I thought up a bunch of titles last night, but they were all pretty sarcastic, and didn't really capture the nature of what I'm going to try to write about. I actually have a hard time believing this story actually happened the way I perceived it. Part of me me wants to believe it was just me misunderstanding what was said, or that this person was simply having a problem expressing herself clearly. But the more I think about it, the more disturbing I find it.

We met with representatives from our public school district yesterday to try to get speech therapy for Kai. We started this process almost a year ago. At that time the district would not qualify Kai for speech, but did screen him for developmental delays and found that he did qualify for the district's developmental preschool program. We were assured that the speech therapist would work with Kai to some degree through this program, and he would receive assistance he needed in other areas as well. We were happy with this plan mainly because the teacher in the program is an old friend of ours named Tammy who has consistently been a strong advocate for Kai.

Over the course of the last year we have seen Kai make huge strides thanks to this program. Still, we felt that Kai was not going to be ready for kindergarten this coming fall. So we were really pleased when we met with Tammy a month ago and she told us she was recommending Kai spend another year in her preschool program. She had to appeal pretty strongly to her superiors at the district level to make this happen for Kai, so we are very grateful to her. However, as good as this program has been for Kai, we feel like his speech issues have not really improved, and we really wanted to make this a focus for him.

At our original meetings with the district, there was a great resistance on their part to give Kai a formal evaluation. They kept citing ESL (English as a Second Language) laws as reasons he might not qualify. The speech pathologist also kept insisting that Kai's early experiences: institutional care, only being exposed to Mandarin, had to be considered in evaluating his speech development. We don't believe that they are interpreting the ESL laws correctly. And we know quite a few other children adopted from China both older and younger than Kai, who have been home for less time that speak considerably more clearly. Kai has problems communicating clearly with Tina and me to the degree that he is frustrated at times. In our minds, this means he needs help in getting on par with his peers in terms of expressive language. So we arranged another meeting to petition the district to screen Kai to see if he qualifies for "Special Services".

We met in his preschool classroom yesterday afternoon. Kai's Teacher Tammy was there, the speech pathologist, and psychologist. There were a couple classroom aids there who entertained Kai and Shen for us while met. We had not met this psychologist before, and she seemed to be in charge of the meeting. She was very professional and I felt very comfortable talking with her. Tammy knows Kai's story quite well and is a strong advocate for him so we were very happy to have her there with us. The speech pathologist on the other hand is not one of our favorite people. We have met with her two other times, and both of these meetings became confrontational. I really feel that I am responsible for the tone of those meetings turning negative, but I am unwilling to accept unsound or unreasonable arguments. If you show me you are correct I am more than willing to agree with you even if I don't like the outcome. This woman would not listen, and says stupid things.

So yesterday, I came home from work at noon and picked up Tina and the boys. We drove to the school and had our third meeting with this woman. We sat down at the table and after a quick round of introductions, the speech pathologist took out a form to write on and asked us what our concerns were. We said that we wanted Kai to receive a formal speech evaluation. She told us that she couldn't write just that, but would need more clearly defined concerns. We thought for moment, then let loose with a rapid stream of examples. After a moment she said, "slow down, I can't write that fast." The frustrating thing here, is that she is supposedly working with Kai directly in the classroom. I can't imagine how she could spend any amount of time with him and not know what we are talking about. Tina and I are not speech therapists, we do not have Master's Degrees in speech pathology. We need her help in defining what exactly Kai's delays are. But, anyway, we continued to share our observations.

Again the ESL issue was brought up. Oh, I can't tell you how thrilled I was to have them raise this point. You see, as Tina got in the car earlier, she showed me how she had dog-eared several pages and highlighted passages in a little pamphlet called "Interim Notice of Special Education Procedural Safeguards For Students and Their Families", which they had given to us at our first meeting. I slid the booklet across the table and asked them to read the following passage:

"Native language, when used with an individual who has limited English proficiency, means the following:
1. The language normally used by that person, or, in the case of a child, the language normally used by the child's parents.
2. In all direct contact with a child (including evaluation of the child), the language normally used by the child in the home or learning environment."

The way I read this definition of yours, I told them, Kai is an English speaking preschooler, not an ESL student. They kind of blew this comment off and our conversation then steered to a review of Kai's early experience living in an institutional setting. This was mainly for the benefit of the psychologist who had not met Kai before. We quickly skimmed over the basic facts of his story, emphasizing that in reality, we don't really know much about the details of first 33 months of Kai's life. Then the speech pathologist says in referrence to both Kai and Shen, "They're lucky they're boys."

Truly puzzled by this comment, I looked at her in confusion and asked what she meant by that.
"Well, they kill the girls you know." she said.

I literally rose out of my seat! I turned and glared directly at her in shock. "What a terrible thing to say!" I said. I shook my head and had to turn away. "Most of the children in the orphanages are girls." I said. Now I was staring at the floor in obvious anger. I could not continue engaging civilly with her. She attempted an apology stating that this was only what she had heard.

The psychologist and Kai's teacher redirected the conversation back to our present concerns, and it was then presented to us that Kai would receive services. They still refuse at this point to give him a formal screening. Their position on this seems to be that a formal screening may not qualify him, so the services will be provided based on their professional opinion of his needs. In an effort then to clear the obvious tension in the room they pointed out that regardless of how it was accomplished, Kai was going to receive what Tina and I want for him.

We continued to talk about his specific speech issues and how they may be related to other oral motor and sensory issues Kai exhibits. And the speech pathologist starts asking about specific sounds and their formations. She asked us if Mandarin uses some of these sounds. "Because," she says, "you know certain sounds are used by different people for years and years, and for generation after generation for thousands of years, so the shape of the mouth evolves in a certain way..."

I looked across the table at her trying to comprehend what she might possibly be attempting to communicate. "Are you trying to tell me," I asked, "that he is ethnically incapable of speaking English clearly!?!" I mean, what could she possibly mean by this? She backtracked and tried to claim she wasn't expressing herself clearly. But Im afraid she had expressed herself all too well. This statement on top of saying how "They" kill the girls, she is either racist, extremely ignorant, or both. My money right now is on "both".

I can't clearly express how hot I was at this point. I was incapable of continuing a dialog with this person. The conversation pretty much came to a close at this point. Kai is going to receive services. We signed some papers. Some additional meetings and timelines were set. I sat quietly and waited for someone to find a polite way to end the meeting. Tammy then invited Kai over to the table and told him how we were meeting to discuss how well he was doing in school. She introduced him to everyone at the table and then gave him a hug. Then she invited Shen over and did the same with him to make him feel included.

And then, just to put a cherry on top of our experience, the speech pathologist looks at me and asks, "Are they brothers?"

This woman has to have a Master's degree. She works in a professional setting with other educated people providing social services, and this is how she talks to people!!

"Yes. They are brothers." I glowered back at her. I could have just exploded at this point. I mean, What The _ _ _ _?!?! You know, we've gotten this question a couple times from people I could politely give a pass too, like a young hair stylist cutting the boys' hair for example, but a trained professional the same age as us in this setting? How can I not question her professional integrity? Tammy has assured us this woman is excellent with the children, but I'm not sure that's enough now. Is this the person we want working with Kai?

This is the story of how we went to bat, advocating for Kai with the school district to get him the services he needs and "won".

I don't think I can let this go at this point. What would you do if you were Tina and me?