IEP meetings over for the year - bizarre experience

[Guest guest]

Well all, at the age of 14, going into 9th grade next year, my son with Asperger

is finally getting the special ed services he needs. He had nothing in

elementary and a 504 in jr high. The 504 came after I got a private eval done

and brought it to the school. I asked for a SPED eval in elem, but they

insisted on doing it for ED and came back empty-handed.

I say it is a bizarre experience because I have been fighting for this since the

beginning of my son's 4th grade year with great opposition from teachers/school

administration; then in the middle of this school year an assistant principal,

in consultation with a school psychologist, said he thinks my son should be

evaluated by the autism team--and in a couple of months it is done and my son

has an IEP. No oppostion at all from anyone.

I don't know what else to say! We met a few times with the autism team, then

the IEP team, and they met a few times amongst themselves; and I think the IEP

is pretty good. We made a few tweaks one final time all together as a huge

group this morning. It was pretty painless and quick.

In case anyone is curious, they are focusing on social skills (tailored to

specific things from his speech/autism evals) and planning/organization problems

due to executive dysfunction. He'll have an elective class 5 days a week where

he works on social skills and organization/planning, and he'll also have a

monitoring teacher/case manager to make sure everybody is communicating. If

this works out, I don't know what I'm going to do with all the extra time that

I'm not spending talking to teachers/administrators every day! Another thing I

really like is that they have the social skills/organization classes segregated

with autism spectrum kids in their own class. So, he won't be stuck in a class

of kids with behavioral disorders.

We turned them down for in-home parent training and aides in every class. He

will have an aide in math. Not one-on-one but shared. Turning down all the

aides was one of those things were it was a matter of looking at pros and cons.

They would have been helpful, but those classes are somewhat watered down, and

we want him to have as strong a college-prep curriculum as possible as he is

very bright. Since they have already determined that he is helped by smaller

class sizes, we can always add the aides back in if it turns out he needs them.

I think he may need one for language arts. Anyway, same goes for the in-home

parent training (for different reasons).

Turning down the in-home parent training had a lot to do with the issues we've

been discussing on list. That is, the line of thinking with certain school

staff and team members is that many of our son's problems have to do with poor

parenting rather than neurology. They weren't offering anything that would

involve working with our son, only talking to parents. I couldn't see taking

off several days off work for this " training " to be told about how my son needs

a routine. They had a list of topics that might be discussed, and I'm pretty

sure that type of thing is all it would have been. My husband didn't want to do

it because he thought it would be too intrusive, thinks maybe the school

district is looking for evidence of child abuse/neglect and could manufacture

evidence, etc. Which I think is possible too. Gee, I guess there are a few

trust issues between ourselves and the school district after all this LOL.

One advantage they gave us is that they put in his eval that they recommend he

be encouraged to continue in theater for social skills reasons. He has taken it

both years in jr high and gotten interested in it. Anyway, since they have

recommended it, I figure he is less likely to get booted out of it because of

scheduling difficulties if that ever comes up. I think they will try to work

his schedule around it. I already mentioned that they validated that he is

gifted and recommended he be put back in advanced classes with appropriate

supports, starting with one at a time. So, that is also happening.

Anyway, for those of you following our little saga, this is how it turned out.

I would say you have no idea what a load off my shoulders this is--but you do

know. Love talking to you all!

Ruth