I’m happy for you. I have had very hard times in the not too distant past and it takes time to get over. very different circumstances, but still difficult not to get angry over at times. You will feel better over time, but don’t kick yourself if you have down moments. That’s only natural after going through what you did.

take care

TI

Terrilynn: public apologies to the sisters of Mercy? Seems to me it should be the opposite……they should apologize to Brigid’s family.

TI

I didn’t buy it from them: If we had not protested in public we would not have gotten anywhere, we’d tried everything short of it — and it worked, despite the fact that we were a lot more scathing to the housing authority than this mother has been to this school.

I’m not buying it from you, especially since you work at the school. This is about accessibility, not about how caring people are. Sometimes the legal system is the only way to obtain access to something, and it is not some sort of shameful and horrid thing to use it when other attempts have failed. You make it sound like this mother is simply improper for trying to fight for her child’s rights when other avenues have failed.

You can see in the above letter that the information was provided to the school, but someone in the administration refused to pass on the information to other people who worked there who needed the information. If you are one of the people who did not get the information for that reason, why are you insisting that the family simply did not provide it?

This family has every right to make this public whether or not you happen to like the fact that it says bad things about a school you work at. Would’ve been a lot easier for you guys to just make things accessible to this student. You’re also teetering right on the edge of revealing private personal information about a former student. Is that allowed? It sounds like you want to make the family look bad to save the school’s reputation or something.

Mr. Wood:

It’s sad that someone of your stand in the community would allow defamation a group as wonderful and caring as the Sisters of Mercy because of one individual’s comments. Best senario before comment is to acquire all facts of the story.

[I am a mother of children who graduated after dealing with disabilities in high school – not by defaming a school, but continuing their education in alternative methods. I am a teacher with experience in both public and private education. I am also an aunt to a young man who has Aspergers syndrome. So I understand multi-sides of the situation]

It’s sad that a parent has to threaten to sue any school system in order to get her children to graduate. The Maine Education Department has minimum requirements that need to be fulfilled by all schools and students. Other ways for a child to complete school are HomeSchooling and alternative education means (which I pursued when my children encountered problem health needs). Many private schools are not set-up to handle special needs students. The Maine Public Education provides wonderful opportunies for Special Needs students.

In said case of B.Rankowski, the laws of education were followed by McAuley, the student may have failed to accomplish her end of the requirements, and was not discriminated against legally. Actually, the school community and the Sisters of Mercy went far above and beyond in order to accomodate this student and her mother. They even allowed her to graduate against the advice of a number of her teachers and school community. The Rankowski’s may not have completely provide the school with proof of Brigid’s stated handicap, which was their responsibility. A school cannot accomodate special needs children without good information of their special needs on file.

You should acquire all aspects of an issue before commenting upon them. (Someone may also check Brigid’s work schedule during her class absences … can a person not fulfill school requirements but be fit and allowed to work during class hours?)

I suggest a public apology to the Sisters of Mercy in Portland, Maine, for criticizing them public before complete information and understanding was acquired.

Thank you for keeping a more open mind all around.

Terrilynn Dubreuil

Windham, ME

cc: Diocese of Portland

Some months ago, I looked briefly at I THINK it was Muskie’s blog (in any case, linked either from your blog or from autistic.org) and saw that her interests include disability access during emergencies and disasters (unless I have her confused with someone else). I just now found out that the National Council on Disability is now doing a public consultation process (from now until July 16) to learn about some of the best practices that have been done to ensure that disabled people are included at all stages of emergency preparedness, planning, relief, etc. I’d be happy to forward the announcement to Muskie if I can be instructed in how. I also have a bunch of other materials, research, etc related to disaster preparation and mitigation for disabled people, both in the US and in developing countries that I’d be happy to pass along as well.

Thanks.