The Foreign Service Journal, June 2011

place and from school to school, his disability was not clearly defined and he was definitely not educated to his potential. Our first Foreign Service assignment was Frankfurt, where we homeschooled Brandon. We concentrated on learning how he learned and how far to push him aca- demically. A subsequent tour was in Santo Domingo, where we first tried a local special needs school, and then sent Brandon to a special needs boarding school. Our next assignment took us to Belize, where we worked closely with the school at post, the Belize Christ- ian Academy, to develop a special education program for Brandon (a first for the school) that included a vocational training element as a vet- erinary assistant. It was during this time that Brandon’s future goals became more defined both vocationally and socially. He discovered that he really was not that much different from the other teenagers who did not have special needs. And he decided that he was ready to go back to a residential pro- gram to become more independent. Brandon’s friend, Matt Horner, 19, is in his third year at Riverview. His At one of the bridges to Cape Cod, Mass., in October 2010, from left to right: Matt Horner, Audrey Hall, Tammie Gandy and Brandon Gandy. 94 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U N E 2 0 1 1 S CHOOLS S UPPLEMENT Audrey, Brandon and Matt on the first day of school, last Sept. 11. It was the first time they’d gotten together since May, when Aud- rey visited for her interview. Rather than the typical high school diploma, theirs say “Certificate of Completion.” Continued from page 88