It’s time for another IEP meeting!

I feel like this is all I do!  Gah. 

This is our 3 year re-evaluation.  We have reports, lots of reports.  I read through all of them yesterday.  It’s a bit depressing, as usual, to read about the delays.  Obviously we’re aware he’s delayed but breaking it down to numbers is just so harsh.   In his weakest areas (expressive communication and fine motor) he’s operating at about the 2-3 year old range.  In his stronger areas (receptive communication and daily living skills) he’s at the 4-5 year range with some areas on target.   His other skills are scattered in the middle. 

So what does this mean?  Not much, actually.  We already knew he would still be eligible for special education.  We wrote an IEP and updated his goals less than 2 months ago so those shouldn’t change much.  We know what classroom he will be in.  The only things we don’t know now are 1.  who his teacher is and 2. at which school the classroom will be located. 

Neither of those unknowns will be resolved tomorrow.  The district is still interviewing teachers.  They’re planning to hire someone with dual certification so he or she can teach both the special education and mainstream portions.  The space we all thought would be used for the classroom is unavailable.  The space is currently occupied by a substantially separate classroom that the district wanted to move.  Parents objected to the proposals, for some very good reasons, so the class will not be moved until 2011 at the earliest.  

We’re a little disappointed because the school was one of our proximity schools and it has integrated grades 3-8 classrooms already established, no other school in the district is set up in this manner.  We’ll just have to see what happens.  If the parents’ concerns and the district’s concerns are reconciled it will make little difference ultimately but if things continue as they are Monkey will have to go to at least 2 and possibly 3 or 4 different schools between kindergarten and 8th grade while a typical student goes to the same school K-8.  We don’t want that.  We want him to be able to build those long term friendships with peers and teachers so that when he does go to the district high school he has those friendships to ease his transition.

But, none of these things can be addressed tomorrow, clearly.  So, we go to the meeting and hopefully get it done quickly.  I’m not terribly concerned with getting a perfect IEP this time.  Once we have a school, a teacher, a classroom and a classroom schedule then we’re going to have to fine tune it anyway.  It seems so anti-climactic.  The 3 year re-eval is supposed to be such a big deal and it’s pretty much turned out to be…meh. 

Not that I’m complaining 🙂