Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Epiphany! A possible solution to the coloring dilemma: use Power Point! The purpose of the map coloring should (a tricky word, I know) be to enable the students to learn the content, as we are not training our children to be illustrators. And fourth graders learned how to do power point presentations this year, so why not do a power point presentation instead of tracing and coloring a map? I don't anticipate this accommodation for Little Dude being a problem with our team, but it seems to me that this is a change that needs to be made for all students. Can you imagine Dr Adamo and his staff not doing the boundary maps electronically and literally coloring maps instead? I sure can't. So, I just need to figure out how to advocate for all of the students, not just Little Dude and not just other special needs students who need this modification.

Meanwhile, Little Dude's resource teacher is already working with the tech resource person to see about scanning forms into his neo-alpha smart and she's talked with the OT about working on the specific fine motor tasks we identified he'll need for MS. I'm going to meet with the OT and Little Dude during one of her final sessions with him this year to go over his summer program. Still need to find out about using a flash drive/memory stick on the neo to hold all of the data.

So, those are the two steps forward. Now for the one step back.
Went to the Volunteer Breakfast at school and chatted with the President of the PTA, especially about the Special Ed Advisory Committee PTA rep position. I like our PTA president; she has set a very nice tone for the school this year. I haven't noticed the gossip that has been present in previous years. We talked about the educational aspect and providing a safe, quiet space during PTA activities for students and families to use at their discretion. And then she mentioned that she thought it was nice that the special ed teachers worked with all of the students in the classroom as a way to ensure the privacy of the students getting special ed services. I. Wanted. To. Scream! This is exactly how Little Dude was denied his 30 minutes of special ed support for writing in first grade. HE needed 30 minutes of intervention; he got a walk by with a "how's it going" instead. And every single minute that the resource teacher was performing at the level of a parent volunteer, some child was not getting the services that they not only needed, but that the district was legally bound to provide. (insert scream here) This is NOT good. And this is why I'll never know if he would require the level of services that he currently receives if he had had the opportunity to benefit from the intervention that he DID NOT RECEIVE. And citing privacy as a reason to not do your job is inexcusable; any decent parent volunteer can pick out 80% of the special ed students in the first month of school.

(cool down period entered here)

I've finally learned one other lesson: least restrictive environment and most appropriate environment are not the same. It is not always beneficial to provide a child's intervention in the classroom. Writing support when the class is actually writing is the most advantageous and is not disruptive to the teacher or the other students. The OT services that should have been provided when Little Dude was in 1st and 2nd grade were not appropriately given in the classroom and I am sure that the same walk by took place resulting in no improvement. Amazing how long it takes to learn the correct questions to ask.

Middle School Visit

Well, I've been busy living my life and haven't had time to report on it! But I have to relay my experience at the middle school last Friday.

I met Little Dude's case manager/special ed teacher at the middle school Friday afternoon. I think she had been there for a meeting or two, but hadn't had the whole tour. With the two older kids, I've been to Farmwell Station, Harper Park, Eagle Ridge and Belmont Ridge, so the layout of the building was familiar. We met with the 6th grade special ed teacher/department chair to get an idea of what to expect in sixth grade so we could make any changes in fifth grade that would allow for a smooth transition to middle school. Personally, I wasn't interested in eliminating the stress that all students have when they first go to middle school and have lockers and change classes, I wanted to see what could be done to eliminate the stress of having accommodations or modifications that might not be effective in a totally different environment. I think the MS special ed teacher was probably initially wary about our visit a year in advance, but by the end of our visit I know she was our convert to our way of thinking!

There are, of course, some fine motor tasks that we have to attend to in the coming year: using a combination lock, tying shoes, and I finally admitted that he can't actually snap his slacks - he's skinny enough to slide them on and off. With the necessity of changing clothes for gym, we will have to work on these. But we had some other opportunities present themselves. One of the easiest to add to our "let's see if he can do this" list was the use of the middle school agenda. It's smaller and not particularly easy to use for a student who writes about the same size as a second grader. We're going to get an extra one from the middle school at the beginning of the year and see if, after a few months of use, he should write in it or type out his assignments and glue them into it.

The MS has some alpha smart machines in the language arts rooms, but Little Dude has his own Neo-alpha smart that will stay with him through his schooling, so we are trying to figure out how to best use this keyboarding/notebook device. If we can scan forms into it (like science experiment forms) then he can just fill them out electronically and print them off (it's wireless to the printer in his classroom now).

As we were ending our time together, we made out way back to the MS special ed teacher's office to review our list of action items. Somehow we made our way to the topic of map coloring and the MS teacher showed us a project that is typical for MS: a poster sized, colored map of North & South America with an attached report of just more than one page. This is precisely why I have required the accommodation of no grades for coloring to continue to be included on his IEP. The MS teacher expressed some frustration regarding getting teachers to modify these type of assignments for the many students that the resource teachers work with that are unable to appropriately complete the tasks required to finish these projects. I was reminded of Ms Giggles coloring maps in high school and the necessity of finding a way to modify these projects for years to come.

But we finished with all three of us realizing that our time had been well spent; we can spend fifth grade trying different strategies that will give us good information to relay at our joint elementary/middle school IEP meeting next year.

It Helps to Know Management

Got the following letter yesterday by backpack mail:
Dear.... Families,
I will assume another position on July 1, 2009. I have been appointed to serve as principal of ... Elementary in western Loudoun. I am excited to have an opportunity to open a new school however saddened to leave the children and community I know so well.
Sincerely,
...

Little Dude said the teacher read the letter to the class. I like that she waited until after this week's SOL's to give them this news. I commented to him that it would have been nice if she had written more details. What I didn't say is that it didn't take a whole piece of paper to send this out. And it wouldn't pass the 5th grade SOL writing standards. And we will have the third principal since Little Dude started kindergarten at our neighborhood school. I did remind him of how kind the principal was to him when he thought he had missed his ride after school while we had our IEP meeting.

He has strong opinions on who should be the next principal - the current Assistant Principal. But the other students in his class disagree and think it will be someone totally new. Little Dude has a close relationship with our AP. When he was younger and one of his accommodations was "frequent breaks," she would come to his classroom every day and they would go on a "security check" of the building. I love that! When we were getting reports that he wasn't finishing his lunch most days, she checked on him in the lunch room every day for about 3 years. When there was a bully problem on the bus, he went to her. As ALM likes to say, it's good to know management, and Little Dude does.

I don't presume to have any way of knowing what will happen or how a new principal will be choosen, but I have noticed one thing: our current AP is not attending Child Study or IEP meetings that are currently taking place. Is it a sign of a promotion? I hope so for Little Dude's sake.

Heard from Floggy yesterday, the car saga continues. Gramps is going to help him tow the car to the Mechanic School today. Maybe a reliable diagnosis will finally take place so we are not replacing random parts on a trial and error basis. He's still doing very well in Mechanic School and enjoying it. Hope he learns diagnosis skills!

Ms Giggles will put in a twelve hour day today, as she is working both jobs for the first time. ALM has invited a high school friend that he hasn't seen since HS over for a cookout this weekend. No games, no practices for a nice long weekend. Should be relaxing.

More on Special Ed

This is the best of the local news reports that I have found about the Park View HS special ed teacher, Dawn Marie Hamilton, who was recently referenced during a congressional hearing on restraining schoolchildren. At the time that I'm posting this there are no comments on the article, and I hope it stays that way. The comments that I have read on other sites are not only cruel and petty, but markedly uninformed. I wish more of those who have made comments had been present for the Special Education Town Hall Meeting last night.

The meeting had an interesting format: 5 speakers (3 minutes each) from the audience followed by responses from members of the panel. The moderator was Mary Kearney, Director of Special Education for LCPS. I was third, I think - not enough time to get nervous. The purpose of the meeting was to address systemic issues using personal experiences, without violating privacy. Only a group of special ed parents would agree to or understand these limitations! The main focus of my comments was on the accountability of members of the IEP team to implement the plan that the group develops. I used examples including the lack of services provided by our previous OT and of course the fiasco on Monday.

Other highlights included numerous pleas from parents and grandparents of profoundly deaf students for the improvement of American Sign Language (ASL) that is taught in the schools. Many of these speakers were very knowledgeable and some were also deaf. Most desire to see their student attend Gallaudet University, but question if that will be possible with the level of instruction that is being offered to the students. Many speakers related information about their children with autism or autism spectrum disorder; there was a wide range of satisfaction with the services and evaluation of the services being provided for these students. There were stories where parental rights were clearly disregarded and stories of IEP teams where no staff member had a special ed background, so even minimal accommodations (preferential seating) were disregarded. Parents of middle and high school students indicated that they'd had different case managers nearly every year and spent much time re-inventing the wheel each fall. Some of it was truly heartbreaking; none of it was surprising.

Before I left, I volunteered to be a Special Ed Advisory Committee PTA Representative, a job that I think will be a good fit for me. I left, once again, relieved to have such wonderful dedicated people working with my son.

The Rest of My Life
Haven't had a chance to update on all the other goings on with our family.

Woke up Saturday morning with Ms Giggles asleep in her room, but the car missing! Her purse was stolen at a party Friday night and of course the keys were in it. ALM took her over to the party site where she found the keys lying on the grass outside, but no purse. It was the only set of keys for this car as Floggy had previously lost a set. So we at least got the car home.

Bake sale made over $350 on Saturday and another $100+ on Sunday.

Ms Giggles got TWO jobs and started the first one today. She's also been to the bank to get a new debit card and the DMV to get a new driver's license.

Little Dude's comment about both the Reading & Math SOL's, "I think I aced it!"

Class Placement

We got the long division done last night (note to self: don't forget to remind the teacher, resource teacher and Little Dude that he needs graph paper for the Math SOL); we could have done a little more, but we had to redo the suffixes sheet from the night before and he had to complete last night's homework. I think I might put Little Dude on the computer with spell check to review the suffix info. Or maybe I can just convince him to think of it as one big spelling test - he excels at spelling.

There is a "Class Placement Information" sheet attached to this month's online newsletter, so I've been thinking about next year for about a week now. The form is due by June 1st and there is a request for no letters. Makes me wonder whether the administration wants input from parents, but it seems easier to ask for input in May than to have an office full of angry parents in August. Question: "What type of instructional style meets the learning style of your child?" Maybe, just maybe a better statement might be: "Describe the learning style of your child." And at what age do you stop trying to improve their weaknesses and just play to their strengths? With some students it might be obvious in high school, but didn't the rest of us pick a major (or two or three) in college?

We made the jump out of "inclusion" classes this year and hope to continue next year. Not that there won't be any other IEP students in the classroom, we are just trying to ensure that the academic bars are set high enough to continue to challenge Little Dude and keep him busy with academics so we see few behavior problems and keep feeding his brain. But not wanting a lot of down time or boredom is a common interest of parents, I think. The inclusion classes worked well for us for a number of years as it is my opinion that these are very safe classrooms with almost no bullying and a wide range of acceptable maturity levels. The down side was the wide range of academic expectations: the low bar was not at current grade level. And Little Dude is not always self-motivated.

Here are some words and phrases I have used or will use for class placement:
Creative
Happy (in general and as a teacher)
Kind
Affectionate
Strong in science
Strong in writing
Differentiates needs
Organized, but not rigid
Challenges without overwhelming
Teaches/encourages a variety of methods
Allows movement around the classroom
Doesn't use sarcasm
No long term sub
No peanut butter restrictions