As you may know by now, I have a seventeen year old son who is severely autistic. Occasionally he has violent outbursts at school. He goes to a regular high school and is, for the most part, integrated into regular classes, though he does have a one-on-one EA with him at all times.

Today, when he had one of his outbursts, the school called to let me know. To their credit, this year (it’s new) they have an “in-school suspension room,” where he goes when he misbehaves. Up until this year, I’ve had to pick him up and bring him home for the remainder of the day. The exception this time was that he had pinched his EA, and apparently they don’t put up with physical contact. So they sent him home.

Apparently there are many things the high schools don’t put up with. The “in-school suspension room” is reserved for special needs students. In the case of infractions carried out by mainstream students, such as skipping school, the usual punishment is a three day “at home” suspension.

Yeah.

Maybe it’s the new method of teaching irony in English class.