Parents and educators of those with special needs should be partners, rather than enemies.
Very early on, parents of special-needs children learn to navigate a system that is not always user-friendly.
Many of these battle-scarred veterans are bitter about obstacles they encounter on the road to providing a high-quality education for their youngsters, obstacles sometimes put there by well-meaning but clueless administrators and teachers.
So it comes as welcome news this week that at least one of those stumbling blocks has been removed.
A new home has been located for the Special Parent Advocacy Group, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting the rights of special-education students, which had found itself homeless when the donated space it had been using in Trenton's P.J. Hill Elementary School became unavailable because of scheduling problems.
Now the group and its after-school program, which serves ages 3 to 21, has found new digs at The Arc Mercer's Step Ahead Early Childhood Learning Center on Fairmount Avenue in Trenton - less than five minutes down the road.
It's a serendipitous landing, since the missions of the two groups overlap; the Arc works with developmentally delayed children up to age 3.
"We're excited to be able to help them out," said Steve Cook, Arc's executive director, of the evolving relationship."
Ousted program for special-needs kids finds new home
Nicole Whitfield, founder of the displaced group, is justifiably delighted.
"Our services can complement each other," she told Cristina Rojas for NJ Advance Media. "As [the Arc's students] get ready to transition into the public school system, we can help with advocacy services ... and the kids can transition right into our program."
It's been a rocky road for Whitfield, who founded the group in 2011 after encountering difficulties in obtaining services for her son, who is on the autism spectrum.
"I had issues getting him speech and occupational therapy, problems with transportation," the activist said in a 2013 interview. "Every year I was fighting."
Determined that others shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel, the longtime educator and foster parent launched her organization to give parents tools to deal with the public-school sector, in particular knowledge of their rights under the law as special-education parents.
Whitfield said she believes the recent squabbles over space for her group were retaliatory, since she was notified of the conditions leading to the displacement only two weeks after filing a complaint with the state that 16 classes at Dunn Middle School did not have the required teachers for special-education youngsters.
Whether or not this is so, what's not in dispute is that special-education students need the best a school district can give them. To meet this goal, parents and educators should be partners, not enemies.
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