(no subject)
It's been an insanely busy time, but somehow we are keeping our heads above water. :)
Okay, so here's the deal with Elliot's school thus far: The first day went really badly, as many of you know. The teacher was obviously not a good fit with Elliot, and we pulled him from her class. He was supposed to have a one-on-one aid, but the school was trying to pass off the classroom aid as Elliot's one-on-one (in a room with 22 kids!). Needless to say, it was not working at all. E. spent about a week and a half at home while we worked it all out.
We had a meeting with the principal and E.'s case manager about a week ago. The principal fully admitted that he had no aids for the 30+ students in his school whose IEPs (Individual Education Plan--the thing that specifies what each special needs student requires in order to learn/negotiate public school) specify a one-on-one aid. He showed us copies of emails from his higher-ups that denied his requests, and he told us we do have grounds for a lawsuit if we want to go that way. We are having a meeting w/our advocate today, to discuss what we want to do. I don't want to go the lawsuit route if we don't have to, mostly because the school system can drag this stuff out for months, and in the meantime, the kid suffers.
So, in the interim, as of last Tuesday, Elliot is attending a different Kindergarten class with a different teacher who seems more open to him. He is in the class for only one hour, and then he goes for an hour to a smaller room with a teacher who used to teach in an autism classroom. We pick him up after that second hour. So rather than make him stay for four hours, he does two, which seems to be working well. He does academic work in the Kindy class and various other activities in the other class. The goal is to gradually acclimate him to a longer time in the Kindergarten classroom (with a one-on-one aid once we get that ironed out), plus give him some time in a quieter environment with fewer kids for part of the school day because he gets overwhelmed when he's in a busy, noisy environment for a long time.
It's all such an annoying, frustrating, messy process. I don't know what we'd do without our advocate, because we would have hit a lot of brick walls without her.
The thing that makes me so fucking angry: As if we parents of special needs kids don't have enough on our plates, we have to spend large swaths of time just getting our kids basic school services. No child left behind, my ass.
--------------------------------------------
Plus! There's our anniversary at the end of this month, my mom's birthday, Carl's birthday, Elliot's birthday, my friend's wedding (in which I am playing Maid of Honor in front of THREE HUNDRED people--stage fright! stage fright!), Owen's swimming class, Elliot's ongoing private therapies, dinners to cook, laundry to do, house to keep clean, and so on and so on...
I'm not complainin', I'm just sayin'.