OT: life of Mom update

off kilter quilter @somewherequiet.net a écrit :

Sympathies for that larisa, I to have been fighting the school system this side of the pond. Our 13 yr old has just made it to senior school/ college as it is here but they aen't making much allowance for his dysphasia yet, they will when I get them sorted out!!! ( mean glint in eye)

After 4 days of school he is now off with a temp. of 39°C and so far the doctor has prescribed paracetomol and a nasal rinse, if there is no change in 3 days came back!! meanwhile he is missing the start of the year and stressed about it whilst ill. We keep telling him not to worry but he's a stresser !!!

Claire in Montréal France

"off kilter quilter @somewherequiet.net" wrote in message > Anyway, I was trying to explain to the committee that Thomas has come

The truth is that the school is REQUIRED to meet his needs. Threaten legal action. They will meet his needs, trust me.

My mother (sp ed teacher with oh..50 years experience) has a job teaching TWO children for a school district who was not providing proper education for them. those parents threatened with lawyers and the school called my mother and begged her to take this job (she was really retired).

Wow, I got tired reading all that, Larisa! Glad to hear all is well and DS is getting the challenge he needs :)

It seems to me the school is required by law to address his needs, though...?=20

-Irene

I agree, threaten the school to talk with your lawyer. I am a teacher and the SPED department seems to have it all backwards. The don't want to put your son in higher level classes where appropriate and then want to put a down's child in my computer class learning microsoft office when she can't read at the second grade level. I try but it is so frustrating.

Be the squeaky wheel. Have your ducks all in a row with what you want and expect, demand a time-line with specific stated dates and what will happen on those dates, everyone signs it and it is dated, stay calm and eve- tempered and know your stuff. Do your homework and lay it out when they say there isn't anything to be done, they can't do anything else or they shrug their shoulders. Prove them wrong. That have extra release time and extra aides to deal with the paperwork so they can get it done. What else is the annual review for. If progress hasn't been made since the previous review, then obviously things need to be changed since what was planned last year didn't work. Time to try something new.

I've been their with Bert's sons since they asked me to come along with Bert and their mom to the IEP meetings. Boy, did they glare at me from under their eyebrows. I knew the game and called them on it and asked the boys what would help them and how they thought it could be done and what time-line they thought would work and what their final goal was. When that all happened in front of the IEP team I had them backed into a corner.

I would bet most anything that most of your sons behavior difficulties are probably the result of him being bored, especially seeing some of his scores. People often forget that SPED is also there for those that achieve at higher levels and they can have services as well. You just have to recognize and use what is available. Could your son be in higher grade level classroom for certain subjects. Besides him being challenged more, he might also feel like the big cheese for being able to go off and learn with the big kids and I could easily see good behavior skyrocket.

Lastly, get copies of everything. You have that right. Take it somewhere else for an evaluation as well if you see fit. Remember, as much as some parents may exasperate us at times, we are your employees. Your children are our clients. Customer service should be at the highest quality. Demand it.

Steven Alaska

"off kilter quilter @somewherequiet.net" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@r34g2000hsd.googlegroups.com... Well, since I hadn't written anything regarding project progress, I figured I'd update both of my favorite groups at once.

School started 8/20 and both children are adjusting well, as is mom now that I have 3 mornings to do "my" stuff. Last week, DS came home with a fever that went up to 104.7......visit to ER resulted in 4 hours of waiting and nothing else. fever never went down, took him to walk-in hours on Friday, and they said to keep him home throughout the weekend and come back in on Monday if his fever hadn't broken. Well, he's back at school and doing fairly well.

This week, it's DDs turn to get sick. She left school early yesterday with a fever of 102, and it went back up to 104.6 last night. She is complaining about her head hurting, throat feels icky, and she had the shakes this morning when she tried to hold her juice cup. Into walk- in hours with her, did a strep test (actually 2...the quick test and the longer one). Quick test came back negative, but the longer test might come back positive. She's on the couch with juice and apple sauce and we're waiting for the jello to be ready.

So.....Mom is running around like a loon trying to take care of everyone else. Except for MOnday....Monday I almost got into a fight at DSs school because the IEP committee refused (again) to listen to me. His IEP has been renewed for another year and they also did his triannual review. Ok, that wouldn't have been a problem, except that the school psychologist that was at the meeting never even took 5 minutes to talk with DS, and her "notes" on the meeting were simply direct quotes from his 4 year old evaluation!!!! The spec. ed teacher wanted to drop his IEP because she feels that he does NOT have a disability that interferes with his learning, and his regular classroom teacher said that she honestly feels that he is bored with his classwork, but she has yet to take the time to find extra work for him. They *DID* listen to me when I said he still seems to have auditory processing issues and they will be giving him an OT evaluation to see if he still has auditory issues under his SID diagnosis, though he seems to have outgrown the other issues.

Anyway, I was trying to explain to the committee that Thomas has come home repeatedly complaining about how his classwork is stupid because he already knows how to do the work that they are giving him. They continue to refuse to listen and have also refused to test him to see if he needs to be in more advanced classes. Well, this time around, Mom was tired of it. I went to a local educational supply store and bought him a couple of science books, math books, reading comprehension book, and simply because he asked for it, a cursive handwriting book. He has a folder for each subject, and when he finishes the assigned schoolwork, he can get one of those folders and work on the different lessons that I have sent in. This takes the responsibility off the teacher and school, which is extremely annoying to Ken and me (after all, our tax dollars go to support this school and they do get help based on the number of students with IEP or 504 plans). However, if the school isn't going to meet his needs, I will.

Yesterday, after I had my nutritionist meeting (down to 171 pounds..woohoo) and met with DSs counselor to ask her for direction and help since the school doesn't want to test DS, I decided to head to the county school board. Yes, I was more than a little ticked off, and this was a day after the meeting!!! I spoke with the differentiation specialist about DS and how the school was handling the situation - they would rather try to address his behavior issues than try to find the underlying cause(s). The lady I spoke with said that she will get in touch with the coordinator at DSs school and will get back to me by the end of the month. SHe will either have info regarding WHEN they will test DS or will have his test results.

Yesterday afternoon, DSs teacher called to let me know what DSs PALS test vocabulary scores were. The PALS vocab test determines what grade level reading group they will be in. To be at a certain grade level, a student needs to know 15 out of 20 words at that level. DS blew away ALL the words at the 4th grade level, knew 14 out ouf 20 at

5th grade, and 13 out of 20 at 6th grade!!! She also said that by the end of the year, he will probably be beyond 6th grade level.

Needless to say, I haven't been doing a lot of quilting or apparel sewing, or even taking my nice long soaks and shaving my legs, but the family isn't falling apart, so I'm good.

When I talked to Mother about all of this, she told me that this, my tenacity in forcing the "system" to address my child's needs and abilities, is one of the things that she is proud of me for :-) Then she talked to DS....it was a little odd because he didn't understand that I could be on the phone at the same time he was on the phone talking to his grandmother. MOther said that she thought I was probably in the garage, which I was, and then she asked where DS was....I told her in the kitchen. SHe asked DS and when he said he was in the kitchen, her response was, wow, you're mom was right.....DS responded with, "She always is!" I was more than a bit speechless at that.

Anyway, that's my life as it has been for the past few weeks. I have

11 more pounds to lose before the nutritionist will be happy with me. DH is losing weight and following the diet plan that we have in place (balanced meals and not as many junk meals during the week). The children are getting their work done and gaining weight slowly, and the pets are just being themselves.

I'm slowly getting the sewing room reorganized so that I can actually work in there. I've figured out that I need to rotate projects so that I can actually get things done, but before I can do that, I have to clean out all the stuff that I no longer need in there.

I'll try to get some more projects done and pictures posted.....I've moved everything over to Flickr now, so once I get things settled, I'll update everything and post the new link.

Larisa, tired, icky feeling, but still alive

Yes they are. They are choosing NOT to listen to me, which is why I took it to the school board. If there are no changes within the next month or so, I will continue and take it to the Dept. of Education in Richmond. I'm not giving up no matter what

Larisa

Good for you. And take special heed of Steve's advice. He knows the system and how to prod it into action.

Good luck! I have a prayer wheel spinning for you!

Melinda, we have considered this option and talked with several people who homeschool. It's not that I'm scared to do it or afraid that I will encounter a topic that I can't handle. The bottom line is that DS and I have personalities that are almost identical. Because of that, if I tried to homeschool him, we would have continual, never- ending battles of will and would probably both end up with some residual emotional damage.

The thing is, we pay our school taxes and such for him to receive the services that he needs. I'll be damned if they are going to just look at him as another face, and just one more child to spend time with. They *will* test him and have him placed where he needs to be, and they WILL start listening to me when we have these meetings.....I don't make idle threats, and I have already talked with people at the school and at the school board and let them know that if this wasn't handled appropriately at the local level, I would take it to the state level.....I don't think they doubt me because there have been other (more trivial issues) that I have questioned and then dealt with in order to get results. My fear is that they will take out their feelings about me on my son. Should that happen, I don't think the school, or at least the people involved, will recover from the storm that will develop - local papers, television stations, etc are more than happy to cover issues involving education . Plus, Dad is a lawyer, who can practice in VA if he has to....not going to let them know that until we have to (if we have to).

Steve,

Thank you for your response. I read the entire thing to my hubby and he is glad that I have support from a teacher since that is where I am getting some of the problems (from one of DSs teachers). I have kept copies of ALL IEP paperwork and all testing results - in fact, each family member has a binder with medical paperwork, evaluations that have been done, etc. That way I have everything in one spot when I have to go to meetings like this.

Have to go be nurse mommy for my DD who is still a little sick,

Larisa

You are VERY wise to recognise this. My mum and I are the same! Love each other dearly, but please do not make us share a house! :D

You pay, so you are entitled. Get with it!

We were SO lucky to have a school that realized James needed help when he did and got it for him as soon as they could: just a little extra help made a HUGE difference.

off kilter quilter @somewherequiet.net wrote: >

Well, I am glad to know that you have been willing to at least consider it. If the point ever comes that you feel that it is hopeless to get him a good education at school or he is frustrated to the point where he wants to drop out, then at least that option will be open

Melinda, who is notorious for a lack of patience but who HSed four children, including her oldest, who has ADD, cognitive thinking difficulties, one of the worst phlegmatic natures she has ever seen, possibly bipolar disorder, and maybe something on the way toward the austistic spectrum, because as hard as it was to teach him and make sure he learned, she was convinced that he would have done tons worse if he had been in the local cruddy school district