CSE Meeting Knocks Me Out of My Chair

Now that I have had time to calm down I am ready to start writing about my CSE meeting. This is where the Committee on Special Education sits down once a year and discusses my son Handsome.

Where do I start? Well how about here, this is the post where I discuss what happened last year. Last year he was supposed to go to Kindergarten and this post tells you why I decided against it and what the Committee said.

I got the reports from all the therapists and evaluators on Wednesday. I read them each about 4 times like I have every year. Mostly I check for inconsistencies, fudged claims, changes since the evaluation and mostly ridiculousness. This years favorite ridiculousness was this statement:

"Academic Knowledge, is a sampling of Handsome's knowledge of the Sciences, history, geography, government, economics, art, music and literature". I had to laugh. What the hell were they asking him? Who was our first president. Umm...hello people he is in preschool.

Anyway, the report went on to say, "that his performance on Academic Knowledge was below that of the average student in grade K". Well, so as far as I concerned he is below because he is not in Kindergarten! Duh!

I digress, then it goes on to state "that his standard score is within the low average range for his grade and his Academic knowledge is limited". Now for my favorite part: "He will probably find similar grade-level tasks very difficult."

How the hell does this person know this? Does she have a crystal ball because if so, I could use the Pick 6 numbers for this week, I am broke. HE HAS NOT BEEN EXPOSED TO ANY OF THESE ACADEMIC SUBJECTS.

Anway, the reports showed him as 85% average. Much better than last year when he was low on 85% of the reports. Which was the reason I held him out of K this year. I put him in a 5 day a week preschool. Mostly to give him time to catch up socially and verbally. He had a speech delay which is what started the whole process. He was talking (see my speech my ass post here) but there were some folks who were saying he needed to be evaluated. Very first evaluation is here and my first meeting with the committee is here.

This meeting started 35 minutes later than it was supposed to. I walked in telling them I could only give the 25 minutes because I had to pick up my son at 12:00.

It was so rushed. They all read things on the reports out loud and I listened while keeping Goddess happy with crayons.

So, at the end, the leader of the meeting says, Ok, so we are all in agreement that he goes into self contained kindergarten?! They go around the table saying "yes". I stand as I look at the time, I have 8 minutes to get to my son's preschool on time and say as I place my bag on my shoulder and lift Goddess to my hip. "No, I do not agree. Do not put me down as a yes, I will look over these reports again and get back to you." I was livid. I said, "I wanted him mainstream, I held him back for him to go mainstream and get the opportunity to have these Kindergarten teachers. Who will be the teacher?" They tell me they have no idea yet.

I left so pissed off.

First, how dare you. No idea on the teacher! Don't even tell me that this is a possibility? The reason I held him last year was because there was no Self Contained or he would have been in Kindergarten, going into first right in September.

I am assuming that self contained (7-12 students with 3 teachers) is now available and they need to have the numbers in order to show the State why this class needed to come back.

Last year when he was "low" on his evaluations and not even showing up as a 4.2 year old on some things they fought me (see the first link) on it. Now that he is average, right where he needs to be they want him in self contained?!

Grrrr....this is not to say, I will not eventually decide on self contained. This may be the right fit for him, but I am also not ready to take mainstream Kindergarten away. Just like last year, I will sort it all out and make the best decision for HIM. Because, out of the 12 or so people on the committee I am the only one who LOVES him. September is a long way away and I see no reason to make this decision right now!!

Shhhhhhiiiittttttttttttttttttt!!!!!!!

Speech My Ass!!!

As I sit here typing up the words my little man (29 month old son) says for his speech therapist I am wondering if this is not a total waste of time. She started working with him on Monday and will be here again tomorrow. This all started because some folks that I used to hang with told me that he needed to be evaluated (not in the nicest way) to see if he qualified for Child Services due to his lack of responding to THEM. Whatever! Initially I was pissed then I figured if the services were free I would have him evaluated and take it from there. He was evaluated and qualifies for Special Instruction and Speech. I personally think they have to have a certain amount of children enrolled in order to keep the program going since it is state funded but that's just me.

He says; cheese, mama, baby, car, ball, book, arm, eye, hi, bye, Elmo, Wiggles, meow, up, ok, move, come, see, cookie, apple, eat, sissy, purple Gween (green), Bwoo (blue), Yelwow (yellow), baf (bath), milk (ilk), remote (moe), yogurt (burp-burp), balloon (bwoon), pumpkin (pumpky), outside (owside) and orange (owange), he also says: I'm ok, come on, I want ____, Let's go, I went pee-pee, I'm going to Mama, and I went pfff. I don't know and I am not an expert but I don't think this is bad. They also want him to work with scissors and use a fork and spoon. I find a lot of things they say really annoying but I am willing to go along with it as long as he benefits and I see results. The speech therapist/and the Special Instructor are going to hate me because I challenge them often. Like the speech therapist wants me to call a banana a nana. J calls it a balalala. I have been calling it a banana for 2 years and feel that changing it to nana is counter productive and I can't even try to get myself to say nana because it is silly. If he was to call it nana on his own I would have no problem with that, but to teach him nana seems like a regression to me and confusing for him. How could I change the name of it after calling it a banana for 2 years. Give me a break! She also taught him to hit his chest and say "me" when he wants something. I have no problem with that but she wanted me to have him say "me eat" when he wants to eat. Ummm...no, can't do it. What is his name Tarzan?! I told her that it was improper English (which I knew she knows) and I refuse to teach him incorrectly. It just makes more sense to do it right from the beginning. I guess time will tell.