Maurice and Melissa King -- Chicago, IL

Written By: Adam Sege

When Maurice King went back to school, he was on crutches.   The last day he had been there, two students followed him outside as he left for home and attacked him.  The beating left Maurice with several fractures in his ankle, and a surgeon needed to insert several screws to help the injury heal.

Maurice’s doctors told him that as long as there was an elevator, he could return to school. Maurice’s guidance counselor assured his mother that the school had an elevator and that Maurice was welcome back as soon as he was ready.   But on the morning Maurice returned to school, the assistant principal had different ideas.

Maurice was a “liability,” his mother recalls the assistant principal explaining, and he was not allowed to go back to class.  The assistant principal said Maurice was welcome to sit in the office that day if he wanted to.  After that, the school could arrange for one hour of home schooling three days each week.

That didn’t seem fair at all to Melissa King, Maurice’s mother, who knew that another student with crutches was still going to class.   It seemed pretty clear that the school just didn’t want to deal with Maurice or admit that it wasn’t capable of meeting his needs.   But as frustrating as the school’s response was, it was hardly surprising to the Kings.

For months, a student had been fighting Maurice again and again.   But despite the student’s history of bullying and Melissa’s frequent calls, the school refused to suspend the other student.

Maurice started having trouble sleeping, and occasionally hallucinated that people were coming after him.

“He said he would kill himself before he let them kill him,” Melissa recalls.  Maurice told both his mother and his social worker this, and still, the school did nothing.  Later, the student who had been tormenting him led the attack that broke Maurice’s ankle.

Meanwhile, Maurice was taking prednisone to control his severe asthma, and the side effects of the high dosage were devastating.  In addition to the hallucinations, Maurice had seizures and pseudo-seizures, episodes triggered by nervousness that made him shake violently and occasionally fall.   The behavioral effects were severe as well.

“Sometimes he would snap,” says Melissa, describing Maurice’s volatile emotional state.  As Maurice’s struggles intensified, it became very clear that his school was not helping him overcome them.  Teachers sometimes locked Maurice in a closet for up to two hours to calm him down.  Maurice began resisting his parents when they brought him to school, even attempting to jump out of their van on the way there in the morning.   Several times, Maurice was sent to the Children’s Memorial Psychiatric School for stays that lasted up to a couple weeks.

At first, the school refused to give Maurice an Individualized Education Plan, which would have provided him with extra attention and one-on-one help.  And even when the school finally agreed, they often did not follow through with the steps that the plan called for.

So Melissa had reason to be concerned when the school refused to let Maurice come back after he broke his ankle.  But this time she had help.

While Maurice was in the hospital for his broken ankle, a social worker had referred Melissa to Amy Zimmerman, director of the Chicago Medical-Legal Partnership for Children.  Soon, Melissa and Maurice met with Zimmerman and Sarah O’Connor, a project attorney for the medical-legal partnership, to talk about Maurice’s story.

“I found out then I finally had someone who was going to help me,” says Melissa. “When I found out that they were handling it, when they were doing the talking, I was more relaxed.   I could sleep better and deal with other things that were going on.”

The medical-legal partnership worked with Maurice’s family for months to pressure the school system into finding a better school for Maurice.  Finally, in October, the school system agreed to enroll Maurice at a private therapeutic day school at no cost to the Kings.

At his new school, Melissa says, Maurice receives individualized help and is earning As and Bs.

“He’s getting the medical attention he needs,” she says. “He has issues sometimes, but they are able to deal with them without locking him in the closet.”

“And,” she continues, hinting at the toll these past years have taken on her, “I’m able to relax.”