BANGOR, Maine — Bangor Public Schools is one of the largest school districts in Maine, and there are several resources available for children who have autism or special needs. But even with more support in schools and classrooms, parents said they experience shared struggles they believe stretch far wider and dig much deeper than the district can cover.
Bangor Public Schools has special needs programs in every school in the district, social workers in each school, a school psychologist on staff, a board-certified behavior analyst on staff, and the district offers occupational and physical therapies and speech language.
Mother Julie Lesche said her children have attended Bangor schools for years. Her daughter, who has special needs, and her son, who has autism, both have Individual Education Plans (IEPs) set in place.
The Bangor School District's assistant director of people services, Mechelle Ganglfinger, said the special needs program teams meet with parents, and parents are directly involved in developing and creating their child's IEP.
"In those meetings, we discuss upcoming goals for the students [and] what the student's needs are based on the related services, based on their specially designed instructions," Ganglfinger said.
Christy Babin, the district's director of people services, stressed the importance of having an education plan that is specifically designed for each individual child who has additional needs.
"I think a key piece for parents to understand is that when their student has an individual education plan, it affords them rights. They're called procedural safeguards," Babin said. "It allows parents to have the protections in place to protect them and their child when they're receiving special education services."
Babin said without an IEP in place, parents don't have safeguard protections that allow them to fully advocate for children who receive special needs services.
Lesche said instructors of special needs programs in the district do well at making suggestions for ways to create the best learning environment for both of her children. Lesche said often when her children's IEPs have been altered in the past, the adjustments were made after a teacher or instructor observed that a change was needed to better serve them.
Despite being satisfied with how involved and attentive teachers have been over the years, Lesche said she still feels like she has to jump through hoops sometimes when she wants to make her own suggestions after making her independent observations of her children.
According to Lesche, she has received continuous pushback when trying to change her son's school assignment for next year. She said he is zoned to attend Mary Snow School, but her son often runs off from her and other adults.
"Mary Snow sits right on Broadway, and there is this one little gate that leads out to Broadway Street that's not locked during the day," Lesche said. "My son has already twice while we were there for other purposes tried to bolt out the gate, and I was just lucky that I was able to catch him before he got out."
NEWS CENTER Maine went by Mary Snow School. There are two gates at the back of the school: one by the playground, and another that opens into the school parking lot. Both were left wide open and unattended.
Lesche said her request to change school zoning so her son can attend another school in the district hasn't been received well, and she said the pushback is just one example of why parents who have children with special needs or autism often feel dismissed, unheard, and pushed to the side when they take steps to speak up for their children in academic environments.
"People coming at me and second guessing everything I'm saying and acting like I don't know my child and what my child is capable of and acting like I'm an overreactive parent," Lesche said.
Babin said teachers trust parents' insight, however, instructors need to have proper documentation of a child's behaviors to make changes that impact their learning environments.
"Sometimes parents will have concerns of things that may be happening at home but aren't happening at school," Babin said. "If they're seeing them at home but it's not happening in the school, then we would hold steady with a plan that's working within the school setting."
Lesche said you have to put a lot of trust into special needs program teachers, expressing that sometimes she feels like it is hard to trust that people will push just as heard for her children's success as she does.
Mother Lindsay Evans said she knows the feeling of being hesitant to trust others with her son as well.
"There’s been plenty of times where I’ve had to say, 'Oh my child is autistic,' because of the looks or the comments that I’m getting about something that he’s doing," Evans said.
Evans said she was hesitant to put her son in public schools just for fear of people treating him differently. Her son is also autistic, and he started Kindergarten in Bangor schools this year. She said she fears that her son's studies are top heavy, and she said she feels like her son has less time to do extracurricular activities at school than her other son who does not struggle with any additional or special needs.
"I don't want either of my kids to feel like they're just constantly being corrected and like ... I don't want them to feel like they're always in trouble," Evans said. "I'm hoping that the teachers are not just focusing on a behavior. They're focusing on whatever issue the child might be having that produces that behavior."
Evans said she wants her son who is on the spectrum to have a positive experience with school. When the school year started, Evans said the lack of in-person communication created a barrier between herself and special needs teachers.
"The little reports that I was getting from school were focusing on what wasn’t going well—which made me worry that the whole day was not going well," Evans said. "When you're getting paper reports that are just giving you like the smallest snapshot of his day that don't sound all that good. You know like, 'this is what he struggled with today.' When that's what you're seeing, you know, for days in a row, it does start to make you think like, 'oh, is he just miserable all day.'"
Evans said the written communications she received made her feel like teachers focused more on her son's struggles--failing to highlight the positives. She said she was finally able to talk with his teacher in-person, she found out that was not the case. She said in-person and verbal communication gives her a better understanding of what is going on in the classroom.
Evans said she was she was slow to express her concerns because she often expects the worst, which fuels her worries.
"Worrying that they were only seeing the difficulties that my child was having with things and not, you know, how smart he was. And how sweet he was, and how excited he was to learn things," Evans said.
She said she feels like parents who have children who have special needs or who are on the spectrum often negative experiences that continuously build up over time, constantly feeling the need to explain their child, explain themselves, and advocate and fight for people to treat their children like normal children everywhere they go.
Evans agreed that offenses that linger from those ill experiences that happen outside of the classrooms are often carried back into the classroom.
Evans said, unfortunately, even if there have not been any poor experiences in the classroom, poor experiences outside of the classroom can leave parents like her on defense, which hurts the chances of building functional positive relationships with school program teachers and instructors.
"I was definitely on the defense," Evans said.
Babin said she recognizes that the district struggles to build strong relationships with parents who have children with special needs, and she wants parents to know that the district is committed to supporting parents and every child they come in contact with.
"I think it goes back to parents feeling like they need to fight, and I don't want them to feel like they have to fight," Babin said.
Lesche said she wants people to remember that children with special needs are human, and they are individuals who all need different things. Evans said it's important that progress continues to be made.
"I just want there to be room for everybody. I feel like as a society, we are taking little baby steps at integration and being inclusive. I feel like we still have so far to go," Evans said. "Right now, I look my child and he's a cute little six-year-old, but at some point, he will not be. He will be a grown man and I do not know what his behaviors will look like."
Evans said what worries her the most is when she thinks about what her son's life as a biracial male who suffers from autism will look like as he gets older, as she's fearful of someone misunderstanding him.