Katie Baker's Story

There are many Thrive families that are being affected by the possibility that thrive might not be their home next year. Here is Katie Baker's heartfelt story.

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It's about time I write this. If only I had known that I needed to write this a year ago. I guess I lived in a state of mind that I had finally found the right fit and couldn't believe it could ever be taken away.

My son currently attends Thrive and my daughter is supposed to start school there next year. How could I have guessed last year that the place with the answers to all our questions, the place that had a parallel mindset to mine for the path of my children's education, the place we had finally found community where we were embraced instead of road blocked, would ever close?

"They won't renew the charter", I solemnly told myself. "They have to witness all the amazing things here and see what what's working not just for us, but for so many of the families here.” Some families have gone SO FAR out of their way to not only choose this school but to travel here each morning.

You see, we drove 3 hours a day last year to get my son to school. We worked hand-in-hand each day with his teacher on his extreme separation anxiety. Not only was the special education team working with him but his teacher and I were working on it too every day. For three hours a day we worked together while driving long distances but it was worth it.

If I was ever unsure about his daily progress or if we had a difficult drop off then I could speak to the director which wasn't hard to do because guess what, she was always there. Not behind a desk, not only reachable by phone or appointment but THERE...on Campus; helping a child hang their backpack and walk them through the classroom door while smiling at a parent passing by. She noticed when kids, {who will be kids} were not being kind. She saw me and she knew me. She knew my child and she saw him in class. She understood where I was coming from as a parent.

We drove 3 hours a day because I had already done months of research and asked every parent I crossed paths with about their experience with their school. When I asked anyone about a San Diego Unified school, {particularly my neighborhood school Chesterton Elementary} 75% of those stories were negative. I heard, "Oh, he has an IEP? Good luck with that". My son's speech teacher from Lindbergh Schweitzer didn't even want to give him an IEP. She said “He'll be fine, he won't need any help. When I asked her what to do if he refused to go in the classroom as he had done every day for the year and a half we saw her, she said it would only take him a few months to "get over that" once he started Kindergarten. I believed her for a “hot minute” until we went on a tour of our neighborhood school Chesterton and as my son was hiding under a desk in what would be his new classroom and the teacher told me point blank, "This behavior will not be acceptable. He will have to do as the other students do or he will be sent to the principal. I will have 26 4-5 year olds in my class and I can't stop and tend to him if he's acting out."

I closed the book on that school that day.

Luckily, as I was doing my research for schools I had heard quite a few good things about Thrive and upon visiting the school and meeting the director I distinctly remember what she told me when I discussed the struggle to get an IEP for my son. She said, "Whether he has an IEP or not, he will get an individual learning plan from his teacher at Thrive. If he is having a hard time joining the group during certain times we can come up with something to help him at his own pace. Kids learn differently so we teach them differently."

Look, I could go on and on about last year but let me fast forward to say, yesterday. I picked up my son from school which is now located 10 minutes away and he runs to give me a hug which is something he did not do at all in life until 4 months ago. He tells me that they got to do a very cool science experiment and wants to play with his friends outside on the playground which we are allowed to do because Thrive is flexible. Yesterday he sat in the front row and raised his hand and was reading full sentences and today for good measure, he tells me he can count by 5's but a month ago I had to listen to the Superintendent from SDUSD tell the State Board of Education that she's worried about MY CHILD. She's said she was worried because a mere 13% of students from Thrive were state tested and THOSE students did not test as high as schools they would have attended if Thrive didn't exist even though it was those schools that let those students fall multiple grades behind. Those students came to Thrive because they desperately needed to learn differently. They desperately needed not to be sent to the principal's office but for their teacher who is in the room with them to find a way to help them.

So here we are. My son doesn't have a school to go to next year. I couldn't possibly in my right mind send him to a school who can't tend to him and who will have to send him to the principal's office when he can't figure out how to not be autistic.

So I am fighting; fighting not just for my son, but my daughter so she can get a rock star start to her education.

I'm fighting for every parent I've ever talked to who wants to keep Thrive alive.

Please fight with me.

Katie Baker