positives and negatives for this year
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| Tue, 08-02-2005 - 1:50pm |
We got a call yesterday from one of Weston's teachers for this year. Yes, one of.... He'll be having 3 teachers besides his OT and ST. this worries me. he's only in the 4th grade.
On the positive, his homeroom teacher and his Language Arts and Reading teacher both have experience w/ kids on the spectrum, esp HFA kids. Both of these teachers are pleasant, calm, upbeat women. Weston responds best to women, esp calm, upbeat women. His math teacher will be a man-- also very calm and soft spoken and very into Green Bay Packers (one of Weston's favorite teams). On the negative, Weston will not have a desk of his own this year, because they will switch he'll have 3 different desks and other students will have to share his. That means he will have LOTS of transitions during the day, hopefully, he'll handle these well and they will be a welcome break w/o too much trauma. Weston will be the only one that will leave his class to go to this math class because he has tested into the honors/gifted math. They wanted him to have these other two teachers due to their experience but these teachers don't have any of the other gifted kids.
So, we went in today and met them-- we may go back in next Wednesday (the day before school starts) and tour the rooms again so he's really comfortable. Weston seemed to be ok talking to them today. He does have one girl from our church in his class (homeroom and LA/reading) so that will be helpful, she also is in children's choir w/ Weston and likes to look out for him.
I am concerned that they will not be very organized the first couple of days and he'll be off to a negative start.
Betsy

It never ceases to amaze me why they think this is a good idea for any elementary child, never mind one with ASD. They did this in our school last year but it was the same teachers and it was possible to be with the same teacher all day but you may not be in the right ability level class. Is that possible for you.
Cait and Mike both had to do that last year and both were not successful at it. Mike can't handle that much change/transitions and it was a big part of why he ended up in full day special day class. However, Mike's inability to transition and handle multiple teachers/classmates is extreme. It is probably his biggest area of need so it is very possible Weston will do better than he did.
Cait it was only for Math. She tested into the high math class as well. It wasn't so much not being able to transition as far as rigidity as it was lack of organizational skills. She just couldn't get from one class to the other, get all her things there and get her brain ready to learn. She was so stressed about the transitions that she would stop working 30 minutes before the transition to try to prepare herself for the next activity so she wouldn't be late. Her work wasnt finished, it was lost, etc.
What we did for Cait was instead of changing classes she stayed with her homeroom teacher for Math. It was a lower ability group than her testing showed she should be able to handle, but it ended up being hard enough for her anyway. Cait tests well but has a hard time with the actual work so she barely kept up with the lower class anyway.
Will Weston have his own aide to help him with the transitions? If not I would either request an aide or request he stay with one teacher for the day.
The other thought is request a 30 day IEP as soon as the school year starts to review how he is doing at that time. Then you can make changes as neccessary.
Renee
Renee always gives good advice.