Our Introduction to Autism: A Father’s Story

Autism is a word, I feel, most people would rather avoid. Perhaps some people are uncomfortable talking about a range of conditions that affect 1 in 66 people in our world today. Autism is found in boys at a much higher rate that girls, but it touches every race, color, creed, and national origin; however, our family didn’t begin to understand Autism until it touched our lives personally. We hope, in sharing our family’s story, we can help others who might be in a similar situation.

Our blended family consists of 4 adult daughters and our son. It is no surprise that raising a son is a little different than raising daughters, but as our son reached 4th grade we realized that something was different with him compared to our other children. At that time, we reached out to our local public school and asked for help in determining how we could best help our son. My wife and I were provided surveys to give the person considering the situation our prospective of what we were seeing. After completing the surveys individually as we were asked, we were told “we can’t help you because you and your wife don’t agree”. I immediately asked the school to be a tie breaker since our son was with the school and their faculty for nearly a third of this time, but the public school said they could not help us.

Fast forward about 2 years, and I heard from the parent of another child that my son had said something inappropriate to her child, and I immediately went to the school to address the situation. I was greeted by not only the principal, but also a sheriff’s deputy and they were talking about arresting my 11-year-old son. I reminded the principal that we had discussed our concerns 2 years prior and we were told they could not help us, and asked them, if based on this most recent situation, we could address our concerns now. My wife and I were asked to complete new surveys as were our son’s 5 teachers, and the results came back that the surveys from my wife, me, and four of five teachers agreed enough to reach the diagnosis – our son was highly functioning Autistic. According the school representative our son was so highly functioning that 2 experts might disagree with the diagnosis.

A couple weeks after receiving the diagnosis, I was on a business trip and found out there was another issue of my son saying something inappropriate at school and my wife was called in to again meet with the principal and a sheriff’s deputy. Once again, there were threats of arresting our 11-year-old son even after receiving the Autism diagnosis. The school was not interested in investigating the situation or considering any circumstances which may have contributed to the situation – the forgone conclusion was that our son was guilty of anything he was accused of saying or doing. In my absence, my wife made the right decision and removed our son from the public school – even before we knew where he would attend school next.

Additionally, although our son had teachers that clearly cared and wanted the best for him, his learning achievement wasn’t keeping him on par with other students. Teachers have an incredibly difficult job which is made even more difficult by our educational environment – including classrooms with large number of students each with their own strengths, weaknesses, and needs.

We have since found out that several children in my son’s situation might be home schooled or struggle to find a school that is a good fit for his or her needs. Last year I asked someone affiliated with the Vail school district, “What leads the Vail school district to excel while other school districts are struggling?”. The lady quickly responded, “We learned a long time ago that every child is different and needs different things. Instead of a cookie cutter approach, each of our schools is a little different and that gives us the flexibility to match up better with student needs.”

When my wife removed our son from our local public school, we were blessed to find Air and Space Academy. As a tuition free charter school which specializes in children on the autistic spectrum, Air and Space Academy has done amazing with our son. Our son now likes going to school, he has become an A/B student, and there have been no behavioral problems since enrolling in the bully free school. I am a believer in the school because I have experienced what they can accomplish in the results with our son. Not surprisingly, the school’s approach to education involves “individualized educational achievement” which sounds like what the lady from the Vail school district shared with me last year.

Air and Space Academy created an advisory board to provide an additional conduit for communication to help continuously improve the school and provide support to students and their parents. I am proud to be serving as the President of the Air and Space Academy Advisory Board and look forward to helping serve an underserved group in our community.

The founder of the school and I were recently interviewed by Brandon Dawkins (Quarterback for the University of Arizona football team) – you can watch the video:

Brandon Dawkins Reports on Air and Space Academy from Air and Space Academy on Vimeo.

Air and Space Academy hosts free summer events which include:

• Introduction to computer programming
• Introduction to flight simulators
• Summer science – water rockets in the park

To learn more about Air and Space Academy, you can visit http://AirAndSpaceAcademyAZ.com.

About John Backer 28 Articles
John Backer is an expert in cyber-security with over 30 years experience in the field. A popular activist in southern Arizona, Mr. Backer is often heard on local radio.