Even before I turned the key, I could feel my stomach knotting. The van sat there like a tomb in the hot Los Angeles morning sun — scarred, waiting. I’d been dreading this moment since my alarm buzzed at 6 a.m.

The van itself had seen better decades. Worn down, reeking of stale urine, sweat and something indefinable — maybe years of accumulated desperation. Torn seats, walls decorated with graffiti and frustration. Someone had carved “FUCK THIS PLACE” into the plastic behind my seat. Every morning, I stared at those words, wondering if today I’d finally agree.

I set off on my route: 10 students, mostly boys aged 10 to 18. For “safety,” I had a behaviorist riding along — in case someone decided to jump from a moving vehicle. I’d seen this wasn’t a one-off — it had happened before.

The aide climbing into the passenger seat was already scrolling his phone, earbuds in, checked out before we’d left the lot.

“No phones during transport,” I said, keeping my voice level. “We need all eyes on the kids.”

He glanced up with barely concealed irritation. “Yeah, OK.” Back to scrolling.

I was still finishing my special-education credential, working on a preliminary permit, when I took this job at a nonpublic school. These weren’t your neighborhood kids — they were the students their home districts had sent away after exhausting every other option. Ten boys, mostly from group homes and foster care, rejected by traditional schools and placed here. And I was supposed to transport them through LA traffic before I’d even completed my training.

My graduate program — the one I’d attended nights while my son did homework beside me — had covered theories and strategies, but nothing about surviving chaos in a rolling metal box. Yet here I was, keys in hand, essentially operating without a manual.

I pressed the gas. The van lurched forward.

Then Diego started pounding.

Not tapping the window. Not even knocking. Full-force hammering with both fists that made the entire van shudder. The sound crashed through my skull like a sledgehammer.

“I want out! Let me out! I WANT OUT!”

“Diego, stop!” My voice cracked.

Diego switched to his shoe, the sole smacking glass with sickening thuds. “LET ME OUT OF THIS FUCKING VAN!”

“Do something!” I pleaded with the behaviorist. “The window’s going to shatter!”

“Safety glass. It’ll hold.”

Safety glass. I wasn’t convinced. Any second: explosion, splinters everywhere, kids screaming and bleeding while I fought to control a van full of passengers barreling down a busy street.

I can’t do this. I’m going to die in this van. We’re all going to die.

Tuesday: Marcus lunged for the emergency exit while we rolled through traffic. The red handle jerked upward in my rearview mirror, and ice flooded my veins.

“I’m walking home!” He yanked harder.

I pictured his small body on asphalt, cars speeding past. Swerving onto the shoulder, horns screaming behind us, my hands shaking so violently I could barely steer.

“Marcus, step back!” The behaviorist called from his seat but didn’t budge.

“Help him!” My voice shattered. “PLEASE!”

“I can’t use physical restraint without authorization.”

“He could be killed!”

Finally, reluctantly, the aide unbuckled and shuffled toward the back. Marcus still gripped the handle, face twisted with desperation.

“I wanna walk! Twenty miles, I don’t care! I hate this van! I hate everything!”

At that moment, I recognized something in his face — a kid on the absolute edge, ready to throw himself into traffic rather than stay trapped.

“I know you hate it,” I said quietly. “I hate it, too. But we’re getting through this together.”

Something in my tone reached him. His grip loosened.

What sustained me through the darkest moments was stubborn Midwest grit and desperate financial need. As a single mom barely holding onto the home I’d fought to buy — money tight, fridge often empty — walking away wasn’t an option.

My father’s lessons echoed: Get a job, rely on yourself, be tough — the world doesn’t give handouts. Those deeply embedded threads of self-reliance became my lifeline. When everything inside screamed to quit, those early lessons whispered to stay.

Most mornings required a brutal pep talk just to leave the house: You have no choice. Make this work.

Friday night, I called my sister, who taught at a private school in the Midwest.

“I can’t do this anymore,” I whispered from my dark kitchen. “I’m losing my mind.”

“I can’t. I need this job.”

“You need to stay alive more than you need this job.”

But it wasn’t simple. Deep down, I started to sense that these students and I were kindred spirits — both hanging on desperately, trying to find our way. Behaviorists saw them as problems to manage. The district saw numbers on spreadsheets. I saw children being failed by every system meant to protect them.

No one warns you that most new special-education teachers don’t survive five years. Maybe that statistic doesn’t belong on glossy program brochures with hefty tuition tags. The chasm between training and reality wasn’t just frustrating — it was dangerous, leaving me scrambling daily to construct systems I’d never learned, improvising under pressure, praying nothing would implode.

So I stayed. Where was I gonna go? I’d just spent thousands on this new career. Every morning, I climbed into that battered van — my rolling coffin — turned the key and prayed we’d all reach school alive.

By the time I pulled up to our destination each morning, my hands shook against the steering wheel. The school sat like a fortress at the top of weathered steps: a pink stucco annex attached to a church. Inside that makeshift building were five cramped classrooms lined with dim corridors. Scarred desks carved with years of graffiti.

And something no one had mentioned during interviews: containment rooms tucked behind classroom closets — bare spaces barely larger than closets themselves, single flickering bulbs, burly behaviorists stationed outside while students inside screamed, kicked and banged.

The sounds were maddening: raw desperation mixed with fear. The smell — sharp, unmistakable urine when a child finally lost control.

I realized quickly this wasn’t about education. It was about containment and management.

The van had just been the beginning.

I stayed 20 years. I worked my way from that battered van to SELPA (Special Education Local Plan Area) director, overseeing services for thousands of students. I attended monthly meetings with 60-plus California SELPA directors — every district in the state represented in one room.

What I witnessed wasn’t isolated dysfunction. It was a playbook. Districts manufacturing budget crises while paying consultants $285 per hour. Students’ success was used as justification to cut their services. Compliance violations were so routine they only mattered when someone documented them. And administrators who spoke up? We got “restructured.”

I documented everything. Published editorials. Presented evidence to board members. When I refused to stay silent, the retaliation took a toll on my health that I’m still recovering from.

But I’m still here. And I won’t stop writing about what I saw behind that classroom door — what special-education teachers really do.

Sally Iverson served over 20 years in California’s special-education system, from classroom teacher to SELPA director. She is the author of ”THE UNLIKELY TEACHER: Down the Rabbit Hole of Special Education” (She Writes Press, April 2027). This essay is adapted from that book.

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