Inequity in special education: One family’s story in Virginia
Educating a child with special needs isn’t for the weak or the
weak-hearted. That’s what Sid Hagan and his wife Cassie learned
soon after their boys were born in 1990 with Asperger’s Syndrome
--though the couple didn’t learn for years what plagued their
sons. Living in Newport News, Va., the couple recognized that
young Kian and Niall Hagan did not interact with other people as
do most children. Their preschool teacher sent home evaluations
that said the twins had attention deficit disorder and were
essentially unteachable. Their kindergarten instructor, Hagan
said, “asked my wife if she had taken illegal drugs while she
was pregnant.” It wasn’t until the family moved to Iowa when the
principal of Hunt Elementary School in Sioux City took them
aside and said she believed that the boys had autism. She was
calling in a multidisciplinary team from an area education
agency to properly diagnose and provide support for the boys.
The boys’ parents were stu