Parent Writes Thank-You Note to Everyone at Cash Elementary School

On her blog, Tara Staley wrote a thank-you note to the people at Cash Elementary School. With her permission, we are posting it here:

The Staley family

“William’s 5th grade graduation from Cash Elementary is this coming Friday morning, and it will be especially sentimental to us because he entered Cash when he was only 3 years old. As a student in the Pre-K program for children with developmental delays, our son – along with his teachers and parents – had a lot of work to do. He was diagnosed just months earlier with mild-moderate autism, having an IQ that was well below average. At 3½ years old, he still could not say or nod the word ‘Yes.’ He plugged his ears against noises that were sometimes as soft as others’ voices. He would not socialize or interact with his peers. He had repetitive behaviors like placing his hands under running water and batting at the little yellow key that dangled at the back of our house on the electrical box. By the time he reached 4 years old, William started talking, yet developed additional challenges like ADHD and OCD, plus a myriad of behavior problems that included irritability due to his inability to communicate well.

“During his years in the Pre-K curriculum, William also had itinerant teachers who came to our house to work privately with him on his educational goals. In the meantime, I pursued ABA therapy, medical intervention, and worked with William on his goals when he was not in school.

“By the time he reached first grade, the teachers in the EC classroom realized he was a very bright little boy and had the confidence to refer him into the general curriculum. We can’t say that the road has always been smooth and easy since William was mainstreamed at seven years old, but those years saw the greatest gain in his intellectual and social development. Thanks to a Behavior Improvement Plan, speech therapy and private occupational therapy sessions, William began interacting with his peers and making good grades. He made his first friends in third grade, in Mrs. Lee’s class.

“Then…the little boy who couldn’t say ‘Yes’ at three years old made a 99 on his first math EOG.

“Further psychological evaluations in 2010 showed that William’s IQ had risen by two full standard deviations, finally placing him in the ‘normal’ cognitive range. Cognitive tests in early 2014 showed that his IQ has risen an additional 10 points, with him scoring as high as 123 in non-verbal reasoning, and 118 in writing and 116 in spelling.

“By his fourth grade year in Mrs. Smith’s class, William made Honor Roll 3 out of 4 quarters. This year, in fifth grade, he won the school’s Science Fair and competed at the district level in January.

“We cannot say enough to thank the teachers at Cash who have helped William overcome the most challenging parts of his disability, who have brought out the best in him. We also want to say a special thank you to Ms. Kasey Northrop, principal, whose inclusion-minded policies for students like William have given him the opportunity to ‘graduate not only from Cash this year, but from the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school system in years to come with a regular diploma that will help him pursue his dreams in science.

“To all his teachers and therapists, THANK YOU very much for putting so much of your time, energy and resources into our son. We as his parents — and his future teachers — still have much work to do, but he has come so far because you believed in him. Thanks for giving us hope and him a future.”

You will find Staley’s blog at Tara Staley