Not asking for a hand-out

I am a divorced Mother living in a rural Missouri that has very limited ability to help teach my special needs child. Though services may be recommended to me, and even recommended for my son's IEP, they are not available out here in rural MO. I fight tooth-and-nail to get support in the classroom or an aid or sign-language instruction. But the fact of the matter is I will never win some of those battles and get necessary support services written into my boy's IEP because the services required by my son are simply not available through the public school and to get them in place would be extremely costly to the didstrict. I get it.

I support the tuition tax credit bills being reviewed by our MO senate and house right now. I call upon other Missourians to do the same. I couldn't take off work to go to the capitol on 2-13. I fight sleep in order just to write these few words. I made calls to my representatives and I am writing to my local papers. I am not asking for a hand-out. I am asking for unnecessary obstacles be removed. My son's future is at stake.

The bills being discussed right now in the Senate (SB 770 and SB993) and House (HB 1886) would not remove public dollars from the tax base nor would they harm public schools. They are insightful legislation written by people affected by special needs like myself. They would NOT destroy the public school nor are they any different from other tax credit bills. They simply allow non-for-profit agencies to exist to collect private donations and distribute the money on a first-come, first-serve basis to people like me. Though they are not perfect, they are certainly a step in the right direction in state that is known to be one of the worst in this country at serving special needs education. The success of my son will NOT be a threat to other Missourians.