Fun fact: I spent 2 1/2 years as a music ed major before deciding all I really wanted to do was play my flute, and I universally hated every one of my education classes. The class that broke me and caused me to switch? Special Education For Non-Special Educators.
It took me until Julianna was in the 2nd grade to realize that class, as much as I hated it, had given me an exceptional orientation to what I was now going through—that I didn’t have stress and confusion on the process, because I’d studied it in the abstract.
The irony is not lost on me.
We had Julianna’s IEP meeting on Friday. The process begins with a summary of “present level,” which comes home in advance. I’ll be honest: usually I don’t really read it very carefully. This time, however, we were coming in with some strong opinions and so I took the time to really process those four pages of dense “special-ed-ese.” But I couldn’t help laughing at this paragraph:
And this one:
The great and ever-ambiguous “They” say you should never go to an IEP meeting alone, that you should always have someone in your corner, someone outside the family who knows you and what you want for your child. I’ve never done that, because I’ve always felt like we’re all on the same team. This time, though, Christian and I set aside the time to attend together, which isn’t normally the case. I sent an email ahead saying, “Listen, we have a lot to talk about, so can we just skim over that part where you tell me my daughter is kind and loving and enthusiastic and gets along with everyone? 🙂 ”
There was a person there this year from district administration, which was new, but I decided it probably wasn’t worth asking why when we were already pressed for time. There’s the part of the meeting where they address parents’ concerns, and I was like, “Oh, hang on, you don’t have nearly all our concerns yet.” 🙂 We had to talk about the looming onset of puberty. The fact that her STAR reading scores were completely flat the entire last school year, and that because it wasn’t in the plan, they weren’t allowed to spend time working on reading comprehension during summer school. The fact that she’s getting to the age where she notices her brothers have play dates and friends over, and she doesn’t get invited to parties or for play dates even though the kids are really good with her at school and everybody loves her, and the fact that she’s virtually incapable of having a truly interactive conversation with her peers that would facilitate those friendships.
It was a longer meeting than usual, and all our history as parents rode piggyback on the moment when, late in the meeting, Julianna’s sped coordinator said, “Now, I don’t want you to freak out when you see the minutes…” I had to chuckle: they knew us well, with our adamant and repeated insistence over the years that she be included in the regular classroom AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE for AS LONG AS POSSIBLE. They removed some physical therapy minutes for the coming year, but the addition of a whole lot of reading comprehension minutes means that her time in the regular classroom is dropping from over 70% to just about 60%.
And when the meeting ended—after an hour and a half—and the teachers hurried to get back to their neglected classes, the district representative finally explained her presence. She’s the one in charge of determining placement for kids when they enter middle school. As in, which school and what kind of classroom (i.e. self-contained).
Friday was the first time we had to face the reality not only that she might be less included in the near future, but that in the middle-future she might not be able to be included at all.
It’s a bittersweet moment, but we knew it couldn’t last forever. Her classmates are doing multiplication, and she’s still doing subtraction under 10 (and not well). Her classmates can answer questions like, “Why do you think Character A did Action B?” while she’s still struggling to answer, “WHAT did Character A do?” The gap is widening. When kids start splitting into advanced math and regular math and remedial math, how can you expect inclusion for your kid who’s still doing primary math?
It’s beyond my comprehension, this whole issue of how her mind works. I picked her up early last week in order to facilitate the afternoon madness, and so she was with me for pickup at the Catholic school. She’s only been through that pickup line a handful of times, because she gets out later than they do so she only comes if she’s sick or they’re off school. And yet she kept insisting things like, “THAT is where Nicholas is,” and “I___, you are coming with US!” (Insistently enough, I might add, that not only I___ but his teachers asked me whether it was true, rather than going on the basis of what they know! Ha!) Everything she said was true…last year. It boggles my mind that her spatial sense is so strong when so many other things aren’t just difficult, but simply don’t exist.
Well, I’m reaching epic proportions and I haven’t had breakfast yet, so I will leave off there for today and hope that this glimpse of special needs life is illuminating.
Kathleen M. Basi 