Steven and Sue Weimer -- Baltimore, MD

Written By: Adam Sege

When Steven Weimer was in eighth grade, his teacher often sent him to an intervention room to control his anger.   But Steven had no room to let his energy out in the tiny space, and instead of calming him down, the intervention specialist there found his outbursts amusing.

“Steven would always call me,” his mother Sue remembers, “and I could hear [the specialist] in the background laughing.”

The phone calls were cruel reminders of what Sue had known for years:  Steven’s school was not taking his behavioral challenges seriously.

In fourth grade, Steven’s family started noticing troubling patterns in his behavior.   Steven started seeing a therapist, who agreed with Sue that Steven needed consistent educational and personal support provided by an Individualized Education Program (IEP) Plan.  When Sue and the therapist asked the school whether an IEP would be possible, the school said they would consider it.

Nothing happened.

Then, in sixth grade, the school expelled Steven for threatening a teacher.  Steven went to an alternative school for several months.  After he came back to his original school, Sue asked repeatedly for an IEP.

Again, nothing happened.

Eighth grade was a tough year for Steven.  He was expelled three times, and his mother asked the school every month for an IEP.

“The only thing I really asked for was just to help him,” says Sue, “to get him out of that classroom and into a classroom where they could relate to how he was doing.”

Still, the school refused.

“They said they couldn’t give it to me just because Steven was disruptive,” says Sue.

Doctors prescribed many different medications to help Steven, but the frequent changes “started to take a toll,” Sue recalls.  Eventually, Steven spent two weeks at a psychiatric ward at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

It was there that someone referred Sue to Hope Tipton, director of Project HEAL.  And all of a sudden, things started changing.

Hope listened as Sue told her Steven’s story, and she pored through piles of Steven’s school and social work records.  Soon Hope and Sue were meeting with the school to talk about an IEP for Steven.

“Hope started fighting to get help for him,” says Sue. “She was straight and to the point with them.  She wouldn’t let them get by with anything.”

That spring, while Steven was in eighth grade, the school finally provided him with an IEP that placed him in a Special Education classroom.  Still, Sue was concerned.  Steven had “barely made it through” eighth grade, and she worried that he might eventually drop out of high school.

Sue and Hope met with school officials over the summer to talk about the best way for Steven to succeed in high school.  Eventually, the school agreed to place him in a non-public high school.

Hope, who Sue calls “a fantastic lady,” checks in with Sue occasionally about Steven’s progress.  And a year into his new school, Steven is making impressive strides.

After getting Ds and Es at his previous school, Steven is now earning As and Bs.

“I love the school,” says Sue. “To me they’re perfect. It’s exactly what he needed.”