I doubt they were searching blogs specifically, I’m assuming they were looking for information on how to handle a 504 for a medical issue that is totally new to the school system. There were a lot of questions about whether the Americans with Disabilities Act applied to Celiac. I’d also handed them the 504 that is supplied on many of the Celiac-specific sites, and told them that this is the standard 504 that is being passed all over the country, and perhaps they were checking on that as well. These, of course, are speculations, but I’m quite certain that they weren’t looking for us specifically. Someone happened upon our blog, and then there were a lot of someones happening upon it in the following days:)

No one from the district has said a word to us about our religion. I didn’t think they would. I’ve been waiting for the bomb to drop slowly, as it trickles down through the PTO. I’ve got friends in the community to ask about this, but I’ve not yet extended myself to do so – too many other things on my plate at the moment. Our religion has not been mentioned to us directly – I assumed it wouldn’t be – and has not had an effect on the way Gillian’s case is being handled.

In the ‘fishbowl’ of a sports club in town several years ago, it became common knowledge that we were Wiccan. Luckily, many of the members were not from our community. Since the slip had occurred, I attempted to make myself available and approachable about the subject so that there would be less of the common misconceptions passed around. It worked both in my favor, and against it. A few people (who are the ones involved in our school system politics) became my acquaintances. These are the people I need to reach out to, they will let me know if and when our religion becomes an item of interest in the community. There were others who were actually approaching people with concern that our family would put curses on them, and cast spells to control them. Luckily, I was able to help minimize the damage at the time, with the help of the allies we’d made. This knowledge never got passed to the ’school set’ at large, and the incident passed. If it were to reemerge in the school system at large, the potential damage to the children is much greater…this isn’t a sports club with a hundred members.

We’re still waiting for a document to be put forth that can be agreed upon by both us and the school district, and that may actually happen soon – we’re waiting on the letter from the doctor they sent us to for a second opinion before offering their revisions. The school system, seems to be finally working with us to institute the 504.

Darn, I didn’t just write a response, I wrote a blog post! Considering I haven’t written in a while (I broke my promise to myself to write every day!), forgive me if I cut and paste and post this in some form or another…it will help me to post an update to the ongoing situation (or lack thereof, hopefully!)

The fact that they were searching blogs at all for info on Celiac and 504s is a little worrisome as well. While your blog has great info to share on the subject, many other blogs I’ve run across on the subject of 504s and IEPs unfortunately have a lot of the wrong information on them.

Being able to be open and honest and not hide your beliefs will hopefully make your faith stronger and bring your family closer together at the same time.

I wish you the best of luck. Though I hope it is not needed.

Bright Blessings,
Tammy
onepinkfish´s last blog ..Celebrate the Seasons

Good luck to you and yours.