When I first read of the proposed changes, I thought this can not be possible. After all, we live in America. We have the freedom of speech and now the VDOE wants to take that away from us? It just can’t be! In our school system we have little to no voice as it is and to take away all of our voices and concerns for our children, our children will not get what they need to thrive. Our school does as little as possible as it is for our children and if our concerns are not heard, then the needs of our children will not be met. My daughter is 6 1/2 years old and has Down syndrome and autism. Our schools refuse to acknowledge that she has autism even though the developmental doctor diagnosed her with it. We constantly address the autism diagnosis to the school and hopefully one day the school will begin to meet our daughter’s needs. If the VDOE takes our voices away, her autism diagnosis will never be addressed by our school system. Our daughter escaped from school 2 weeks ago. No one knows for sure how long she was gone. The school says 2-7 mnutes, our calculation is 17-22 minutes. Anything could have happened, but luckily she was discovered unharmed. You see, she wasn’t even missing. She walked into the school one morning and walked through the entire school and no one ever noticed that she was unattended. She was never missing, she was just discovered by a student and a P.E. teacher outside. We have told the school time and time again that she needs a one-to-one aide for safety issues, and even after this incident, the school still refuses to hear our cries for our daughter’s needs, but we refuse to lie down and give up. Is that what the VDOE want parents to do? Give up on our children? Our children are our future and we are here to help them and to provide them with what they need. If our schools won’t do it and the parents aren’t allowed to do it, then who will do it? I beg that proposed changes to the Virginia Special Educaton Regulations not be revised to take away the parnetal rights to their children. Please hear our voices and our concerns for our children.