I know I have been horribly absent. I’ve blown off my mood tracker completely. I haven’t even been writing as of late. A post from me is long over due. What better way to pop in than to post good news from the events of yesterday?
We have yet another IEP determination meeting for Little Bear yesterday. I know that me quoting Federal and State laws almost word for word straight from memory during the last meeting lingered with the special ed director. She did a lot of hemming and hawing and fussed over how he didn’t have an official learning disorder and pointed out how his IQ scores weren’t all that low (his verbal comprehension score of the subtest was 79 but his spatial relations score was 108 – this all gave him a combined score of 93, which is what she tried to focus on). But I made a point to bring up how I homeschool Scholar Owl now every time I see her since his IQ was too high in her book for an IEP.
She ultimately approved his IEP under “Health – Other” stating it was because he was so far behind on his reading development. She still didn’t want to approve the OT that the hospital recommended since he doesn’t really write anything yet and she wants to see samples.
I don’t fucking care. I’m satisfied in knowing that I made it clear this isn’t my first rodeo with this shit. In between these two meetings for Little Bear, we had a tri-annual meeting for Tuxedo Cat and yes, she had to be there for that so she saw me again. Both times Scholar Owl was present.
Yes, I’m holding a grudge against this woman. I still strongly believe that Scholar Owl would be performing better if he had remained in school with an IEP but she had completely shut it down and made it clear she wasn’t interested in hearing any more about it. I almost think it has nothing to do with his diagnosis or IQ, but rather his age and her lack of understanding how Bipolar fucks with a person’s head. The whole, “he was doing so well all those years until these last three.” I heard that a lot.
I do appreciate the Special Ed teacher’s support and his Kindergarten teacher’s support in this. They kept right after her and kept producing documentation she continued to claim she needed. Even with the full neuropsych eval, she tried to say it wasn’t complete and it didn’t have all the information she was looking for. I do believe if it hadn’t been for these two teachers backing me up and Little Bear’s age, he wouldn’t have gotten it.
He turns 8 years old next year and he’s only now hitting the mid-level benchmark in reading for Kindergarten.
Hell, she tried to jump on the notation that the neuropsych specialist made about one of my screenings scored in such a way as to flag me for over reporting. I told her that I wasn’t aware at the time that the screening was intended for home behavior only so I reported everything – home, what the school told me, and what the hospital had to say. So yes, I over reported his behavior. What saved me there was the fact this specialist made no effort to contact the school or the hospital for their screenings or to interview them. Even the teachers complained about that.
So he now has an IEP and I’m relieved. The Special Ed teacher asked me on the way out how I felt about it and I told her this. She asked me how I felt about how it was being written and I told her I’m not too worried about it since I know that every year we will be reviewing it and we will adjust whatever isn’t working. Right now I’m satisfied with the plan but we won’t know anything until next year. She gave me a funny smile when I said that. Maybe it’s because of the way I approach this shit?
I’m also happy that he will be put on the special transport bus since he has been written up so many times this year for unsafe behavior on the regular bus. Here is where the director surprised me and asked if I wanted to move Tuxedo Cat as well. I told her no since he has always done well on the regular bus and I think it would be best to separate the two from each other. I have the principal and the secretary to thank for their support with the bus request.
Overall, good progress. Just wish it hadn’t taken THREE YEARS to make happen.