IEP tomorrow, placement next year?
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| Mon, 04-07-2008 - 9:11pm |
So we're having an IEP tomorrow am to set up Graham's full-time aide to keep him organized and on task. The consulting psychiatrist noted that his internal world kept him distracted from the external wolrd, but when he was engaged he did his work efficiently and correctly. Graham is seriously disconnected from the school environment while he's there, but with support he can tune in enough that he's passing and sometimes even exceeding expectations.
The bigger question on everyone's mind is what about next year? He'll be in 4th grade next year and the stakes will be raised again. I don't know what all my options are in terms of whether they have a self-contained classroom available or not, nor at what level that classroom functioned. But Graham has kept up this year albeit with a certain level of anxiety and angst.
I don't know if I should keep pushing for inclusion with an aide for next year or to seriously look at other options. My gut says that it's worth giving inclusion another year and that if he starts to flail, we can rescue him - but I'm not taking into account what that might do to his self-esteem, which is already pretty low. Am I taking risks with my son's welfare to let him fail a little before we back off or should I look for an easier placement for him where he might be able to relax a bit more?
I know in the end it's my call, but opinions are welcome. You might help me consider something that I hadn't thought of yet. Thanks.
Andrea

I think it is always worth knowing what the other possibilities are.
I really don't have any concrete advice, but even now at 5 I am dealing with similar issues. What option for my son ?
Sorry I didn't get a chance to reply yesterday...hope this message isn't too late.
As the others have said, it's never bad to check out all the options.
The district doesn't have any contained classrooms that would be appropriate at this time. They say they are trying to set one up because they have a handful of kids who need it, but it's not there yet. Don't know if they'll be there in time for us to take advantage of it either.
What I don't understand is that for the rest of this year they are upping his aide time to 100% or as close as that as possible but they want to start out next year back at 50% again. There was a big concern that he was 'becoming dependent' on the aide (ie refusing to do work until the aide was present) and that he was starting to take advantage of the breaks they've been allowing him to avoid doing work. Nothing has been decided in stone about next year. We'll have another meeting in May to work that out. Should I push for the 100% aide? The consulting psychiatrist recommended as much aide support as possible so I have some ammo there.
He *is* missing alot of instruction time. The math they can catch up pretty quickly, but some of the other more complicated lectures like English and Social Studies can't be repeated. Eventually that'll catch up to him. Still making him stay in class when he's obviously uncomfortable and not engaged doesn't seem worthwhile either. I wish he would just come out of his world and inhabit ours, at least during school hours! Yikes.
So, that's the update. Tune in next time...lol
Andrea
Graham
Miles
Anson