Friday, October 30, 2009

Made it to Friday

Well, we made it to the end of the school week without incident. I was a little worried about today because David was a bit wound up this morning and today was dressup day at school. He was Buzz Lightyear and before we left for school he was going around the house pretending to punch and kick things. I am glad that he calmed down for school. Now he is relaxing on the couch watching The Clone Wars Season 1. Okay we have watched this about a million times but he is calm and relaxed so I do mind. Well, I am going to go and take advantage of the quiet time and read my book.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Classroom Observation and Emergency IEP Meeting

Well, the classroom observation shed light on a lot of things. David is left to his own devices and ends up roaming around the room when not directed to do a task. Also there is classical music playing in the background all day during school (radio station set by his teacher) even during instruction. I observed that this is a big distractor for David.

During the IEP Meeting I was able to get his spelling words reduced from 15 to 10 and he only has to write them 3 times each instead of 5. Unfortunately it was revealed that he is not getting the requried 30 minutes daily of SPED assistance that is required by his current IEP and that they were not providing him with a checklist for completed tasks. Can you say VIOLATION OF THE IEP. Looks like we are going to have to talk to the school board about this and if I don't get any results there I will have to go to the VA Board of Education.

I think the saddest thing here is that he has a teacher that doesn't want to do crap for him (yes she is the inclusion class teacher). She got mad when I brought up the checkoff list and said "well is that something I have to do." My response was "I believe so since you are the one who has your schedule of tasks for your class." Seriously if you don't want to help children they why are you a teacher....especially an inclusion class teacher.

Well we got some things changed for the better and will be having a BIP meeting soon but there is a lot that still needs to be done and it is very difficult when you have a teacher that is not on board.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Emergency IEP Meeting

As I head in for Class Room Observation and then to an Emergency IEP Meeting I am making sure all of my i's are dotted and t's are crossed. I am pissed that they haven't implemented anything from my son's IEP from last year that is suppose to run through January 2010. I don't even think that the teacher read his IEP. Being an inclusion class teacher I feel that this is a necessary task before the school year starts.

A brief synopsis...My son was diagnosed with ADHD the previous school year and over the summer was diagnosed with High Functioning Autism. WOW it makes all the sense in the world. He has the same tendencies that my brother had.

So, I've spent the majority of the day reviewing his IEP and the disability student's rights packet.

It is hard when they continually say that they try to bring him back from a meltdown. Well my thought is why are they causing the meltdown in the first place. If they seem to know what triggers it why are they antagonizing him and causing the meltdown in the first place. Why not be proactive rather than reactive and then end up calling me to come and pick him up. They are damaging his self esteem.

I guess we will see what happens during my in class observation and the meeting in the afternoon.

More to follow tomorrow