Getting Wesley to his new school by Jan 8th

Hey there, I'm Karl and I'm raising funds for my son's trip to his new residential school.

Wesley is autistic has been having trouble in schools for several years now, and the pandemic didn't help any. And due to staffing issues at his last school, where he was starting to show real progress, he wasn't able to continue there because they didn't have enough staff for all their students. As a result, he's been home almost a year. In that time, I've been working with the school district to find a new school for him.

We weren't able to find one that met his needs in-state, and the few we could find out of state either couldn't take him for certain reasons, or didn't have any openings. So, its been a trying spring, summer, and fall.

We have finally located a school that will be able to meet his needs, but it is in New York state. Since we are in Washington State, that is quite a distance. The two main ways to get him there would be flying or driving. But Wesley has never flown before and this is not a good time to experiment on that aspect. He doesn't like crowds or sitting still for very long, and can only handle stressful situations for about an hour before he breaks down.

At the same time, he also deals with some abandonment issues. And the idea of flying him there and dropping him off like a package, even if we are there for a day or two before he starts school, just sounds like a bad idea.

The other option is for me to drive him there. But this is a long trip, especially in the beginning of January. The shortest route is through the northern states and over a couple of mountain ranges. If it was spring, I'd be fine with this, but I am confident that we'd hit some sort of problem during this time period. Montana, Idaho, Minnesota, North Dakota, etc... are not known for warm winters. So to mitigate this and make it safe, we would have to drive south a ways before turning east, adding two or three days to the drive.

The school district can assist with some travel expenses, but they can't do it all for me. A few days worth of lodging and some of the gas expenses is about what we can expect.

I am looking at two driving options right now. One is my driving our own vehicle there and back. The other option is renting a car here and flying back from New York. I'm pretty sure the school district would be able to cover a plane ticket for me in that instance.

The biggest issues will be gas and lodging for 6-7 days. We travel cheap, so we don't need 4-star accommodations.

So that is where we are. I can afford some of the trip with the school district's help. But I can't do it all. I'm not sure what I will need in the end, but any assistance is appreciated.

Thank you.