hi i'm maureen (she/her) but you can call me maur. bisexual, 30 something, from europe.
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special education in the us/becca king's potential educational history
hello and welcome to my ted talk! i wanted to give a little overview of how special education services (are supposed to) work in the US and then wildly conjecture about becca king's educational history/how mel could be continually overlooked! this is intended to be informational, primarily for fic writers or others who like having extensive head canons about characters, and won't presume to speak for what it would actually be like for becca to experience any of this, just the factual outline of her life.
disclaimer: i write this as a (disabled) experienced special educator (national board certified ✌️) who has taught in multiple states. i am currently a high school teacher, although i previously taught middle school and (briefly) elementary school. i have only worked in public schools, but my wife is a special educator at an independent elementary/middle school. nonetheless, take it all with a grain of salt since things do vary a lot across contexts, particularly depending on how urban/suburban/rural you are!
(links are to virginia state resources since mel mentioned colonial williamsburg as a school field trip, but every state has a similar version of this - special education is largely dictated by federal laws, so things don't vary as much by state as they do for other things in education. i tried to use language that i believe to be widely adopted by the field, but some things are super district/state specific and i'm sorry for any confusion i cause with that.)
Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) (ages 2-21/22)
disabled students in the US are eligible to receive school-based services through the age of 21 (or the age of 22 if their birthday falls after september 30 - they get to finish out the year). this means that students who are receiving intensive academic/life skills/transition support continue attending high school (or a specialized transition school) through the age of 21/22.
*this is why i wanted to make this post - becca likely did this! becca was likely in high school through age 22, which would have made mel's caregiving responsibilities slightly more straightforward to that point, since she would have been picked up and dropped off from home each day and had supports at school (see below).
this also means that students are entitled to receiving the services they need, and if the local public school/district is found unable to provide them, the district is required to pay for them to attend a private school that does. there are small, independent schools for students with disabilities all over the place, and families are either paying out of pocket or have gone through a process and settled with the district for them to cover it.
early intervention (ages 0-3)
across the US, disabled children/their families are eligible for local services to provide early interventions, such as speech therapy, occupational therapy, social work, etc. from birth. families get referred to the program when kids aren't meeting developmental milestones. there's an intake and assessment process, during which an Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) is developed. theoretically the providers and family works together to create this together with relevant goals.
kids transition out of this at age 3. this transition is a big deal, since it represents the beginning of their educational services!
early childhood special education (ages 2-5)
disabled kids are then eligible for early childhood educational services (special education). this can be in an inclusion setting (ie in a setting with nondisabled students) or a separate setting already. when they start receiving educational services, the child is labeled with one of 13 disability categories*, one of which is autism. a lot of focus at this point is on nonacademic skills (that are extremely important) like going to the bathroom, taking turns, regulating emotions, etc.
*something that people might not know is that students don't necessarily receive a specific diagnosis if they are only evaluated through school. the purpose of the academic evaluation is to determine if they qualify for services, which means showing that there is an area where the student is not making the expected progress. school psychologists do testing to assess different skills and sometimes say things more definitively, but the main point is establishing one of the 13 categories. this means a student can receive services for a "Specific Learning Disability" without knowing whether they have dyslexia or dysgraphia. all of that is a reason that many families have students independently evaluated, which IS often covered by insurance (but also have long wait times)
students will receive an Individualized Education Program (IEP) that maps out their current educational levels (eg reading skills) based on feedback from their teachers, related service providers, family, etc. other providers can also share feedback (eg therapist outside of school). this is updated annually at the minimum. every three years, the child undergoes a more intensive re-evaluation to determine whether they remain eligible for specialized services.
[note that a student can begin to receive services/have an IEP at any point in their academic career; there just needs to be demonstrated need in the educational setting]
elementary/middle/high school special education (ages 6-18)
kids continue to go to school, yay! they have IEP meetings annually and re-evals every 3 years. their annual IEP will include information about what accommodations they should receive in class (eg extra time, giving directions in writing) or modifications needed for the curriculum (eg reduce the amount of reading) as well as the student's Least Restrictive Environment (LRE), which is the setting where they receive instruction. the law is written so that students are with nondisabled peers to the maximum amount possible, which effectively means (in m experience) that kids are kept in general education/inclusion/co-taught as long as possible / until they are very very obviously struggling. they can then receive instruction in a separate setting ("instructional class" / "pull out") with a special educator and fewer students. this isn't all-or-nothing: a student could have instructional math but gen ed everything else.
everything above is mostly how things go for students with "mild-to-moderate disabilities," which generally means that students are accessing grade-level content with supports. students who have "moderate-to-severe disabilities" are often placed into separate classes entirely that they stay in the whole day and do all the subjects there. students in these classes follow modified curricula that focus on functional skills and reinforcing foundational academic skills (eg reading) and (hopefully) include community-based instruction for students to get experience doing things like grocery shopping, taking the bus, etc. these classes often have students with very different ranges of skills, such as kids who are still reading on a 2nd grade level to students who can independently write multiple paragraphs, and teachers (theoretically) work to provide each student with individualized instruction that meets/pushes them where they're at.
related services (throughout)
students can receive speech/language therapy, social work services, psychological services, occupational therapy...i feel like there are others but i'm blanking? it's great because kids can get those services directly at school, but they can be somewhat limited because they're focused on developing skills that affect students' participation in educational settings. for example, a school social worker is more likely to be working with a student about response inhibition (not blurting things out in class) than having in-depth conversations about students' general feelings* - especially because school social workers usually have huge caseloads and very little time!! these services continue as long as needed (theoretically).
*of course SSWs end up having these conversations, but on paper they're helping students work on specific school-related social/emotional skills.
transportation is one related service that students with disabilities might receive. students with moderate-to-severe disabilities often receive transportation services all the way through graduation, meaning they get picked up by a school bus through high school, even if their peers are getting to school through other means.
paraprofessional support: some students require one-on-one attention and have a paraprofessional/paraeducator/teacher's aid who specifically supports them. there are also paras who are shared by multiple students. great paras are amazing and help students grow so much, often forming extremely close relationships with students/families. bad paras are a huge bummer for everyone and i can only imagine how stressful it would be for a family if they felt like there was a para who didn't have their kid's back :(
what this could have looked like for becca / meant for mel
it is likely that becca would have been identified pretty young (kids with autism are often identified young when they aren't developing on a neurotypical timeline) and the kings would have either started navigating this whole system with an IFSP or private therapy, evaluations, etc. once in school, becca would likely have been in separate classes from a very young age and continued in those classes through the age of 22. she would likely have had a host of related service providers throughout her educational career, including speech, OT, and social work, potentially without the kings having to find those outside of school (and thus wondered if their other daughter also needed those things).
depending on their location (urban/suburban/rural), becca and mel may or may not have attended the same schools, but they were almost certainly not in the same classes. becca might have gotten to "graduate" from high school into a life-skills/transition program at 18. becca's transportation services would not apply to mel, so becca could go to school on a bus while mel has to get there on her own/separately. as mentioned above, i would suspect that becca would continue at school through age 22 so it would have been relatively straightforward to maintain that routine without their mom, but it certainly would require mel to move home (if she had moved away for college). theoretically becca could move and continue to receive services at a new school elsewhere, but that would be a HUGE hassle and nightmare.
all of these systems are continually underfunded and overextended, not to mention how many people are just...bad at their jobs. (again, i'm speaking as a special educator lol) families who navigate these systems develop lots of advocacy skills by necessity and almost always have to fight for their child to receive services at some point, which can lead to mediation or legal action against the district (at its most extreme), including having their kid switch schools (within the district or, if it's demonstrated that they can't provide adequate services, to a private school). when that kind of adversarial relationship has developed, the lead up to IEP meetings each year can be extremely tense for families. when the student is involved and has a team that respects their autonomy, IEP meetings can be really empowering as the student explains what they think they need/what progress they've made/etc; when teams aren't as good and/or the student/family is struggling with their diagnosis etc, the meetings can be extremely triggering. i have no idea what any of this would have looked like for the kings, but there are lots of realistic options for you to write/imagine (eg mel being aware of how tense things were for her parents before the meeting while becca is oblivious; the kings having to fight against the school for becca to have some specific support or even to switch schools; becca feeling really happy and supported at school while mel has absolutely nothing propping her up).
all that said, if the kings were going primarily through the public school system and not having private therapy, evaluations, etc, it makes COMPLETE sense for glass child mel to never get noticed because she was "excelling" at school. a referral for a kid with straight As will raise eyebrows, even if they had a breakdown in the too-loud assembly that week, and it's kind of in the school's best interest to keep the number of referrals/evaluations down (i can expand on this but it's complicated and not important). overall, none of this system is actually built to help students learn about themselves, recognize atypical presentations of disabilities, or empower students to proactively thrive; it's entirely reactive to a very narrow definition of "failure."
thanks for coming to my ted talk, i hope it helped you think about little mel and little becca and their journey! i'm sure i got something wrong or was overly flippant at some point - please correct me! i'm happy to answer questions or bounce ideas if anyone is writing about their childhoods and wants to get school details right (with the caveat that i am a person and might be wrong lol). :)
