I'm proud that I had an IEP

I’ve always found it interesting to know someone else’s experiences in school. To know what they went through different then what my course in school was, so I can have an open mind to be courteous and respectful. I never felt jealous if someone did go through school better then me. I have a lot of respect to those that matured in school, it shows character for their decisions outside of school and after school

My time in school was different then others, an outside perception is that my classmates and teachers viewed me as the quiet, helpful girl. In reality I was extremely depressed, struggling, and lonely. It was still shocking to my friends and family when they found out how much I struggled in my social and scholastic life in school. People go through school differently and it's important to not assume from what is observed on the outside and never ask "Hey how are you really doing?". For me I used to see my 12 years of high school, middle school, and elementary school as nothing but a miserable experience because I was lonely. Kids change so much, I would go to school and wonder, "Am I going to have friends today?". I was academically struggling, I would sit in class and let the tears fall on my paper.

Sometimes school can mess someone up even though school is only for a portion of life, it’s very difficult to have to leave those years behind. Now that I look at these memories I can revisit it with a lighter heart and not get affected like it used to and know how to protect my future children from a life that I lived.

The one thing that defined years K-12 for me was having an IEP: not knowing about it, knowing about it, and then accepting it. But it was a tough journey that you'll read about. It was my one struggle more then anything else, that tied my social and scholastic problems together was accepting that I had an IEP.

When I was in school I did not know for five years that I was under the guidance of IEP. IEP stands for Individualized Education Program. It's a specific plan for a child that needs additional help in school. The case is made for a child, it's reviewed every year by the special education teachers to access what needs to be changed in their progress for academics. I never even knew how obvious it was that I was developmentally delayed. When I was seventeen, my mother told me that my Kindergarten teacher was the first one that knew I needed to have an IEP case. I couldn't spell, one time in class we volunteered to spell words, I rose my hand to spell the word hug, but I did not know any of the letters nor how to place them together. People were waiting for me to say H, U, G. I don't remember what happened, all I remember was the embarrassment. I barely knew the differences between colors or combo colors. I knew at a young age I couldn't understand anything, and I didn't know why I couldn't but other kids could. The first time I knew was during a coloring assignment in Kindergarten. The assignment was simple, color the leaves: red, orange, and yellow. I went through my Crayola crayons box, to find the crayons, I found Red Violet. I understood Red, but I didn't know if it was Ok to color with because it also said violet. I sat there staring at my paper, then at the crayons, I was baffled, it stumped me and sat there trying to figure it out. My Kindergarten teacher kept telling me to get back to work, I still remember the exact tone echoing in my head, "Get it done, NOW!" I didn’t know that a small child could feel smaller by a verbal order like that. I went to color with the incorrect color because I wanted to get it done, to do as I was told. Then she made me come up to the class, she took my paper, and tore it to pieces right in front of me. She gave me another copy with a note saying I didn't complete my assignment.

I didn't know how to say I didn't understand the context of the colors. She's the one credited with identifying my troubleshooting in academics, but it still hurts to know she had to go to obtuse levels of anger towards a small child.

In First Grade, that was when there was a change in my academics, a teacher had come to take me and a couple classmates to another room to take the test. So I wasn't alone and it was the first time I could make friends. I didn't question why I had to go outside, it was never explained to me by the IEP teacher. I just went where I was instructed to go, did my test, and went back to class. I didn't know that the extra time for my tests was what was helping me keep up with my classmates. Throughout first grade through fifth grade, during sporadic times of the years, I was taken to a class called SPEECH. Sometimes I was by myself, then there would be 2 or 3 more kids that came with me. From what I remember there were academic games to play, we would get a prize once in a while. Once a year I was taken to speech class to undergo a test of identifying objects, reading, other basics. I didn't know why I had to have it, but I did feel special when I knew what to do, to have a test by myself to show what I knew. I believed to be a normal child like everyone else, it wasn't until middle school where everything changed. I remembered the routine, I was taken outside for a test, in sixth grade math class, I got up to go with the teacher. She told me I couldn't come because I wasn't supposed to. Going outside for a test was what I always knew for four years, and to do not do it. I brushed it off and assumed that those moments I had to go to another room for testing was temporary and now I can stay in the room with the rest of my classmates to take tests. I felt normal for once to not be taken out of the class. But because I wasn't taken out for extra lessons and extra time for tests, my grades suffered, and I came close to being held back in sixth grade, I barely passed.

My mother was under the impression that I still had my IEP, and I just had problems with learning like I always had. She did her own investigation (Her investigations skills are FAR better then any other cop on a procedural show).

She asked me, "Why aren't you getting help?"

I said, "Help with what?"

"Your IEP is supposed to help you."

I looked at her with the letters I never heard together, "What's an IEP?"

My mother emailed and called the school to wonder why her daughter wasn't getting the specific accommodations to the IEP case that was set up in first grade and altered in the next four years. My IEP was like Keyser Soze, it was there and now like it never existed. (Look up the reference, and you'll get what I mean, trust me). It was halfway during seventh grade, and I needed to fix my grades in the remaining months. My mother found out what happened, my IEP got lost. It was never confirmed if it was an accident or a lack of professionalism that lost a piece of paper that had been misplaced for a year. It was a very strange thing to look back and know how today important document go missing it’s like losing the declaration of independence

I had to ask my mom, "Why do I have to have this?"

She told me the truth that I cannot learn like other kids because the leukemia I went through as a baby had affected my brain in a way that makes it harder for me to be able to acclimate to a topic. I was told about my cancer, and all the stories of what I went through, but it was never told to me that the cancer effected my ability to learn. When she told me that, I was shocked, I kept quiet as it all came to me. It was like that part of the movie when the main character finds out something shocking and devastating that was right in front of them the whole time and has changed everything that they are as a person. I was so depressed that all these years, I wasn't like the other kids.

Now I knew why a classmate of mine in the middle of fifth grade math class had shouted, “why are you such a problem?” - It was because I could understand what was going on and I wasn’t going fast enough.

Now I knew why there was a teacher that had to stay with me to take a test-it was because I could never understand it on my own.

Now I knew why people laughed at me when I made a wrong answer is- they were laughing about how it was a dumb answer.

In February, my mother told me that my IEP was restored, and with the restoration came some adjustments. I had to have a change in my classes, there would be a IEP teacher present for my help and I was given an extra math class for sixth period then an elective. I was also told to stay after school on certain days with other students and teachers to work on assignments, projects, reading for tests up, anything in general.

The twelve year old Sami, was not happy about it.

Seventh grade already had a rough time for me, I had major self-esteem issues, I was bullied, I was ostracized by friends for sticking up for myself to how I was treated, I barely had friends, I did self-harm. I truly hated myself and I gave up on help and hope in seventh grade.

For the rest of the seventh grade, it was a tough ordeal to be aware that for the next five years. Nothing but small group testing, taken out of class to be tested, and having a IEP teacher present in my classes. It sounds like I'm ungrateful for the help, I wasn't but it was a hard time to know I was different in a way I didn't expect. It's hard when someone tells you, "This is the proof you will have difficulty learning". Everything felt different, I felt very small and insignificant. I saw what my mom and teachers were talking about. I was very discouraged and I would sit there and be miserable when a teacher how to explain things to me that I couldn’t understand it was a heartbreaking awareness I reflected to compare it. When I was in small group testing, I made A's and B's, but in sixth grade, when I was on my own, I made D's and F's. I knew that it was for my benefit, there were teachers doing what they could to assist me and pass, it was free help! You are wondering why I would be depressed to get help when others would be in a worse position when they can't get help. Again, I was young and the state of my mental health was so warped and weak that I couldn't see the bigger picture at first. It almost made me wish that I could go back to when it was when I was taken for small group testing I did not know it was going on, like the saying ignorance is bliss.

It was a tough adjustment that I had to just accept, I wanted to pass seventh grade and I wanted my grades to improve. As much as it hurt, I had one night to have a frustrated cry and get on with it because I had to do what I could to pass seventh grade.

If I didn't care about my school, then I wouldn't have acclimated within the month for help. I saw others in my IEP group that droned on and on about how they don't care and refused the free help. From a young age, I wanted to get through my studies, it was something that I always took my assignments very seriously. I never like things to go incomplete and I love the satisfaction of being able to have some thing done and then get to draw or read afterwards. It stems from the teacher I mentioned earlier that got angry with me for not coloring leaves. It was embedded itself into my psyche that work comes first and then leisure comes afterwards. From January up until June I accepted that this was going to be a part of my life, it has been a part of my life even though I never knew it and the teachers were there to help me. My mother explained it as that it is just help.

In the eighth grade I finally settled into the acceptance, I was finally comfortable with having an IEP. It was much easier year after getting through that initial shock. It did help me excel in my academics, and I was able to get the grades I wanted. I had to quit concentrating on what my classmates thought of me, and know that this is something that’s important for me so I can be able to excel in my studies .

A story that I’ll share about a story that I remember in the eighth grade. My eighth grade English class was tasked to read a book called Flowers For Algernon. And it was about a young man that had a low IQ, he tried and mentally handicapped. The book was written in the way to understand the way that he understands words and has a very slow capacity. The kids in my class were frustrated with having to read the words that was written. Some of us were tasked to read out loud for a certain section and many of my classmates stumbled trying to annunciate words that they know to be written in another way. Like work was written as "wirk", progress was written as "progris". My classmates made fun of this book relentlessly, complained about not wanting to understand the re-written words said from a character who struggles intellectually. My classmates never knew that I had a lot sympathy and compassion for the character of Charlie Gordon because I know what that's like to not understand how to read, write, and understand common knowledge. I know what it was like to feel bad to be slow. I wish my classmates had more compassion and the willingness to not be ignorant to those who struggled academically. In the first full year of IEP, I met students that had it harder then I did, and worked harder then me or anyone else I knew.

In high school, there were classes that were mandatory for me to take like Life Skills, it is a study hall class specifically for kids in IEP. Students that needed extra help with their essays, studying for tests, working on projects, going to other classrooms to see teachers during their organizing period. To ask questions it was a free period to be able to help specifically for studies.

I grew not to have this shame that I used to have a middle school to embracing all of that help. And then getting to know some of the kids in IEP that work just as hard as I do, some of them even turned to me for help when they couldn’t understand something that I was able to put into a different definition to decipher. Something simplified and understood to people that really needed to have something that they wanted to learn and have it remembered even if it was for a short time to remember it for a test or to look at everything from a different angle. I had to find so many different ways to be able to understand all of my subjects.

I'm a movie buff, and I used that in my history class to remember specific years. I used to remember the year according to a certain movie that came out. Because Casablanca came out in 1942 I was able to remember the year of Pearl Harbor, and because Roadhouse came out in 1989, I was able to remember when the Berlin wall fell down.

There are Special Education teachers that I’ll never forget for what they did for me by going above and beyond. They helped me understand the material in my subjects, they would email my teachers if I had a concern about my studies that I couldn’t quite understand. They would be there for me at ANY time, whether that was for an academic concern or a personal matter concern.

When I said earlier in this article that originally I had wished that I never knew about an IEP, I grew to appreciate it in my later years of high school, and now I am very proud of it post-graduation. I’m glad that I discovered it at the time that I did in seventh grade, it did give me a greater appreciation for hard work as well as seeing the family and teachers that weren't going to give up on me. I had thought that there was no hope for me in school, I looked at the system and didn’t think that it was worth doing the homework or the assignments. Now I'm glad I never gave up.

I'm proud to say I had an IEP in my school days, it taught me more then just understanding my curriculum, it helped me understand myself. It taught me that it's Ok that I learn differently than others do. It's Ok to learn a different way even if it does take me extra time to understand something. Help comes in the form of many ways, it's best to be grateful and keep going no matter what happens.

Before I end this article I want to list the teachers in IEP that helped me.

Thank you so much,

Ms. Lentz

Ms. Burton

Mrs. Forrest

& Ms. Lugo