Three days into the first week of school. Just three days. But each one at least a week long. 23 students on my caseload. 23 sets of worried parents. 23 fragile students. 23 wholly unique individuals who cannot possibly be summarized in the fill-able boxes of a pdf form.

You know what I'm grateful for? The parent who has set aside their own ego, and acknowledged their child's needs, and loves them despite of all the times and ways their child missed the benchmark their peers effortlessly sailed right over. These parents are a unique subset of parents of special education students. They occur irrespective of class or education or income. Sometimes you just get a good parent who says, yep, my kid has an IEP, let's work together to help this kid learn as much as they reasonably can.

The anger and shame that parents of children with special needs experience is more than understandable. I am that parent, too, for one of my children in particular. It flares up and lashes out in embarrassing ways sometimes. I really do understand.

But I also, then, am all the more appreciative of the parent who has set all those complicated feelings aside and shows up on the first day of school ready to be a partner. At this point I think I have...maybe 5...maybe a few more once first week jitters are resolved? They are a rare breed and I deeply appreciate them.