Greg Long

“Mom’s Gone Fighting The Deaf Wars” - Chpt. 25 / This is a blog serial - so please read the preceding chapter if you havenâ��t done so yet. To see the list of characters, please refer to the Preface post. Ms. Marr never went that far again in the mainstream classes again, after being forced to apologize. Nevertheless, she took extreme pleasure at seeing me yelled at by the teacher or being in a frustrating situation. She would also regale me with stories of her childhood. Long, boring stories about how dependent her deaf parents were on her, and how about she had to take care of her deaf and mentally retarded sister. Ms. Marr would also preach to me how wonderful religion was and took it upon herself to try to instill morals in me. I swore to myself that if I ever had hearing children, I would not be dependent on them like Ms. Marr’s parents were. I didn’t want my children to turn out like her. I would also become extremely attuned to people’s body language. By observing Ms. Marr’s body language, and others as well, I would know whether today would be a good day or not. As an indirect result of that, I also became a very good actor because I would steel myself for what I knew would be a bad day coming, and I would act like it didn’t affect me. The next day, after something horrible happened, I would carry on perfectly normal conversations with her and with whoever else harassed me. Needless to say, it wasn’t good for my psyche. I clearly remember that year, at least once a week, I would cry myself to sleep over what happened to me that day. Most of the time, I did report to Mom about what happened - Ms. Marr and the others didn’t terrify me like Joan did. I can’t pinpoint exactly why, but I think it’s because Joan was far more cold than anyone else, and even as a teenager I could see that Ms. Marr was just a pathetic creature. But anyway, there were a lot of complaints filed that year. It also was during that year that LaSotta, the Northview superintendent, found out that his contract would not be renewed. It was never really acknowledged, but we all knew it was because of our lawsuit and appeal. Near the end of ninth grade, we held another meeting. We were still stuck with the stay-put, but we needed to meet anyway, to discuss my progress and so on. It was during that meeting that Doreen told Mom that it was obvious that I had a learning disability in mathematics. Mom denied it and thought Doreen was full of it. She told Doreen, ‘Fine. Let’s find out. I’m going to take Jeannette to be evaluated by Dr. Greg Long and prove you wrong!’ So that summer, Mom drove me all the way down to Northern Illinois University, where Dr. Long was at. I was nervous, because I knew that I was definitely struggling with math, and that was unusual. Everything else wasn’t that difficult for me, so I suspected that Doreen could be right. It would explain why I was struggling so hard. Dr. Long gave me a battery of psychological tests, and I’ll never forget this part. We were in a room with an one-way mirror, so grad students could watch Dr. Long administer the test to me. Up to this point, I had basically aced all of the tests. But when Dr. Long pulled out the puzzles, I knew I was in trouble. I was never good at puzzles, and I wanted to pass the tests, but I knew I couldn’t pass this one. The puzzle pieces were spread out on the table, and this was just an example one - I should have been able to easily put together that puzzle. And I couldn’t. Dr. Long raised his eyebrows and put it together for me, and it was an apple. A child’s puzzle, and I couldn’t put it together. I did have a learning disability in math. When summer ended, Northview had a new superintendent, Dr. Pat Oldt. We also were finished with the state appeal and appealing to the federal courts. It was also arranged that I would have tutoring pretty much everyday after school in math. And of course, Ms. Marr was interpreting the tutoring sessions. The tutoring sessions for the most part, were okay. It was one on one with the mainstream math teacher, so Ms. Marr couldn’t really get out of hand. But one day, Ms. Marr didn’t show up to the session, and both the teacher and I were puzzled. It was always understood that I would come by for tutoring, and I would inform them only if I didn’t want it that afternoon. So I went home and told Mom about the no-show. She called Kiley and asked what was going on. Kiley told her he would call back after talking with Ms. Marr about it. A few hours later, Kiley called back and of course, laid all of the blame at my feet. He claimed that I didn’t tell Ms. Marr about the tutoring session, therefore she didn’t show. But unknown to Kiley, my brother who attended high school with me, had told Mom that Sherri E. collapsed that day, with chest pains. So Mom put two and two together, and she told Kiley, “I don’t think so. I think this is what really happened. It’s understood by everyone that Jeannette will be there, unless she says she won’t be. I think that Ms. Marr was so worried about her co-worker, that she forgot all about the tutoring session.” A long silence ensued. Then he softly said, “Yeah. You’re right. You’re not going to file a complaint about this, are you?” Mom didn’t file a complaint over this one. There were already so many complaints that it was practically a bloodbath. But I was tired of getting the blame when something went wrong. Why was it always my fault? When the appeal reached the federal courts, the magistrate was shocked. Mom told me that he wrote roughly along those lines, “I do not understand why this is here. This case should not be here. I see a long list of valid, legitimate concerns on the parents’ side, but all I see from the schools is a litany of personal, vicious criticisms leveled at the mother. I see no substantial defense on the schools’ part, and I am looking at the schools with an extremely jaundiced eye. I am ordering the two parties to attempt to settle, or otherwise I am very inclined to rule in the parents’ favor.” So in the winter in my tenth grade year, Mary Polonawski with two other regional directors sat down with Mom and attempted to write out a settlement agreement. Mom would recount to me years later that they were sitting in a meeting room, and Mom had a box of complaints behind her. She at this point, was exhausted and enraged over what happened to me and her. At one point during the meeting one of the directors was dismissive of what Mom was saying. So she pulled up the box and pulled out a complaint and slapped it down on the table. “This complaint is about Deb Mills’ forgery. What do you think that is worth to a jury?” Another complaint was slapped down on the table. “This complaint is about Ms. Marr’s pervasive harassment of my daughter. What do you think this is worth to a jury?” Yet another complaint, complaint and complaint were slapped down on the table. “This complaint.. this complaint.. this complaint.. What do you think this is worth to a jury? What do you think this is worth to a jury? What do you think this is worth to a jury? I have a basement full of those boxes!” They stared at her in stunned silence, then one of them said, “You’re going to bankrupt us! What do you think is going to happen? People are going to be upset with you for bankrupting us! Northview won’t be able to provide services to the students anymore if we go to a jury!” Mom leaned over the table and snarled, “Me bankrupt you?! I did not do those things and nor did my daughter. Your school personnel did those things! And by God, someone is going to pay for this. There are going to be consequences for what you did. You were the ones who committed those crimes! CRIMES!“ I can only imagine that Mom’s raw words echoed through that room. After a long silence, with tears on her face, Mary then said, “Okay…” Mom stared at her, waiting. After taking a deep breath, Mary then said, “What do you want in the agreement?” Mom sat back in her chair with a small sigh. The long ordeal was finally about to end… Continue to Chapter 26 Table of Contents