Meeting was today.

Shari

IsItFridayYet?
And I think it went well.

ExMIL and county case worker walked out at two separate times and both said WTH was that? Who WERE those people?

We all arrived and sped dir was late. Principal said she was tied up with something. So we all chit-chatted (the bad part of this district is most of us know each other outside of school...I guess its good and bad). Sped dir came in about 15 minutes late. She had been on the phone with the district's attorney.

He had planned to attend, however, he had a scheduling mixup and had it on his calendar for tomorrow. Sped dir then said we could hold the meeting tomorrow and he could call in, we could hold the meeting later this week and he could drive in (he's over 2 hours away), or, he was fine with us proceeding with the meeting without him. He said he didn't feel he's been needed at the last couple of meetings. :) So, sped dir deferred to me...did I want him there?

Haha! I said no, we could proceed without him.

Sped dir then asked what items I wanted to cover. She knew the schedule and extending his day. I said specifically mainstream minutes, transitions, and parade of paras. So we dug right into the schedule.

They immediately cut his mainstream minutes in half. The other "half" are set as a target, but are not to be pushed. They are as-tolerated. We got Occupational Therapist (OT) put into his schedule, and the mainstream teacher is planning her schedule such that he will be in Occupational Therapist (OT) on reading/writing days, and will schedule hands-on projects on the days he is in the classroom. :thumbsup:

Before each transition into the mainstream, he will be prepped with expectations for the period, as well as modified instructions so he hopefully won't freak out when the teacher explains directions and might direct the class to "read directions" or some of those other "trigger" words.

And all hands-on lessons in her classroom can be done with a buddy. Wee has already made friends with a new boy, and she thinks that will be his buddy.

His time in the classroom will be science, social studies, or math intervention, which will be adjusted for where he is at in math, but he can play the same games as the other kids are. He'll just be doing addition when some of the others will be on multiplication, etc.

Sped minutes will actually increase and focus on language - specifically reading.

The principal seemed ok. She didn't jump in with all the answers. She has been working to establish a rapport with Wee. Today, he wore a new shirt to school from our trip to the fair, and she asked him all about it and took the time to listen. He likes her. Misses the old one (the rest of us don't, but that's ok...that means he isn't get messages from us!), but he likes the new one. She also has military experience, so she's not flipping out about him talking about his Marine brother being so awesome. She didn't tell me that this year was going to be great, or that he's grown and better, so its a whole new ballgame, or that this teacher was the be all-end all that fixes it all. In fact, the only thing she said that the others have said previously was that he will eventually need to learn to deal with multiple people. But in no way did she mean he has to right now. (and for the record, no, it is not a requirement of any adult to be able to deal with 10-15 different "bosses" through the course of a day. There's plenty of careers he could have that wouldn't require a plethra of people...but will fight that battle when/if it comes. We made it clear there was to be no additional new people right now.) She gave creedence to the importance of continuity in people for him. She was reserved, but I don't think she jumped into this with all the answers, as most of the others have. I(we) appreciated that.

Specials are optional, but he has been attending. They do a lot of work this year playing instruments, so we will see how that goes. Art and gym have always been fine. Library has been mostly good.

He will have 1 para. She is the para that worked with other kids in the sped room where he spent almost all of last year. Since his para left, this one really is the next best choice. She has not worked with him and failed in the past, she had plenty of exposure to him last year. If they hired another new person, there would be an even bigger learning curve, so I'm ok with trying her.

Sped1 (last year's sped teacher) has already briefed the specials teachers. No more spelling games during gym or essays in art. Sped2 (the new one this year) will be working with him some as he settles in on reading, so that in the event sped1 is out, sped2 hopefully can fill in for him instead of keeping him home.

And we extend his day after labor day provided nothing goes south between now and then. Principal even laid out the plan that will be followed to ensure that its a quick process this year and isn't help up in red tape like happened last year. If all goes well til then, I get a phone call, sped1 reads the ammendment to the iep, I agree to it, and he goes longer. I would have liked to added more time to his day, but the next logical break falls on that 15 minute interval. If we add time again, the next break will be at 30 minutes, and all agreed that would be a logical next step (instead of just 15 minutes at a time, add it by logical activity.)

I'm sure I've missed something, but this was the most straight-forward, no-nonsense meeting I've had with them without the attorney, I think, ever. I'm not holding my breath. I'm not that dumb; but I do still have a flicker of hope.
 
T

TeDo

Guest
Wow. It sounds like you are definitely on a better track than last week. I will hope, pray, rattle, and pretzel that everything works the way Wee needs it to. Kudos to you!!
 

Shari

IsItFridayYet?
I know nasty-grams are not generally effective. Or even appropriate. And it remains to be seen what the ultimate outcome of this one is. County case mgr thinks the combination of the nasty-gram, which is the first time I've ever allowed myself to put any emotion into my dealing with them, and I let loose, coupled with the attorney's phone call that yes, there should have been a meeting already, it needed to be schedule ASAP, that most likely came in at about the same time, and caught someone's attention. The nasty-gram highlighted many of the things I have done over the past 3+ years that I didn't have to do in an attempt to help them help Wee - from things like testing him out of my own pocket, giving them full access and release to his docs and therapists, coordinating a visit to one of his docs for anyone on staff at school, to NEVER having to schedule an IEP meeting around me, even despite my accident, filling in for paras and teachers when someone was out, to even transporting him to and from school and not asking for a dime of reimbursement. It was a pretty lengthy list, and pointed out that my requests haven't changed much. Consistent people and planning ahead. This is the same request I've made since Wee started the early childhood program 6 years ago...to meet before school started so we could have a plan in place for him. And here we are, all this time later, my request was made in May, and it STILL hadn't happened.
I have no idea if it was effective or not. I am pretty sure it caught sped dir's attention. And we now have a schedule and a plan.
 

keista

New Member
Sounds good! Now it has to actually happen. Keeping fingers crossed that it does!

essays in art
Really? In elementary? I'm sure the other kids will be most grateful to difficult child if they find out he's the reason those got eliminated. Can see them carrying him on their shoulders now.
 
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