and earned points, if he did one small thing wrong he lost everything even all points earned. Jay was on the Nothing List a lot. I feel like every time I talked to him, at some point during that previous week he had been on the nothing list or had lost all his points. Provo Canyon has a point system, which basically was your only way out of Provo. You would go through different "Status's" depending on how many points you had. The more points, the more privileges. When you reached "Mentor Status" you would be put on the list to be discharged. I don't remember the exact numerical's for the point system, but Mentor Status comes only after many points and when they have been there quite a while. Children earned points by having good behavior, speaking properly, or "helping out" around their cabin or the school.

[Just a quick step back, Provo is broken down into different Cottages, separated by sex and age. Jay was in a cottage with other boys ranging from 8 years to 12 years old. They share a common area, playground, lunch room, etc. and rotate their counselors, so there is always on staff 24/7. Jay would earn points by folding laundry. Piles that were "6 feet high" and this was VERIFIED TRUE by a staff member at Provo. Jay would fold laundry, help out in the cottage, try to be on his best behavior and earn only a few points in a week. Again, why I stated Mentor Status is so many points, and seemingly IMPOSSIBLE to reach. One wrong move, and Jay's points were taken away, and he went back to ZERO. Jay was allowed to go to Church on Sundays, and although we are not a religious family, he chose on his own to go to Christian Church and he loved it. They would sing, and read the bible and it was a calm environment. Provo Canyon is a Mormon-based school, as is most of Utah, so we were happy to learn that they allowed him to choose any religion he wanted. On his bad days, Provo would deny Jay to go to Church, and of course, this would upset him. If you're unfamiliar with Asperger's and/or Sensory Disorder, changing their daily routine, schedule, etc is asking for chaos. And Provo should know this. His schedule changed almost daily. He would be denied the ability to go to class and would get lower grades due to them not allowing him to go to class because of his behavior. Normally he was a honor roll student there. Jay broke his arm one week into his stay at Provo Canyon. My mother got the call about it, but found out that it had happened the previous day, and Jay laid in bed all night with no treatment with a severely broken arm. My mother was never notified right when the break happened, and Jay cried all night in pain asking for his mother and was denied the phone call. They finally took him to a doctor, and got his arm casted. When they were talking about the possibility of seeing Jay and comforting him and being there for the casting, x-rays etc., and after many long discussions with counselors, they decided to allow ONE of my parents to visit but not both. Around this time they also cut his hair really really short. Jay has always had long hair, which was cut to shoulder length a few years back just cause of how crazy and messy it always was. We try to stay away from cutting it short, but we always left it up to Jay, who always asked to keep it long. They cut his hair and never asked permission nor notified us, they just sent us the bill. We received photos around Christmas, when they had a party where Jay dressed up as Harry Potter. He had a buzz cut, very dark circles under his eyes and a forced smile and a cast on him little arm he looked pitiful. He was looking at the camera for a change though, which is almost impossible for Aspie's. His birthday is in December one week before Christmas so he spent his 9th birthday at Provo. We sent him gifts,(more on this later) and my parents had to choose to visit him for his birthday or Christmas so they chose the week in between so they could be there close to both. Provo DID pay for this trip, i know there is a lot of speculation going around as to what they paid for. The issue is that they pay for only four trips a year and except for airline tickets and hotel for two days only, you must pay for all other expenses such as gas, airport parking, all food and activities while you are with your child, rental car etc. and they pay you back which takes 6 weeks. If you drive, you must come up with the hundreds of dollars it take to drive there and if you want to stay extra days you have to pay the hotel. Jay was very reserved during these trips but he would help my mother walk from the car to restaurants, said "sir/ma'am" and asked politely (not interrupting) for any thing he wanted he was allowed to stay out of the facility and stay at their hotel. We started to have a positive outlook on this whole situation at this time.
A few weeks later Jay had still not received his birthday packages. Long story short, involving numerous packages over the 6 months, most of his stuff was "lost" and since he is a big kid his brand new men's size underwear and socks sent through mail always went missing. The staff at Provo "monitored" incoming mail, went through packages, read letters, and apparently "lost" 90% of his belongings including almost all of his brand new clothing he came with, birthday gifts, Christmas gifts both the ones family members sent and the things they brought to him for birthday and Christmas. Jay saw his Christmas stuff dumped out on the floor one day during a phone call with us. Just dumped on the floor like someone rummaged through it, but failed to give any of it to him. Our phone calls were long, and he never wanted to get off the phone with us. He would cry sometimes during phone calls but we tried to keep positive about him coming home "soon".
He would tell us when they would have to restrain him, but there was never much talk about anything that hurt him. Just more mental than physical. Jay would tell me more than my mom, I guess just cause I'm his sister and you tell your sister more secrets than your mom lol. He would tell me little things, about what he would do that got him in trouble etc. I always tried to give him advice, and tried to set goals on how many days he could go without being on the Nothing List or losing his points (Status Zero). I would always ask him if it was okay if I told Mom stuff he told me, and always asked if he wanted me to have Mom tell his therapist. Sometimes he would say yes, sometimes he would say no. We never pressured him into telling anyone, but most of the time he was scared to death to have anyone at Provo find out what he was telling us. They are not allowed to complain there so a during lot of phone calls you could hear someone (an adult) in the background saying "Don't say that" etc. when we would ask about his days, what he did and what not. A lot of times he would get scared and start telling us something and say "oh oh never mind" real quick, and you could just tell that he was scared of reprimand. It was my phone call on a Sunday that ended his stay at Provo Canyon. We had a normal phone call, and I always jotted down key things he would tell me, if he got in trouble, fun stuff he did, school stuff, etc. to tell my mom when I called her right after my phone calls with Jay. He had been having a bad week, he had been in the time out room twice that day and was just so exhausted mentally. Very nonchalantly, he told me he had gotten hurt earlier that day I asked him what happened and if there were any marks,etc. At this point in his stay, there had been a few occasions when Jay would get hurt by staff, but he would brush it off his shoulders, and just say he was fine and understandable. A barely-9-year-old brushing abuse off his shoulders. We DIDN'T brush it off our shoulders, but Provo never took our complaints seriously and always justified them. We did not pull him out at these other times because we knew Jay is strong (physically) and a big kid and they scuff their knees and get bruises, while throwing tantrums as any Special Needs parent knows. We always looked into these incidents, but this one was different and the straw that broke the camels back. To not get too crazy into detail with the weeks prior, but there had been multiple incidents, verbally, psychically, and mentally leading up to this Sunday. So, this Sunday Jay told me that he was having a bad day. He had gotten into trouble and they told him he wasn't going to be allowed to attend church that day as a punishment. He got so angry and was kicking a desk. The staff restrained him, by pulling his hands behind his back, as if you were getting arrested (they did this almost every time they restrained the children), lifted him off the floor and put all of their weight (the staff member, huge male) on Jay, pressing him against the wall. Mind you, he is OFF THE GROUND, legs dangling off the ground and pressing him against the wall where there was a light switch. He was held and his face pressed against the wall and his chest pressed so hard against where the light switch was. It hurt so bad he was screaming, the more he screamed the harder they pressed him into the wall. This is extremely painful, doctors even use a knuckle rub on a person's sternum to awaken an unconscious person because it is extremely painful. Then he was placed into the concrete room. Of course I asked about marks. Jay said he had one red mark in the middle of his chest and another one, but "no big deal" basically. He was so scared. I pried, and acted like it was "no big deal" so he wouldn't think anything of it. He finally told me that he did have other marks, and a scrape on his leg. It was Sunday, so immediately after I called my mom she called the school and asked the nurse to please look in on him and call her back to be sure he was ok . The nurse never called her back so she kept calling and asking for someone to look in on him. After 4 hours of this she said if someone did not go in there and lay eyes on him that she would drive there right now more than 600 miles away! This is already 11:00 at night! They tried talking her out of visiting, they denied sending her for a visit so that she could see for herself that he was ok, they did everything in their power to keep my parents from seeing him which really started to scare her, like, why couldnt anyone tell her he was ok? My mother is very persistent so they made the decision to drive there after the nurses kept lying and hiding the details around this abuse report. My parents left for Utah the next morning at 4am, unannounced. When they got to see Jay, he was overwhelmed and my mother instantly checked his body for marks and injuries. He was covered in bruises. He was pressed so hard against a light switch that it had bruised the middle of his chest (Yes, that's how far they lifted him off the ground). He had bruises, scrapes, cuts from head to toe. My mom requested to see the video which they denied. She contacted CPS and the police in Utah and California. She showed the CEO of Provo Canyon and he just turned his nose up and said "that should have never happened". The therapist was the only one who apologized, and understood why my family was so upset.

They headed home with Jay, who was ecstatic and exhausted. Believe me, my mom did everything she could think of to have this looked into. Eventually, the Police & CPS reviewed the tapes and spoke to the staff members involved. It is shown on the tapes exactly what Jay told me, and the staff member who did it admitted to police and CPS. He said "yea, i did it, MY BAD" Still nothing was done. The police in California took a report at home with Jay and his statement was the same. Nothing different. My mother then scheduled an IEP meeting with Snowline School District to discuss the situation and how he would spend the last 4 weeks of school.. They told us that due to the fact that we pulled Jay out of the facility before the "treatment" was complete, and against their advice, that they would not allow Jay to attend any normal school in the Snowline School District. Even though the last time Jay was physically attending Phelan Elementary, was about 2+ years prior, and before he learned how to control himself better. Even though Jay had endured 6 months of hell at Provo Canyon and actually had improved demeanor and behavior. Although it wasn't our old Jay, which I don't think we will ever get back, he was "socially acceptable" and if Phelan Elem. would just give him a chance to prove that he has changed for the better, things would work out and he would have a great education and a great future and provide so much knowledge to those schools. Phelan Elementary and Snowline School District and SELPA still denied him his education. They denied home schooling, refused to even give my mom the books so she could school him till the end of may when school ended. SELPA denied allowing him to try a charter school. They gave us two options: Send Jay back to a residential treatment facility outside of , probably back to Provo Canyon, or one in California, one of the non public schools, (where he always got hurt and never did more than one page of work a day) or they would file for due process and take Jay away from us, put him where they wanted him to be and we would have no say in anything that happened. These were their actual words to us in the meeting at the school dist. office with Diane the head of special services for snowline and two people from SELPA. It is also written on our IEP! So all you out there who keep saying "they cant do that" well we shall see right? So this is the Jay's Story so far. There are many parts far and in between, but this is the gist of things. This is the skeleton of the situation we're in. And now we are trying to allow Jay, who is non-violent, has learned to control his tantrums (doesn't mean they're gone, but they are definitely manageable and able to be managed in a normal school setting), has the urge to learn and be around kids his age, get the free PUBLIC education he deserves. He may have an IQ of 150, he may do better in a High School rather than the 5th grade, he may prefer to be home schooled, he may do better with an aide by his side but which ever way possible, he deserves an education. He deserves to experience school and friends and summer breaks, lunch time, recess, show and tell, detentions, calls home, arguments with friends, crushes... good and bad he deserves to experience them all. He deserves a chance anyway. So please support us. We want to hold a rally in Jay's honor and any other child left behind, discriminated against, denied a FAPE (Free Appropriate Public Education), and show Snowline School District that we will NOT brush this off our shoulders. We will not turn the other cheek. We will be persistent, we will prove our point, whether or not the outcome is good or bad, we will not give up. And we could use all the support we can get. A petition will be made. Please email any questions, advice, concerns, etc etc to: anotherchildleftbehind@gmail.com Like I said before, this blog will be updated as frequently as possible. I would love you all to share Jay's Story and let this issue be known. This post was mostly for people on VVNG asking for the whole story, wanting details... I know it's long, and thank you if you read it all the way to here! :) And please keep checking back for updates. Thank you! - Jordan, sister.

Sunday, August 17, 2014

This is the child we are fighting for (:

Quick Update! Big news!

Sunday, July 27, 2014

Short Version...Highlights.

Jay's Story - Full Version (still being updated)