ANASCO, Puerto Rico _ It was the second day of the new school year in Puerto Rico, but 7-year-old Angel Torres wasn't in class. He was at a physical therapy session, struggling once again to stand on his own, when the boy's therapist asked his mom how school was going.
"Bad. Terrible," Brenda Lopez said, frustration spilling out. "The classroom isn't suitable for him."
A year after Hurricane Maria changed almost everything on the island, hundreds of parents like Lopez were left struggling to find classrooms, teachers and therapists for their children with autism, Down syndrome or cerebral palsy. What had been a daunting task before the storm _ finding a place where their special needs children could thrive _ had become vastly harder afterward, as the government shuttered more than 250 schools and the education department scrambled to relocate students and staff. The Department of Education said in late August that it still needed to fill 132 vacancies for special education teachers. And that meant some kids like Angel, who has cerebral palsy and cannot walk on his own or talk, were left in limbo.
The day before, Lopez had taken Angel to school _ only to find a cramped space where the air conditioning barely worked, the bathroom was too small for Angel's wheelchair to enter, and there was no diaper changing table.
There was also no teacher. The six students had been sent home at 11 a.m. on the first day and couldn't go back until the school, Carmen Casasus Marti Elementary, found a special education teacher.
What frustrated Lopez the most was that her son had attended a great school the previous year with a large, well-equipped classroom and a devoted teacher _ so devoted that she'd driven highways littered with debris to check on her students after the hurricane. Angel had made real progress at Parcelas Maria Elementary. Looking at the calm little boy stretching with his therapist, it was hard to imagine that three years ago when he'd enrolled at the school, any noise _ music, cars driving by, even the sounds of children playing _ had been enough to send him into a fit of screaming and crying.
But the government had shut down the elementary school in a wave of closures over the summer triggered by a combination of debt and the exodus of school-age children. Now, Lopez knew she would have to fight to get Angel a new teacher and to make sure he got the help he needed in school. There was no telling how long that would take.
The therapist, Ana Lebron, placed Angel's feet firmly on the ground in front of a rock climbing wall at the nonprofit Centro Ayani clinic. She slowly moved his hands sideways from one brightly colored handhold to the next. With trembling legs and the therapist guiding him, Angel took a step to the right.
It had taken years for Angel to take that step, braced against a wall, and his mother was determined he wouldn't regress. After the hurricane, even with no roof over their heads and the highways impassable, Lopez helped Angel practice standing, mimicking what she had seen his therapist do.
But the hurricane cost them time they didn't have in the child's development. And Angel's family wasn't the only one.
Lebron said nearly all of her patients had experienced problems related to the school closures _ difficulties finding teachers or therapy, a change in school or classroom, all of it disturbing the delicate balance that many special needs children require to make progress.
"Here," she said, "all of the parents are desperate."
