damage to school relationship-long

[Guest guest]

Hi All -

Weird goings-on here in Josh-land.  For those who have been online, you probably

remember that I've talked about Josh and his " fight " response (as opposed to the

" flight " response) to sensory stuff/overwhelming sensory input/etc.  Josh has

always done that and we/I have always been able to talk to teachers about it and

come up with strategies to minimize it or, in most school years, eliminate it. 

It takes time, but it works.  This year, there was something that happened

during the Fall and I have yet to find out exactly what it was.  Josh had an

extraordinarily difficult time afterward - he was even having nightmares and

getting up in the morning saying " tummy hurt, I stay home, Mommy stay home. "  

Obviously something was not right on the school front.  I had gotten word from

Josh's bus driver that one of the classroom aides had pulled Josh off the bus

one morning - the principal had come on the bus causing all the kids to bunch up

right by

Josh's seat and, with Josh's space issues and the change in routine, he pulled

a girl's hair.  The aide on the bus said he could have handled the whole thing

just fine but the classroom aide jumped on the bus, pulled Josh off, and stood

outside the bus yelling at him face to face.  Of course, the principal denied

anything like that happening, and the classroom aide said it simply didn't

happen and he had no problems with Josh.  The bus driver, on the other hand,

said she was so upset by it that she was practically in tears by the time she

returned the bus to the garage, and the bus aide said he was so disturbed and

appalled by how the other aide handled things that he was furious.  I called a

meeting. I said, by the time the meeting took place, I didn't care what happened

really since there were so many different versions of what happened coming my

way and there was no way to really know.  What I did care about was it not

happening again so we

talked about strategies, etc.  I also said that the classroom aide should not

be near Josh unless he does something major to change how he deals with my son. 

The aide still is working with Josh.  The bus driver was pulled off the route. 

Go figure.

There was also a conversation with Josh's teacher that I had last Fall where she

said Josh was acting out so much that it took two people to hold him down. 

Gotta tell ya, Josh has never acted out like that - never!  So my gut was

telling me that they simply didn't have a clue what to do with Josh.  We had

another meeting and reviewed strategies, methods, words, trigger words, how to

understand " Josh-speak, "  all of that. 

School decided it was necessary to do a functional behavior analysis.  OK, I'm

all for that, let's work together to come up with a plan and actually write down

the strategies we had discussed and others.  My ex and I also said we would take

Josh to a therapist/counselor to see what that private sector professional could

add to the mix.  After every session, I would (and still do - the ex has yet to

participate in the sessions) send long emails detailing all the ideas and

suggestions from the counselor - none of them were ever  implemented at school -

it was always " well we haven't.... "   I take part of that back, school did try

one or two ideas but determined they were not working (OK, Josh processes things

in his own time - a week or two trying a strategy is not enough for Josh to

internalize it and learn it) so stopped doing the couple they tried after only a

couple of attempts.

Holiday break came in - absolutely no more nightmares, Josh did great over the

holiday season, we had tons of fun and did some school work along the way. 

School started in January and things were good for a couple of weeks.  Then Josh

started with the " tummy hurt " thing again, or his head hurt, or whatever (there

is nothing physically wrong that would cause any of that).

We had our p-t conference two weeks ago.  Josh has progressed in math and

literacy skills, but has regressed in social and self-help skills.  Hhhmmm... 

They also presented us with the functional behavior analysis and behavior plan. 

The assessment, from my understanding, was supposed to be across environments -

take into account things from home, sleep patterns, school things, curriculum

things, and so on.  Nope.  This assessment pretty much said Josh is hitting. 

Period.  Oh, it did say when and where.  Pretty much nothing about all the

circumstances that surround an incident, no mention (that I can recall) in the

analysis of Josh having sensory integration dysfunction and cognitive delays

(along with the apraxia, global dyspraxia, and so on).  We finished talking

about the analysis - the ex sucked up and said he was really impressed with the

assessment and thought they did a marvelous job.  The plan included different

behaviors that they

wanted to stop and, under each one, a series of methods for dealing with the

behavior.  For example, under hitting, there was a continuum from pretty much

saying cut it out, to blocking him from view of the other kids with a movable

baffle (there were also things like holding his hands, to using a " wrong hands "

card that was put on his desk and the baffle put up - you get the idea.)  We

talked about some of the various strategies/methods for the various behaviors,

and moved on to another subject (whether to send Josh to jr. h.s. a year early

so he'd be there for 3 years instead of 2 - can help him with the transition and

then the transition to h.s. later but he is pretty immature so the decision is

difficult).  We never talked about the last page of the behavior plan.  During

the course of the conference, the PT and OT both had constructive input, the

school psych was diplomatic and had good input, the teacher limited her comments

to academic

assessment results, school principal had opinion on jr h.s. (he thinks extra

year would be good for a kid with Josh's particular needs), speech therapist

didn't say a word, and school social worker said a couple of things but I can't

remember what they were.

The ex and I left the conference, went our separate ways, and we both happened

to look at the last page of the plan and were both horrified.  The last strategy

was  that if staff and teacher believe Josh is a danger or harm to himself or

other kids, they can use " CPI restraints and holds. " OMG!!!  If you don't know

what those are, plug that phrase into the search engine.  You'll be horrified as

well.  So, I went to bridges4kids.org and found a " no-restraint " letter

(wrightslaw has the same letter).   I did put in the letter that I didn't think

the assessment was done as fully and adequately as it should have been and, if

the Dist. agreed, it could consider the letter as consent to conduct another

assessment that would include input from the ex and me, and be done across

environments and times.  The ex and I both signed it.  I mailed the letter to

the heads of special ed for the district and the school principal.  (oh, during

all this,

I've been working with the head of special ed to arrange a visit to the jr h.s.

Josh would go to - I started out gung ho on the idea because of the extra

transition time but now I'm really torn on the issue and want to see firsthand

what it would be like; the ex is adamantly opposed because of Josh's maturity

level but has said he doesn't want to be " obstructionist " and would go along

with whatever Josh's teacher and the school psychologist said because " they

would be most objective " - I seem to be getting along fine with the head of

special ed even in light of my no-restraint letter.)

Well, the teacher is now either not communicating with me or is minimally/snippy

in her communications.  She wrote on Monday that Josh went to OT/PT (it's a

combined group thing that the ex and I never thought was appropriate for Josh

but couldn't get the Dist to give him what he was supposed to have which was 1:1

OT and 1:1 PT - the 1:1 OT finally started in October - after fighting for

sensory based OT for over a year, and 1:1 PT just started yesterday after the PT

" reluctantly " decided the group thing wasn't working for Josh - duh!), he hit

someone and then laid down on the floor refusing to participate.  In the margin

of the notebook, I wrote " How was it handled? " and " What was the activity? " and

another question that I can't remember right now.  Her response was " We followed

the behavior plan. "   I was livid but calmed down before I wrote back that

perhaps I didn't ask the question properly since the behavior plan shows a

continuum of methods and

I was wondering which method was used, and that I would like to know so that I

can get a better handle on just what Josh's behaviors are and whether the

methods are being successful.  She wrote back that if I read the behavior plan

it would show 7 different strategies for dealing with Josh hitting and they

have, a lot of the time, success with method #1 (the least invasive/restrictive)

although they use different ones depending on Josh's mood. 

So, I thanked her for letting me know, that it means a lot to understand the

situation (as if her response actually answered the question I posed).  No

communication from her Wed., yesterday, or today even though there were things

that I had written to her that would have prompted a response (totally not

behavior stuff - a funny thing that happened with Josh, notice that the ex was

picking him up yesterday for a visit, an apology for sending an oversized book

for a book thing they were doing today, wishing a good weekend, that kind of

thing).  I'm thinking the relationship with the teacher, what there was of one,

has now gone down the toilet.

Anyone have any suggestions or comments on any of this?  I would ask for a

meeting but the state standardized testing is starting on Monday and I know

everyone at school is stressing out about it and I don't think I should add to

the stress level - testing will be over soon enough.  I'm really at my wit's end

with all of this so I'm open to all suggestions (including ones that include " go

get a massage and relax! " LOL!)

Thanks for listening!

Sherry and Josh