IEP Updates and such...

completely random unrelated photo :)

We had an IEP meeting last Wednesday in which we tweaked Dominics goals, had one added that did NOT please the school, and generally talked about his progress.

They are not happy that the Vision Therapy doc says zero screens.  After all he "should be practicing for his state test".  Kinda don't care about the test.  Seriously.  I want him to be able to read. And if VT is whats going to help that, we're going that way.  On the other hand, finances are tight and we are feeling like Dominic may be hitting the over therapized point with all the at home stuff we have ot do every day (its about an hour and 20min at this point every day) and if we have to drop the VT, we have a solid 10 exercises we could continue on our own when we decided the time was right.  He's got a re-eval next week for us to see what kind of progress we've made.

We lost our favorite para a few weeks ago when she took another job outside the school district.  She'd been with Dominic since Kindegarten and he absolutely adored her.  Very sad to lose her - and since then Dominic's behavior has been getting wonky at school.  Thats because they haven't replaced her supervision, and he's simple been expected to sit still and be quiet and listen in the classroom with no one the help him.  That doesn't work so well.  He is doing things like randomly running around the classroom...  So i made them put full supervision of SPED staff in the IEP.   It wasn't in the draft.  Tsk.

I also, as planned, insisted on a goal around sexual safety.  We are starting with incorporating social stories about appropriate boundaries and touching.  The conversation went something like this

Them: "he doesn't have social work as one of his services"
Me:  "so find somewhere else to put it"
Them "how do we make it educational?"
Me "You called me last year to tell me he kissed a girl on the playground and you are worried about education over inappropriate sexual behavior?"
Them "I just don't know where we can fit it"
Me  "Find a spot"

They finally put it under accommodations.  Rod and I both think they were not pleased that we forced it.

We will do a transitional IEP in the spring when we have sorted out what middle school he will go to.   Its important to us that he be able to have at least some of his peers with him at his new middle school, and many of the children at this elementary school will go to a different middle school that he will based upon address.   The downside would be no transportation.   Daddy is going to go visit with both schools SPED departments after Thanksgiving to see if we can get a feeling about either.    Even if we do try to choice into the one that many of his peers will be at, its not a given because they will only take Dominic if they have staffing.  So we may be stuck at the other one.  Which isn't a horrible thing.  His BFF in boyscouts will not be going to either as that family is moving potentially out of district.  So we'll see how that goes.