"All of the scenes from 'The Road to Compliance for Special Needs Drivers' were filmed with actual drivers and transportation administrators and their children as the stars. Several of the children are, in fact, students with special needs. Despite a script that I had worked on for months, and excellent input from transportation professionals from whom I sought advice and review, our child actors stimulated new thoughts and points to emphasize. Joey is the boy who steals the scene about the broken wheelchair. His mom – in reality a driver trainer then with the Boulder Valley (Colo.) Public Schools – played the driver, and a friend of the family played his mom. We had neglected to remind Joey that this was all make believe. When he heard his mother say there would be no school for him that day, he became extremely upset, crying and pounding the wheelchair (which he does not, in fact, use in real life.) He provoked the realization that we can too easily overlook the sensitivity of our very vulnerable special riders, for whom school is special in ways we do not even realize.
4 years ago
