For two decades, I drove a scarred, reeking van through Los Angeles streets, transporting students the system had given up on. The vehicle was a rolling tomb—worn seats, walls etched with desperation, the words “FUCK THIS PLACE” carved into the plastic behind my seat. Every morning, I wondered if today would be the day I finally agreed with them.
These weren’t neighborhood kids; they were the ones home districts rejected after exhausting all options: boys aged 10 to 18 from group homes and foster care, placed in nonpublic schools as a last resort. And I was supposed to transport them, barely trained, through rush-hour traffic with only a distracted behaviorist for backup.
The first few days were brutal. One student, Diego, pounded on the windows with such force the van shuddered. He screamed, slamming his shoe against the safety glass until his face twisted with desperation. Another, Marcus, lunged for the emergency exit mid-route. The behaviorist refused to intervene without “authorization,” even as Marcus threatened to jump into traffic. I begged him to help, but he only shrugged, unmoved.
This wasn’t about education; it was containment. The van was just the beginning. The school itself was a fortress, classrooms crammed with scarred desks and bare containment rooms tucked behind closets where students screamed, kicked, and lost control. The district saw numbers on spreadsheets, behaviorists saw problems to manage, but I saw children failed by every system meant to protect them.
The reality of special education isn’t glossy brochures or hefty tuition tags. It’s a dangerous chasm between training and survival, forcing teachers to improvise under pressure. No one warns you that most don’t last five years, and the ones who do stay find themselves in a system designed to warehouse students, cut services under the guise of budget crises, and silence dissent.
I stayed for twenty years. I climbed from that van into district leadership, witnessing the same patterns repeat across communities: administrators “restructured” for speaking up, consultants paid exorbitant rates while students suffered. The playbook is clear: contain, manage, and reward silence.
It’s a system that breaks teachers, but it breaks children first.
Sally Iverson served over 20 years in California’s special-education system, from classroom teacher to SELPA director. This essay is adapted from her upcoming book, ”THE UNLIKELY TEACHER: Down the Rabbit Hole of Special Education.”
