Anxious over my son's IEP meeting planned for Monday
Feeling very sad and anxious today.
Yesterday, my husband and I received our 12-yo son's latest diagnostic assessment. As his district continues to insist that he has Asperger's and is therefore much too high functioning to benefit from the supports and interventions we have asked for, and since they've completely ignored other assessments, we hired just about the most famous So Cal psychologist to do it. This woman has a reputation of winning the majority of court cases in which she appears as an expert witness.
Nothing she said surprised us at all. Here is what she said in a nutshell:
Our son is severely autistic. Also bipolar. He is three grade levels behind his NT peers. He very likely needs one to one attention academically and to facilitate socialization. She says that if this does not happen, her prediction is that he will be in residential care within 1-2 years.
She wants his district to agree to a functional behavioral assessment to determine what he can and will tolerate with respect to academic remediation and socialization.
She says it will be less expensive for the district to give him one to one attention at a regular middle school, even in a small classroom, than it would be to continue his current program at a special ed school (where there are six kids to one teacher or 12 to one teacher and one assistant teacher and where his role models have severe behavioral challenges).
While she is unhappy with his current placement, she warned me privately that a regular middle school is full of potential dangers. She asked me if we really want to risk that the next placement could actually be worse than the current one. Essentially what I think she fears is that the district could decide to sabotage him as they have in the past. If he winds up with an arrest and a juvey record, then pressure would be on Regional Center to institutionalize him, which wouldn't be coming out of the district's pocket. In fact, as long he is in the RC residential system, we would be paying potentially a very large co-pay while the district pays nothing at all.
The psychologist hopes that if we do get him into a regular school where they don't know him that we can influence his teachers to be more positive and to work harder to advocate for him. It may be worth the risk to shake things up a bit, as things have gotten stale where he is now.
He entered his special ed school more or less on grade level in all but writing and math, which were both 1-2 grade levels behind. Now, three years later, he is three years behind in all subjects. So he really hasn't gained much, if any, ground.
Is this the best that can be done for him? I sure hope not.
My son has a simular problem. As soon as he started to recieve special education, his education stopped. My son started in the second half of first grade. That is where we are at now, two years later. Our district refuses to provide extended school year services. so frusterating. It is everywhere.
Honestly, Genisa. I don't know how these people live with themselves. Obviously they can, quite easily. I'm so sorry your son is in a similar trap.
Around here, kids in special ed get ESY, but it's down to four weeks from six. Now they are talking about cutting it altogether.
I think they have convinced themselves that any lack of learning is the parents fault. They think they can do no wrong, and are never found responcible for harm they do to our kids. It isn't called physical abuse when it is them doing it. They are in extreem denile of any of their wrong doing. If they child displays the signs of abuse, they will blame the parents rather than take responsibility for their own actions. I think that when they abuse our kids, they are trying to sabotage everything, and then call CPS saying it is the parents doing it all, when in fact, it is the school. The school probably hopes that the the child is removed from the parents and therefore sent elsewhere, where the school is no longer responsible for their educaion. They whole system sucks.
however, I wont let them win. Any time we have ever had a CPS referall, it was always unfounded, however, they refused to investigate any wrongdoing on the schools part. this is a society that blames the parents for everything. Especially the moms.
My point about possible sabotage by the district would be for the district to shed financial responsibility for our son by forcing him, via juvey court, into the most restrictive placement conceivable. In no way, shape or form do I want my son institutionalized.
I do not believe I am being paranoid about this. We have already been threatened with this (by a former principal). In my sadness, I'm not explaining myself very well. Possibly teachers and administrators at a new school would give us another chance.