The following article appeared in the Winter 2006 edition of New Beginnings, a publication of the Nation's Voice on Mental Illness (NAMI). The article was written by David's mother and is used with her permission as well as permission from the publishers.

How an Old, Run-Down School Embraced Our Son and Got a Face Lift

A joint volunteer strength of NAMI Knoxville, the local community, and KAEC staff helped change the environment at KAEC.

KAEC teachers and assistants Janet Chesney and LaTosha Griffin (left) and Karen Templeman and Angie Cowan (right).

Pleasant classrooms await students after volunteers helped update the classrooms.

Knoxville Adaptive Education Center (KAEC) has been a lifeline for our son, David, who has Asperger's-type autism and bipolar disorder. At KAEC, public school for grades three through twelve, nearly one hundred "seriously emotionally disturbed" (the designation given by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to students with mental illnesses) children are taught discipline in an atmosphere of unlimited kindness. The job is difficult, often heartbreaking, and almost always an uphill battle. Until recently, the center's dilapidated building made the task even harder. Because most caregivers of KAEC students have very low incomes or turbulent family situations, there was no Parent Teachers Association (PTA) to support the school. It took the joint volunteer strength of NAMI Knoxville, the local community, and KAEC staff to change the environment.

David came to KAEC at ten years old, after a traumatic stay in a mental hospital. By that time, my husband and I felt completely out of options after eight years of trying to control David's violence. Before age two, he began to show the extreme mood swings of bipolar disorder as well as the stereotyped speech and narrow interests that characterize Asperger's Syndrome. He was obsessed with dinosaurs and would often chatter about them with giddy abandon. At other times, he would suddenly bit, kick, or scratch other children, seemingly with no provocation. Yet after a bipolar rage, he often showed deep remorse or begged to be comforted. Sometimes he said we ought to kill him.He cycled unpredictably, often changing in a matter of hours.We tried every possible "cocktail" of medications, plus a score of behavior modification techniques. Not quite jokingly, we referred to him as Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde.

By fall of 2001, David began to slip into psychosis, believing he was half boy and half tyrannosaurus Rex, with a mission to kill all humans in order to make the world safe for his kind. The primary school was not equipped to deal with a boy who might seriously hurt other students. Not surprisingly, ten days in the hospital and still more drugs couldn't make a dent in the problem.

The special education supervisor for our district suggested KAEC, cautioning us not to be put off by its surroundings. We came from a bright, lovely suburban school with the most up-to-date classrooms and all the finishing touches that affluent PTAs can provide. By contrast, in those days, KAEC was an underfed stepchild of the school system, housed in a drab building vacated when a new middle school was built. The paint was peeling from the window frames, and the large metal letters that spelled out the school name had been vandalized with purple spray paint. My and my husband's eyes met with alarm, hoping for the best as we entered a dim, cavernous lobby.

Immediately, something felt right about this place. It might have been the brisk yet welcoming attitude of school principal Claudia Lineberger. Perhaps it was the energy of primary school teacher Janet Chesney, whose room is a colorful patchwork of homey, old-show furnishings. The classroom serves about eight children taught by Janet and her calm, no-nonsense aide LeTasha Griffin. KAEC's program is structured but flexible: teachers can factor an individual child's needs into the system of earning points for good performance. There are time-out rooms when a child explodes and "compassionate restraint" if a teacher or student is endangered. Support can be summoned in minutes through the walkie-talkie every teacher keeps at hand. Yet most staff members seem to work with ironic good humor at the risk of taking two steps forward even after the most disastrous step back. Teachers who are physically threatened in the morning can be seen walking that same student out to the buss in the afternoon, saying "Listen, tomorrow is another day."

Later, I discovered that in the first few weeks David often needed as many as 15 restraints in a single day. Janet never called me unless it wasn't safe to put him on the bus. It was like entering paradise: no more panic attacks every time my cell phone rang. Sometimes, Janet let David cower beneath a weighted blanked for hours when he was overwhelmed with depression or drowsy from medication. He loathed arithmetic, so she put together a workbook that matched problems with his beloved dinosaurs. We met bi-weekly with his case manager and county special education administrators, who arranged for a social worker to counsel him. Gradually, he began to emerge into reality. A year later, David moved up to the middle school class taught by Karen Templeman and her aid Vangie Cowan. At in IEP meeting, Karen pulled out a graph showing that the number of daily prompts David needed in order to get his work done had dropped from over 70 down into the teens. I was incredibly impressed she had gone to so much trouble.

About the same time NAMI adopted KAEC in the county's Partners in Education Program, the school's physical plant slowly began to reflect the quality of the staff. The parent of another KAEC student combined her large network of contacts with various organizations that wanted to help. The local Rotary Club gave funds and labor to create a library. Church teens and flocks of Eagle Scouts painted the walls. The elementary time-out room was transformed with blue sky and clouds, while clothing was gathered for students in need. A young boy who was removed from his foster home in the middle of the night, unable to take even a jacket with him, said, "Just get me to school. They'll have clothes for me and I'll be safe there."

Meanwhile, NAMA organized annual Back-to-School Breakfasts and Teacher Appreciation Dinners. School system administrators were made aware of the need for major repairs. Somehow, when the vandalized sign over the front door was fixed, it seemed clear that KAEC would get at least a portion of the tender loving care it gave to children living with mental illnesses. Monthly Parent Teacher Community Association meetings attended by volunteers from NAMI, KAEC staff, the Helen Ross McNabb Mental Health Center, and other concerned groups continue the process of developing new facilities for students.

Eventually, adolescent changes worsened David's condition beyond anything we could handle at home, so he is now at a residential school. Yet we know that when it's time for David to return, KAEC will always be there for us.