Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Small Victories...

I have been all a-panic lately with Aiden's schooling. Since Aiden has Asperger's he currently attends a program at one of the public schools in our town specifically for children on the Autism Spectrum. However, there are only six kids in his class and all are very 'low' functioning. We decided half way through the year that this wasn't an ideal situation for him, and he moved into a mainstreamed full day kindergarten class at that school. He still received his services, and they actually added some specifically to his IEP that were included with the Insights Program but were never written on his original IEP.

We were told a few months ago (March) to put him in the lottery for Full Day Kindergarten at our district school. He would still get his services, but would just be in his home based school so that he could take the regular bus and make friends with 'neighborhood' kids. However, we didn't 'win' that lottery and he was put on the wait list...number 20 to be exact, which means we would never get him into full day Kindergarten there.

So that is why I've been freaking out. There's NO WAY he could do a half day and still get PT, OT, Speech and Social Emotional therapies. And learn? He'd be spending his day going from one therapist to another, which is just kinda insane right? I was certain our current school was giving us the boot. He is an expensive boy when it comes down to it and the word 'budget' was being thrown in my face far too frequently. There's no room, there's no money, there's no program...blah blah blah...making me just really want to punch someone in the face.

Today we had an IEP meeting to add PT to his current IEP and to continue or previous discussion on what to do about next year. I had been in contact with the school, toured the school, written letters to the school and it had all been "We'll talk about it at his meeting" with no one giving me a clue that they had any idea what to do with my kid besides throw him on the street and decide he was another schools 'problem'. Obviously this isn't the case, but that is where a momma's mind goes...you gotta be prepared for the worst case scenario right?

So, he will be staying at his current school. Attending a half day kindergarten program and be fully mainstreamed, no pull outs for therapy. His Aid will come in with him during English Language Arts and Math every day and help him one to one as he does the things the rest of the class does - he needs help with processing and repeated direction. He will then attend the other half of the day back into the INSIGHTS program that he started the school year in. During this time is when he will receive his OT, PT, Speech and social emotional group therapies. Hooray~ they aren't throwing us on the street! Haha...okay I'm upset with myself for thinking that but whatever.

Anyhow, I have to comment on the victory. It's nice to know that 1)I'm not crazy in thinking my son needs help and 2)he's actually going to get it.

Now to get him HippoTherapy and get the insurance company to pay for it... :D

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