Educational Exclusion, Radical Trust, and What PDA-Affirming Schooling Looks Like: Otto Specht School | Ep. 178

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What does it look like when a school actually meets a PDA child where they are, without behavior charts, compliance goals, or pressure to perform? In this episode I speak with three remarkable people: Melissa Petro, a cultural journalist and mother of an eight-year-old PDA son who fought for years to secure him a free and appropriate education; Chela Crane, Executive Director of Otto Specht School in New York, where Melissa's son Oscar is now thriving; and Suchi Swift, a Waldorf teacher at Otto Specht who works directly with Oscar. Together we cover Oscar's journey from expulsion at preschool and eight months of homeschooling through burnout, to the slow, non-linear process of rebuilding…