Sweet Victory!

On May 16th, I stayed home sick. On the 17th at 8 a.m. I had an IEP to go to that I was positive would be no way to reschedule should I need to cancel. Luckily, I was able to drag myself to the meeting - I felt LOTS better than the day before but had no energy for anything.
The Autism specialists from the County have been working with Therin to put in place a self-monitoring system to take the burden off of the teacher and give him the tools to keep himself on task. They reported that while Therin is a very smart boy and could be doing the school work he is unable to self monitor with the amount of time they are allowed to spend with him per week to teach him the system. Since they've seen him 3 or more days a week for a couple of hours each time during many times of the day (recess, math, reading, direct instruction, morning, afternoon, etc.) They collected A LOT of data. Therin is very smart but he doesn't do his work in the large classroom setting unless he is being prompted. The teacher is doing her absolute best to promt him and be able to teach the rest of her class. And their conclusion is that to properly teach Therin the self monitoring concepts and keep him on task for classroom learning -- he needs an aide. Then she point blank asked the District Guy "Who are you going to get to do this? This is beyond the scope of the services we provide. We will be unable to come out and be there as often as Therin needs to learn the system." In a way, it was probably good that I was sick so that I didn't stand up an whoop! The tension was so thick you could scoop it with a spork. The District Guy grudgingly agreed to an aide for Therin at 3 hours a day for a 6 week trial period. Then he signed the IEP looked at me, and tersley told me that he felt that he felt that all of the FAPE protocols had been met . . blah, blah. . . basically it seemed like a sour grapes kind of thing or a CYA kind of statement. Gee, the Autism Specialist collected data to back up what I had been saying about my son since Kindergarten! I wasn't surprised - it just ticks me off that it took so much red tape to get what my son needs. But we got it!

But it makes me wonder. . . did I get it because of all the hard work from the team of wonderful people that I'm working with? Or did it happen because Therin's teacher let slip (on purpose with my blessing) that I was looking into getting an advocate?
So when I sip from the victory cup -- there is a bit of an aftertaste -- but not enough to stop enjoying the taste.

IEP Today

I caught some kind of icky cold that's been going around and have been out of it since last Monday. Monday and Tuesday I took some sick time and slept but I still felt awful when I went back on Wednesday. I used up most of my sick time when Brenna was diagnosed so I didn't have the hours and I had to get the preparations finished for two work thingies that were going on Saturday. I carried Clorox wipes with me everywhere and wiped down phones, knobs, and computer keyboards after touching them.

I was so stressed out about work last week and so fuzzy that I forgot to go over the IEP stuff. I keep a red (Therin's favorite color) binder with everything related to IEP from the first note I got from the Preschool to pamphlets and articles on autism. I can't even remember why we're having an IEP. Therin's teacher called on Thursday evening but by the time I got home I figured it was too late to call her -- and now I'm remember it's 5 a.m. of IEP day and waaaay to early to call. Oh well, I have time to stop & chat with her when I drop Therin off.

Wish me luck! I'll be perusing the red binder until it's time to wake up the kids . . .

Insert Primal Scream Here- Prepare for incoherent rant

AHAHHHHhhhhhhhhh!!!!! Really does not cover my frustration today. I spent 2 hours in an IEP getting the reports from several people: autism specialist, OT (occupational therapist), PE Teacher, and some other behavioralist(?). Anyhow. I thought that from these reports would come something concrete about getting Therin an aide for at least part of the day. We all agreed that the teacher is overwhelmed by his behavior I don't see how changing his behavior plan and bringing in YET ANOTHER PERSON is going to help. Isn't it more expensive to be using all these people? Wouldn't it be more cost effective for him to have a shadow, aide, person to whack him upside the head and say YO Quit it that boy doesn't want a hug! He needs all this stuff and I can't be at school to do this for him (and when it comes to PE I rather suck myself. When there are behavior issues and other things going on around here my first instinct is not to teach the boy how to dribble a basketball - that important lesson has slipped through the cracks but no more!). His poor teacher was on the verge of tears. Therin has good weeks and bad weeks and the good ones are pretty good but the bad ones really make her want to tear her hair out. It has been that way for ALL HIS OTHER TEACHERS. I am so not going to give up! No child left behind my ass. He will be left behind if he doesn't have an aide and if he doesn't get an aid sooner rather than later than he will be ostsracized by the kids around him. Although, a blogger I know mentioned that her relative was shunned by many growing up and that it really turned out to be a good thing- he was recently diagnosed as an adult with an ASD. . . BUT I still want to do my part to make sure that he has every advantage I can give him. So I fucked up genetically, I can fix it. Oh, what came out of the IEP is this: Therin will continue to be pulled out of his class 2-3 times for Reading Resource and Social Skills group. He will be pulled out 2 more times for Adaptive PE, and he was going to be pulled out for the OT & autism but we worked it out that the OT will help the autism specialist and that she will come durning a break time to help him interact with other children and work on appropriate playground behaviors and maybe use the appropriate playground behaivors/games to help with his OT issues. For example: He'll be getting help with playing with a ball from PE - at recess he will be shown how to use a ball to interact with other children and when he feels the need for deep pressure stimulation, instead of exuberantly grabbing and hugging another child without permission he will hug the ball instead. Something funny I found out in the IEP is that Therin would prefer to organize his paperwork by lining it up on the floor - poor kid comes by it honestly. Out of sight -out of mind for me too. I try so damn hard to be organized and it really doesn't work very well most of the time. Sigh. I guess the IEP really turned out alright but I was under the impression that this was going to address the need for an aide not drag it out. Too bad education is all about the money instead of all about the kids.

Who are the drugs for?

At a recent IEP (individual education plan) meeting at my son's school the school Psychologist suggested putting my son on drugs to help with his condition. This is the same woman who has never observed any abnormal behavior from my son while visiting his classroom. She is one of the main people against giving him an aide to help him in class. The reason? Having an aide would be a "restrictive enviornment" and they must let him learn in the "least restrictive enviornment". Wouldn't putting him on drugs be more invasive than having a person beside him telling him that he need not pull his pants down to his knees to scratch his butt? Drugs won't change the fact that he DOESN'T GET IT. Social mistakes that other children need to do only once he will repeat until the connection in his brain is made. And that will only happen in the heat of the moment when the teacher is busy with 19 other students. I can't be there to figure out what is going on and it doesn't help for me to "talk with him" about the situation 4 hours after the fact. So I ask the question: Who are the drugs for? My son? Or the school so they don't have to spend money helping my child? Arrrgh.