02/06/2026
Hello, my name is Anthony Martin and I'm the father of an autistic child. My family and I live in a wonderful little town named Anthony here in Kansas and our district is District 361. My child is now 11 years old, I have learned in this time how decision making has to be negotiated to determine the better outcome and for what is best for any special needs child including my own. My goal in this message is to give an awareness of a situation that is occurring in many small districts in my state and I would assume in many more. The problem that is occurring is due to funding there are supplementary AIDs that are being denied to the special needs spectrum of the education system in smaller districts and communities which I do not understand as every child should not have any learning or education abilities taken from them especially when it comes to the special needs Spectrum. I have personally watched and fought against my district in wonder of taking programming away from the special education department due to funding when there are still children attending that certain School so how can they not get the funding needed for these children. These children are being forced to sometimes go 4 hours away to a different school which is a bigger district and a bigger School more equipped and adequate to house the programs needed.
This situation was brought to me when my district wanted my son to travel 4 hours away due to the programming that he was getting in our community was being taken away due to funding. I as a parent of an autistic child know that this was not the better choice for my son because what many don't think about as they are making their decisions that it is not always easy for children with special needs to sit for so long and do nothing this can cause problems in one aspect or another also what if the vehicle broke down then now these special needs children would be stuck on the side of the road until help with derive this also is not a better situation for any child to be stuck in. As a person who deals with many finances I do not see how it is better to pay for a school bus or SUV to travel children to and from school 4 hours at a time which would make 8 hours a day but are unable to get the funding for the programs needed for the children to stay in the community that they're in. These were my answers in my replies to the district that I live in and I would not comply with what they wanted to do and due to the fact that I would not comply and I made the district comply to us they did make it possible for my son to return to the school that he did so well in in our district but this did not solve the problem when it came to the programming being taken from the school that is still the problem that exists and children are still having to travel very far just to get the education needed this is a problem that we need to address and figure out a way to fix because I'm sure that funding can be taken from a different direction.
I knew as a father of an autistic child it was now my goal and duty to try to help this situation in any way possible so I have made the efforts in any way that I can to write Governors and Mayors and congressman to let them know about this situation as it has a rise that hat but now we are in an even deeper situation to where now they are cutting adaptive PE from the special education portion of the district and I do not understand how this could be allowed I do not understand how we can take away from our special education system because that is a must and it is needed for these children to thrive and be the best that they can be in any way possible it is very hard for these children to express themselves openly and in some ways these programs help these children learn how to express themselves and adapt to the life that they are given at hand, I don't understand how we can take away crucial learning techniques that are needed.
We literally just got my son on adaptive PE because we knew that would help him with his anxiety and built up energy and now it's being taken away.
I have personally watched schools spend $20,000 on industrial washing machines and dryers but we don't have funding, I have also personally watched schools replace countertops for around $40,000 but we do not have funding, this does not make any sense to me why are we taking away from our education program period how does that help our children strive to be the best that they can be our children are our future and if we do not look out for them then what are we doing. I am trying to make awareness of this situation and I would love for anybody to share my message or help me figure out who to contact to fight this situation to make it more aware of the lack of thought process that are education system is doing to our children please help me get the awareness out and help me fight the fight that needs to be fought I want to thank you for your time and I hope this message reaches the right person.
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