Meet Miles!  Our beautiful 6 year old minimally-verbal Autistic son. After 15 months of trying to work with his school district to correct his IEP (last legal IEP he has in place is from 10/18/2017), we had to resort to retaining counsel on his behalf. There are substantive issues with IDEA/FAPE/LEA compliance including eliminating/altering FAPE services without our consent.

Sadly special education is massively underfunded and it is cheaper for the districts to bend the rules than follow them. Now I realize why so many cannot afford this fight, especially if one parent ends up home full-time like myself. It almost feels like our financial struggles have become leverage against us. It is very painful to watch your child regress and struggle.

We aren’t looking for anything ridiculous. We do not want to pull money from the already meager budget that would affect other kiddos like Miles. All we want is proper assessments completed in order to create an IEP with goals and services appropriate for Miles’ individual needs. I cannot go into more specifics, but felt it important to provide some insight as to why we created this fundraiser.

We hired the lawyer for Miles in mid October and already had to lay out $8k. Paying all of the legal fees and assessments upfront is proving impossible. 

There comes a time where you have to accept you need help, and we need help. As much as we have desperately tried to avoid resorting to fundraising, we are stretched to our limits. Miles’ immediate family has helped as much as they can. My father just received a heart transplant, which has complicated our family’s finances even further. 

The current balance to his counsel and pediatric neuropsychologist is $10,800 is due in the next 30 days.  We are estimating another 10k will be due before the case is resolved.  Pray for us that this works out somehow.

Once we are reimbursed by the district funds will be distributed as followed:

1.  We will pay off some of Miles’ medical bills that are currently in a payment plan. 

2. Will help with co-payments for supplemental therapy while we work on getting Miles services through the Lanterman Act that he is being evaluated for through the Regional Center here.

#TeamMiles #FindingHisWords #GoMilesGo #SpectrumofAmazing #AutismMom #DifferentlyAbled #AutismAcceptance #neurodiversity #SpecialNeedsCommunity #PositiveAutismParenting #AutismSpectrumDisorder #allchildrenareuniqueandvaluable