Tikkabik

The day that Bonnie and I have, frankly, not been looking forward to: In about an hour and a half we'll do the placement meeting for Robert's new school. Then, later on today, we meet with an attorney who specializes in special education law to find out what else we can be doing.

The fellow who we'll be working with was recommended to us by an advocacy group up in Boston; he knows the ins and outs of special ed law and of the juvenile court system in this area, so he's a double threat.

I had a long talk with him earlier this week, and he sounds like he's working off the same page as Bonnie and me -- we talked of similar observations about how the state handles (and abrogates responsibility for) special education, in particular where the problem is related to behavioral issues and brain disorders.

He gave me some further insight into why the school may have filed a police report for the incident involving Robert and his teacher, which they were certainly not obliged to do under current law. Apparently it puts them in a better position to have Robert remanded to DYS if there's ever another conduct incident. This would have the effect of removing him from the school's rolls all together, in essence, making him someone else's problem.

When the principal called the other day (on other business related to my daughter, who's also involved in the special ed program), he actually had the audacity to ask me, "Did we do the right thing with Robert?"

Honestly, I don't think he's clever enough to act that disingenuous, and by now he certainly knows I'm no fool.

I think he's genuinely bureaucratically incompetent enough to think that he was acting in Robert's best interest by setting this in motion.

It's a simple variation on Occam's Razor: Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity.