Raising Blaze by Debra Ginsberg Read Free Book Online

and walks off with him and Maya, leaving me with the teacher.
    “What is it?” I ask her again.
    “It would really be easier to explain at the meeting. Will it be possible for you to come at about four o’clock this afternoon?”
    “No, I can’t, I’ve got to go to work at four. Can you just give me anidea what this is about?” I ask her a third time. I can read nothing in the expressionless oval of her face and nothing from the well-modulated tone of her voice.
    “Blaze seems to be having some problems adjusting to the classroom environment,” she concedes finally. “He’s kind of all over the place. We have a special day class right on site and we think that maybe that would be a better placement for him.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “Look,” she says, a little desperation of her own creeping into that tightly controlled tone, “it will really be easier to explain at the meeting and I’ve got to get back to the school right now. Will you be able to come earlier? Maybe around three o’clock?”
    “Yes, yes, of course I’ll come,” I tell her. “Three o’clock. Fine.”
    Stunned, I walk back to the house. I have a very bad feeling about this and it’s growing larger and blacker by the minute. I feed Blaze lunch and attempt to grill him on his first day of kindergarten, but I get less information from him than I did from his teacher. There is a slide, he tells me, and a sandbox. After that, he remains mute. I ask him if anything went wrong and he says no. He reiterates that he likes the bus. I am left to fill in the rest of the blanks myself.
    I ask my mother, “What could possibly have happened in three hours?”
     
    The meeting is held in a little room stuffed with several adults. I’ve had to attend in my black-and-white waitress work clothes because I’ll have to go straight to work from here. Maya is at home with Blaze. Most nights, she is the one who stays with him while I work. One by one, I am introduced to the principal, the speech therapist, the special-education teacher, and the school psychologist, who also doubles as the special-education administrator. The kindergarten teacher, who I have now secretly dubbed “the Ice Princess,” is here as well. These staff members compose the individual education program (IEP) team andI will be meeting with them from now on, they tell me, to discuss Blaze’s progress. Looking at them from my end of the long conference table, they remind me, vaguely, of a parole board. They have folders bulging with papers and carefully constructed looks of concern pasted onto their faces. Instead of receding, the wave of panic I felt a few hours ago is now a full-scale tsunami that threatens to drown me in adrenaline.
    After the introductions, the school psychologist, Dr. Roberts, takes the lead. Blaze, she tells me, is not able to handle a regular kindergarten class and it is “the team’s” recommendation that he be transferred to a special-education class immediately, pending further evaluation.
    “We have an excellent special-education program here,” the principal interjects with the cadence of a politician, “and Sally”—he gestures to the special-education teacher—“is one of the best. Her kiddos really do wonderfully in that environment.”
    “We think it’s important that Blaze get some special attention at this point,” Dr. Roberts adds.
    “What did he do?” I am finally able to ask after clearing the boulder in my throat. “This was only the first day of school.” They are well prepared for this question. Notes are pulled out and observations are shared. Dr. Roberts speaks in the slow, deliberate, well-enunciated sentences that are common to those in the psychiatric profession. I keep waiting for her to ask me, “And how does that make you feel?”
    “He doesn’t seem to be able to follow teacher-directed activity,” she says. “When the teacher asked the children to sit in the circle, Blaze wandered around and didn’t want to