More fun with IEPs

This year the girl child is in 5th grade.  Her last year in elementary school.  Excuse me while I shed a tear over that. 

Ok I'm over it.  4th grade was a year from hell.  The teacher change helped but the homework load was insane and she was just falling behind. 

After hiring an advocate, we went into this year prepared for the worst but hoping for the best.  Luckily, the girl child got a great teacher and overall organization of the 5th grade program was much better.  Even with minimal services she is doing well and having a good year.  She was the one who I felt was critical but she seems to be doing ok.

The boy child on the other hand has been struggling to get by.  Like his sister, he is very bright.  He tests in the top 2-3 percentile in everything.  But he just can't focus.  He can't keep still.  He crawls under the desk.  He wanders the school grounds.

The IEP this year included some support for writing and a behavior chart.  The goal of the behavior chart was to break the day into parts, to give us some tracking to see if some subjects were a bigger problem than others, and to reward him if he behaved in 8/10 sections.  Sometimes we get to see real gems.  Yes folks - my child is the one who had the whoopie cushion in class.  

It's only been in place for a few weeks.  We will see if it works in the long term.  With this child, things tend to work at first, then they stop working.  He keeps us all on our toes.

SO - the kids both have IEPs.  They seem to be working so far.  But we will see how they work in the long term.

And the band played on...

Last year I put in an IEP request for Mikey. I painstakingly drew up the letter using all the best advice from the web. I talked to my teacher friends.  I talked to my special ed expert friends.  I spent days writing the letter.  And after all of that effort, not to mention the fun of taking hours of my precious pto, the request was denied.  Apparently his ability was average but his achievement was all above average.  I'm still not sure how a kid with an average iq could be performing in the top percentile when he wanders around, curls up under his desk and ignores the teacher but that's all water under the bridge.  They told me they would set up a meeting to develop a 504 plan and sent us on our way.

By the spring of first grade it was obvious that he needed a lot more help than he was getting.  He was disruptive, caused issues, refused to go to lunch, wandered around the campus and was an all around pain in the butt.  His behavior escalated to the point where he wasn't learning and he was keeping other kids from learning.  After several months I emailed the school asking about the promised 504 plan meeting and we were able to get one set up.

The 504 plan coordinator was a 4th grade teacher who apparently had experience as an administrator.  I know this because she kept mentioning it over and over.  "When I was a VP at a middle school we would...." and part of me really wanted to ask why she wasn't in administration any more.  We decided that we would address Mikey's defiance with the 504 plan.  Any time he refused to do what the teacher said, he would be sent to the principals office.  The teacher mentioned that Mikey loves talking to the principal and the office staff, and he might enjoy that too much.  The coordinator said they would instruct the office staff not to talk to him.  So I'm here trying to figure out how sending the kid to the office whenever he didn't want to do his work, and not talking to him was going to address his issues in class.  It seemed like she wanted to give my 6 year old an old fashioned Amish shunning.

A week into the plan, Mikey had been in the principals office 3 times.  His behavior wasn't improving.  And he wasn't learning.  Sorry lady - it may work with 6th graders, but not 6 year olds.  At the same time, Dani's issues in school were escalating and she was in tears over her homework and school work every day.  The breaking point was the day Mikey dropped a deuce on the playground.  Yes folks -my son decided the bathroom was too smelly and somehow the pavement was a better choice.  When the principal questioned his actions, he got upset and screamed that he hated his life.  That turned into he wished he wasn't alive.  And that turned into me having to run to the school to pick up my child and sign the district suicide threat release form.  Good times here. 

So I hired a special ed advocate.  Mikey's new therapist had diagnosed him with Aspergers because he apparently has classic symptoms.  The diagnosis was helpful because it gave his behavior a name.  Even though his Aspergers is very different than Dani's Aspergers, there are a lot of pieces that are the same.  Armed with the diagnosis and the advocate I sent in the IEP request letter for Mikey again and requested a review of Dani's IEP.

It's amazing what a difference an advocate can make.  To be continued.....

Warning - Moving Facebook content here

For my Facebook friends - you will start seeing content here and on Facebook.  I hope to use this blog as a place to document and preserve the great stuff my kids do and give them something to look back at when they get older.  So - sorry for the repeats :)