Meeting with sped director this evening

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-13-2006
Meeting with sped director this evening
8
Tue, 02-06-2007 - 3:44pm

Tonight is a meeting with the special education director.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-11-2003
Tue, 02-06-2007 - 3:51pm

What a wonderful opportunity. Good luck and I hope you feel better++++++

Samantha

Samantha
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-19-2005
Tue, 02-06-2007 - 5:41pm

Good luck! And be sure to report back how it goes. Maybe I can pick up some advocacy tips!

Eric was in a very similar program for Pre-k for the last year and a half. Two years ago, they only had 4 schools with this program. This year there are 12. The trouble here is, they only have it for pre-k. It would be wonderful if they had it at all grade levels, and there is obviously the need, going from 4 to 12 programs. But not the county $$, I guess.

I worry for Eric next year when the only choice for kindy is main-stream with supports, or ASD only--but not designed especially for HF/AS, anyone with an ASD dx is together. So, to transition him with mainstream in mind, this semester he is in a co-teaching, inclusion class (mixed disabilities) just to try to get him used to a busier environment. He's doing ok, but it has been a struggle. It is not ideal. If we didn't have the knowledge of mainstream kindy hanging over our head, we would have left him in the smaller, more nurturing HFA pre-k. But we felt easing him into it was the best we could do. Don't know if this is making sense, but just wanted to say I understand your concern and it is important we parents advocate as much as we can for programs we think help.

I really hope you are successful. And if you are, tell me what you did!

Katherine

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 02-07-2007 - 12:07am

I hope HOPE HOPE it went well tonight! I so here you on this.

We have had to mickey mouse an appropriate education for Mike for the last 3 years and it has worked wonders but there is NADA for middle school. Districts are supposed to offer the full continuum of services but for kids like Mike it is RSP or special education school. Least restrictive or most restrictive. No in between.

DH and I were discussing that if they had a non-severe special day class which was for academically able students then it would be perfect. It wouldn't have to be autism specific though that would likely be the main component. Unfortunately our district lives in the dark ages as do most. Day class become synomous with learning delayed. They have not yet figured out that significant, even severe special needs can come in a form that is not learning handicapped.

Well, I will stop my rant now. Beating a dead horse and all that. Just be nice if they actually had a continuum of services but to find a district with a class like this we would have to have him commute over an hour away.

Renee

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 02-07-2007 - 12:14am

Is there a non-severe day class that is not autism specific? This was part of DH's and my discussion. I found that though not perfect, this certainly was a good option for us. Plus most of the kids in Mike's class are very typical socially or more typical than he is anyway. It made for some great opportunities for him. He is the academic star and they all helped him with the social stuff. Particularly when he was in 3rd and 4th grade and was the little guy.

It is nice because they have had social skills group with his "special class" and those kids could use social skills too but were much more advanced than Mike so they were good peers to use for this.

This year he has at least one other boy who is autistic in his class and another boy who I think is but I don't know for sure.

Anyway, DH and I both think that sometimes disability specific classrooms are not the best solution. Kind of the old fashioned lets lock them all away together mentality rather than trying to be inclusive. It is one thing to place a child and try to program based on needs but the influx of autism specific classrooms, particularly ones like this where all spectrum kids are lumped together simply based on diagnosis, seems more segregation than programming for needs. Particularly if you consider how vastly different each child on the spectrum is.

Renee

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iVillage Member
Registered: 09-13-2006
Wed, 02-07-2007 - 1:26am

Just got back from the meeting.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-28-2006
Wed, 02-07-2007 - 1:43am

I'm so glad everything sounds so good for you and your son :). It makes me want to move back to the bay area....

LOL @ the crockpot and the soap bubbles. I am not known for being the best cook around...

And I am blonde so the flake kinda goes with me hehehe

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-19-2005
Wed, 02-07-2007 - 7:19am

Thanks Renee, you described the situation perfectly. Eric's cognitive ability to learn is not the issue, it is the environment. I will need to see if there is a class like you described at his "home school" next year. Part of the issue is that the pre-k ese has lots of options, you can go to whatever school has the program you want (not all offer each). But the pre-k is somehow separate from the rest of the school system. Once they hit k you are limited to your home school. Eric has never gone to the home school bc it did not have pre-k, so I need to learn more about it.

What you describe does sound better to me. I don't think he needs the autism exclusive class, they way it is set up here. But I also don't think he will do well in mainstream, at least yet.

You are dead-on about the "dark ages" belief that special ed means learning delays to our school system. That is what they kept throwing in our faces last IEP, that his langauage scores are so good. But they seemed to ignore all the rest. We are still in the experimental stage with this class. I do like the teachers and the other NT kids are helping him. This is a "co-teaching" class. It has one sped teacher, one gen ed teacher and an aid. 20 kids. 8 are sped, varying disability. Eric is enjoying the social aspects, to a degress (he is another "social autistic" like we have so many of here) but he comes home exhausted and there have been a few espisodes of mild agression where Eric said he got angry bc "he was confused." He said he spends a lot of the day feeling "confused" and I need to talk more to the teachers.

Anyway, don't mean to go on. But you hit the nail on the head with our problem.

Katherine

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-19-2005
Wed, 02-07-2007 - 7:21am

Way to go Evelyn! I wish we had someone so enlightened in our area as your director!

Katherine