A Local Tragedy to My Heart

I guess I have to qualify "local", now, since it isn't true in a strictly physical sense. My heart, of course, will continue to reside in Reno, even if I live in Great Barrington. That's just how I work. I don't think that will change unless I move to, say, San Fransisco, and then they can have joint custody of my reminiscent feelings.

Anyway... onto topic. A lawsuit against the district and related school personnel states that they failed to protect an autistic child after he reported being sexually assaulted, twice. The second assault, which was investigated, with the physical evidence showed signs of rape, is alleged to have occurred after he reported the first incident, which he says was related to sexual harassment, but was ignored by a counselor and a teacher. After he reported the second incident, the counselor did actually go through procedure and launch the investigation that found physical signs of rape.

Admittedly, I know I'm a sympathetic figure by nature. But the allegations, having been part and parcel of the same school system (albeit not at the middle school level; my first year of middle school was at a charter school), seem fairly plausible in my mind. To me, the nature of the beast is in its inconsistency.

A teacher did once respond to something on my behalf (something that was convoluted and not actually that one would have responded to, had there been clear communication between parties. One of those cringe worthy moments in retrospect), but other times you could safely walk into classrooms with notable injuries (even a black eye) and there wouldn't be much of an honest response. It was just very flaky.

Further, it does seem to me that the level of established understandings of communication that are typically developed between a verbal autistic individual and the school district is not enough to keep one honestly safe from these kind of things. That's a fairly consistent problem, I think; the modes of communication aren't usually particularly noted and the structure changed. That "x wouldn't do something like that" is something I honestly could hear as a possibility. The development of just a stereotyped means of communication, and not taking the autistic person seriously, applies pretty universally. Things can be that flaky.

In any event... I'm hoping this gets resolved, as fast as possible. To note what Superintendent Dugan says, I think we have a clear and obvious moral imperative to protect people from being affected by such behavior. I have clear doubts, though, on whether it's happening.