I shot an email off week before last to the school counselor to find out when we would meet to discuss progress on his IEP and start making plans for next year.
One of the things we talked about the last meeting came up in her reply email, and so now push has come to shove and we need to make some decisions.
Kinder started horribly for my son. I had worked hard to identify what his day would look like and help him to have reasonable expectations that the school then blew out of the water when they changed him from one teacher and one classroom to another teacher and another classroom, and then screwed up on his bus not just once but twice, and none of that really helped me get off on the right foot with the school, either. Its not always fun to be the "that parent," but sometimes its useful.
The year has flown by, and while he's made tremendous progress, there's a long way to go. Our IEP goals were extremely basic:
Follow directions two out of three times
Limit disruptions in the classroom
Join activity without continuous teacher prompting
Use kind words toward others
By the marking period mid year, his official progress toward goal was a "P" meaning he was making good progress, the objectives were not yet met but there was a reasonable expectation that they would be.
BUT. That doesn't mean he's ready to move on to first grade.
Even if he meets the goals for the year, there are still concerns as to whether he has the stamina to do full-day school. He has more good days than bad days, but his ability to rebound from setbacks is very limited. In kinder, a bad morning means he only has to hold it together or have an adult observer to stay with him for a short time until he can get on the bus and go to aftercare. Full day school would be a much different animal.
I'm not sure where we're going to end up next year. I have no idea what the team is going to recommend and honestly, right now, I'm not sure what it is that I think needs to happen. My next steps are to understand what the options truly are -- and then look at him objectively and determine where his needs will best be met. Would he repeat kindergarten? Enter a special program where he was in the regular classroom part of the day and in resource room the rest of the day? Do half day of regular school and go to his aftercare group for the rest of the day?
I want to be able to send him into the next school year with a much better start than we had this year. I think things wouldn't have been so bad for him if the school year hadn't been so screwed up from the get-go. I think next year will go better if we, as a team, do a better job of helping him to know what will happen and then make sure things go reasonably within expectations.
Its a lot to think about, and I really need to get this one right.
