Best Kept Secret Page #5

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Is that good?

-That's good.

-That's good?

[Laughter]

Erik's dream!

He's going to be so happy.

Burger King hat,

working.

I'm going to send one of

my teacher assistants

to be his job coach,

and his transportation is

going to be with the bus

from the school.

MAN:
Who wants to go first?

You get five tries to get it

in the basket.

Ohhh!

He got three in a row.

Oh, that's one!

Ohhh!

[Laughter]

What? What's up?

What are y'all two doing there?

Ra-ra, your turn.

Your turn to shoot, come on.

Throw it.

You gotta look at the hoop.

-Throw it.

-Shoot 'em in there.

Oh-ho-ho!

Why did you hit me?!

[Laughter]

Yo.

Come on.

Go.

-You wanna sit here?

-Yeah.

Say, "That's my spot, man,

I was sitting there."

-I was sitting there.

-Tell him, not me.

-I was sitting there...

-Ra-ra.

Ra-ra.

Tell him!

Tell him!

I was sitting there.

You have a right...

-Yeah, yes.

-Tell him!

Tell him.

Stop!

[Bell rings]

[Groans]

His psych test?

How was it?

Well, we'll talk about it later.

It's going to be

a long conversation.

-Was it good?

-No, it wasn't good.

I mean, it's expected,

but, you know...

I don't even go

by those tests.

I know, you can't.

Well...

'Cause how are they

going to test him?

Huh?

If he do--

That's what's confusing me,

'cause if you're going

to test Quran,

if you don't know Quran,

you don't have no reinforcers

or be able to get language

out of Quran,

how is it a fair assessment

of Quran?

MAN:
Like, if you say, "Quran,"

you show Quran how to put

a stamp on a paper,

and then he's talking about

something else,

then they say, "Quran, place

the stamp on the paper,"

he said Quran wasn't able to put

the stamp in the right place.

That's according to the report.

Little things like that

that concern concentration --

Quran...

You know what?

That's interesting.

Because how you gonna...

with him...

if you know working

with kids with autism,

it's got to be

a consistent thing.

If he never put a stamp in

a proper place on an envelope,

you do it one time and you just

change the subject,

he didn't learn that program.

So how he's going to be expected

to do that?

Okay, I gotta go.

I'll see you later on

this evening, Quran, all right?

-All right.

-All right.

My man.

So...

you gotta go.

Yeah, I gotta go

to a doctor's appointment.

MINO:
I'll talk to you later.

-Okay, Quran, I'll see y'all.

-All right.

You know, uh...

it seems like he reversed

instead of...

progressed,

you know what I'm saying?

He regressed on some

of the things

that I know that he's able

to do.

They got away

from the academics

and started just focusing

on life skills.

Uh...

Now, I agreed to that.

You know, but now

I'm not so sure that

that decision I made is...

was a good one.

Oh, that face.

What's the matter, Robby Rob?

Do some work.

He's cursing me out.

Do some work.

Why are you so mad?

MINO:
Okay, okay, Robert.

Don't bite me.

Wait, wait, wait.

Robert, Robert.

What happened?

What happened?

MAN:
He don't wanna do nothing.

Here, talk to me.

What happened?

Relax.

Let's go to here.

Let's start with here.

You have to look, though.

You can push this...

Feelings.

Okay.

Sick.

You feel sick?

Do you want to go to the nurse?

Robert, do you want

to go to the nurse?

Maybe.

Maybe?

You want to go wash

your face again and relax?

Aaaaaa!

Ahhh!

Aaaaaa!

Look who's here.

MINO:
You traitor!

Come here, Tesean.

Come here, come here.

MOTHER:
Take your coat off.

[Tesean shrieks]

This isn't...

[Laughter]

Tesean.

That's your teacher!

[Tesean whines]

-You don't wanna be here?

-That's your teacher.

-We are so happy to see you.

-They're happy to see you.

[Shrieks]

Do me a favor, just sit

with Robert, he's upset.

[Tesean shrieks]

We're going to ignore Tesean

until Tesean get it together.

-And we're gonna take you.

-Yes, please.

And you're going to come

this way.

Welcome to all of you.

Good morning.

ALL:
Good morning.

And yet again, we're having

another panel discussion

on services that are vital

and necessary in school

as well as once your students

leave school

in the community.

We have the pleasure

of having

one of our very first

of two graduates

from the school here

in the autism program.

Ms. Callie Stansel,

who's the parent of Tesean.

Good morning, everybody.

I'm Callie Stansel and I live

in the city of Newark.

And I am a parent.

And if you would meet Tesean,

you would say, "Oh,"

because he'd come in --

"Aaaa-aaaa!"

He came in

with that this morning.

I said, "He's back.

Your child is back."

They said, "Oh, my God!"

But I do thank God

for him being here,

for that experience that

I've had.

Okay, if you have any questions,

I guess you can ask them

later on.

WOMAN:
It's no longer school,

it's work.

We want you to think work,

to hear the word "work."

Everywhere around

the building is work.

We encourage the parents to say

you're coming to work.

And that's what we want for our

children is that they move on

to the next phase in life

like any other child.

You child would come into

the WAE Center

and decide that they want

to be in theater,

they want to be in art,

they want to take music class,

they want to do yoga,

and that schedule would be

created for them.

Are your programs going to be

working on more transportation?

You have to pay for it if

the state's

not going to pay for it.

Every place doesn't, and,

as they said earlier,

"transportation is the key to

your successful transitioning."

DVR, Vocational Rehab, offers

a whole bunch of services.

It is a government program,

federal and state funded.

Our goal is to really just help

people be successful,

because that's how

we're successful.

We keep our funding coming in

by getting people employed.

How could you help

an autistic, nonverbal person?

We have funding, but it's

limited to help the person,

really, to get on their feet

and to start working.

We can't follow them

for the rest of their life

or anything like that.

I'm still asking, what do you

have to offer for him?

It really depends how

independent that person can be.

As they graduate,

there will be funding.

There's a whole process

you all have to go through,

which is a survey.

They'll call you.

They're going to ask you

about your family member.

And you're going to have

to do something

that you haven't done

in your life.

You're going to have

to tell them

all the things

that they can't do.

So if your child crosses

the street on their own,

but you're standing

on the corner

and you tell them when

the light turns green,

they are not independent.

And you have to be able

to own that

when you have this interview.

WOMAN:
So next we want

to invite Ms. Rosa Albanese

from Birchwood, a day program.

Birchwood is

a medical daycare center

for people from 18 years old

and up.

We have really two programs,

one for seniors

and the other one for

developmental disableds.

And for developmental disabled,

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