Hey all, I figured I should update on where we stand, it’s been a while since I’ve commented on the situation.
First, no decisions have been made. Duhdee and I have toured an integrated classroom at the Beverly School for the Deaf and a substantially separate classroom and an integrated classroom in the Cambridge Public Schools. Our first choice is the Beverly classroom, second choice is the integrated classroom at Cambridge. There is no third choice for us.
All but one of the evaluations that are being done by Cambridge are done. We have one more on Monday for assistive technology. The results so far are exactly what we expected since they relied heavily on our reports and on the EI reports. Monkey just isn’t a kid that a stranger can walk in and try to test so they did few actual “tests.” He has been determined eligible for special education, which was really a given but they have to work through their “process.”
At the next meeting we will start working on a draft IEP. We know he’s going to need PT, OT, ST and special education (they will have to modify the way information is presented for him to learn it.) We’ve been working with an advocate and she has been awesome. She has walked us through an IEP so we had our own draft/outline which we presented to the team at the last meeting. They seemed to agree with our suggestions at first glance so we’re hoping they will use our outline to prepare their draft.
After we get the “program” we want for him written THEN we’ll talk about placement. The CPS ST and the team leader are going to visit the Beverly program next week to see what they have to offer. We are cautiously optimistic that they (at least the ST) will be willing to send him to that school. If not, then we will have to discuss the need for an aid and which classroom in Cambridge he’ll attend.