Not only did we have concrete facts to show that Emma wasn’t progressing, we had her anxiety about school as well.  And on top of that, I witnessed lots of “little things” that just added up and created one very unhappy Mama.  Before I get into those, here’s some background.  Last year, in Kindergarten, Emma had a wonderful aide that she shared with another student who had a visual impairment.  Things were great.  She was in a classroom that was highly structured, she had 2 amazing teachers, and 1 amazing para (aide) who was able to attend to her inability to focus.  This past year, for first grade, we were super lucky to have this wonderful para back.  Little did I know, however, they piled 2 more kids onto her plate.  So Emma was now sharing this para with 3 other students with varying delays and disabilities.  Not only was this not fair to Emma (of course, my first concern), but this wasn’t fair to the para or the other 3 students.  I’m not sure of anyone who would be able to attend to these girls’ needs in the general ed setting.  We were setting ourselves up for failure.  I voiced my concerns.  Many times.  On top of that, Emma was now placed in a classroom that was less structured, less routine.  My fault in that was that I didn’t go into these classrooms before hand to observe the setting.  And I should have.  (Lesson 1, my friends!!  Learn from my mistakes!)

We had meetings to discuss Emma’s lack of progress (their words, not mine) and her anxiety.  We decided to put her into a classroom that was more “self-contained”.  Well, I should’ve thought more about that as well.  This special ed teacher had 32 kids on her plate (granted, not in the classroom at the same time).  She had paras floating in and out of the room.  As well as these kids.  There was no routine or structure in there.  While there were fewer kids, there were people coming in and out of the room.  This wasn’t a good situation for Emma either.  Her happiness declined.  Temper tantrums increased. This clearly wasn’t working out.  Again, I tried voicing my concerns.  They fell on deaf ears.  Or ears that didn’t want to do anything about it.

Enter “the little things”.  The last 2 months of school were just one big hill moving downward.  Quickly.

Issue 1: On a day when Emma’s para wasn’t there, there was no one to walk the kids out to the parent pick up line.  Emma found me immediately.  The little girl with the visual impairment was led out to the parent pick up line by another little girl with severe mental delays.  How is this right?  Fortunately I took over and led the VI girl to her mom, who doesn’t speak English, by the way.  How did this responsibility fall on the girls?  If the para had to leave early, why wasn’t there someone else to escort them out?  It’s in these girls IEP documents (legal documents, by the way) that they have para support during transitional times.  On top of that, the general ed teacher was right inside the gate, and led the other students to the bus line.  And another aide walked right by them.  When I asked this aide where an adult was, she just shrugged and hurried right past me.  I brought this concern to the attention of the principal and the special ed teacher.  The principal wasn’t happy.  The special ed teacher told me that the aide I spoke with had to hurry to another job.  I’m sorry…what?  Wouldn’t most people have a moral obligation to help a student who is blind?  Let alone a para who works with them should have that moral obligation.

Issue 2: I have the pleasure to supervise my students at lunch at the same time Emma eats lunch.  During lunch, again, Emma (and the 3 little girls) have para support. The para, at this time, helps them buy their hot lunch, makes sure they get utensils, and helps them sit down.  The para also makes sure that they can open straws or forks (something that’s difficult for Emma with her low muscle tone).  And she also makes sure they eat a little something! During this lunch period, their wonderful para gets relieved by another para so she can eat lunch.  The second para, by the way, is the same person who also rushed by me after school in Issue 1.  Well, this para made sure she helped Emma clean her plate.  I saw her (twice) eat food off of Emma’s plate.  This is wrong on so many different levels.  First, no where in Emma’s IEP does it say that she is to be fed.  She’s very able to feed herself.  She just needs redirection, sometimes.  Also, as an aide, I don’t want to touch my students food.  Ew.  I don’t know where their hands have been.  She teases Emma with a grape, then pops it into her own mouth. Not 5 minutes later, I see this para blowing her nose into a napkin.  Okay, when I am watching over my students, I do everything I can NOT to touch their food.  And I keep a bottle of hand sanitizer around my neck.  Not quite believing what I saw, I put the other aides I work with on alert.  Finally, someone else sees what I see.  Again, I wrote an email to the principal to let him know of what I saw.

Am I in the twilight zone? <fade in music>

Issue 3: On a day when Emma’s regular para wasn’t in school, she had no support during the first part of lunch.  By the time the second para came in to help, Emma had packed her lunchbox up.  The para didn’t ask to see what she ate or look inside (perhaps the para wasn’t hungry that day?).  When I got home, this is what I found:

This is just another reason why Emma needs para support at lunch.  She didn’t get her open yogurt to the trash, nor her open and full juice box.  She didn’t even touch her peanut butter sandwich or her cheese stick, the “important” things (containing the most protein).  Immediately I took this picture and attached it to a nice email I sent to the special education teacher.  Want to read that email?  Okay!

Mrs. Special Ed Teacher,
I attached a picture to this email that shows Emma’s lunch box as I found it yesterday after school.  It emphasizes the fact that not only does she NEED para support at lunch time, but it is in her IEP.
I understand if there isn’t a sub to pick up her normal Para’s position.  You can’t force someone to take a sub job.  HOWEVER, there are plenty of para’s on campus, ESPECIALLY the DPS paras that are on lunch time during Emma’s lunch.  One of them could very easily provide assistance and supervision to Emma and the 3 other girls in Ms. Para’s care.  This is the school’s responsibility to find a para to fill in, per her IEP.
I wanted to bring this to your attention.
Sincerely,
Brett and Jessica

Can you tell I’m getting worked up just typing this out?  Turns out this is a great release for me!  I have more.  But as not to bore you (or make you equally as frustrated as I am), I will save it for tomorrow.

Keep this as food for thought…no pun intended.

What would you have done in my situation?  I’m very curious!  Please leave comments!

I thought I knew a bunch about this whole IEP system.  I thought I was a quick learner.  I thought that being a teacher in years past would help me (and it has, to an extent).  I thought that knowing my daughter inside and out would be of huge advantage to them*, especially the fact that I feel like I should have a pseudo-MD for all the crap I know about her condition!  I thought I had the higher hand.

What I found out, after meeting with my advocate for 2 hours, is that I’m not as far ahead of the game as I thought.  Which makes sense, considering I hired an advocate in the first place.  Obviously I couldn’t keep pace with them* and so I hired the advocate to keep pace for me.  I was further behind then I thought.  My knowledge and understanding only took me so far.

What amazed me about my advocate, upon meeting her, the ease and agility in which she perused through all of the past evaluations, IEP’s, doctor’s notes, and test scores.  Within minutes she was finding documentation in which they* contradicted themselves.  Test scores that have gone down over the years (hello, regression?).  She was quickly going over all these documents with highlighters and pens, writing herself notes in the margins and in her own records.  And, looking back it is now humorous, she was mentioning to me, “ooh, they are in so much trouble.”  What? There’s evidence to support our case?

Can I toot my own horn for a quick second?  (Why yes you can, it’s your blog!)  I pride myself on being über-organized.  And when Emma got into school and we started this whole IEP process, my good friend, Marshelle, recommended I reorganize.  I can do that!  I will write a post later about how I organize my IEP binder.  And in this case it’s now two binders.  And I will take none of the credit, it is Marshelle’s system.  However, my advocate did compliment me on my organized layout…it definitely helped her moved through the data quickly!

Anyhoo…

Basically, advocate left me with hope at the end of our meeting.  And a long to-do list.  Our game plan was to attend the next IEP meeting with advocate in tow.  I was not going to announce to anyone that I had hired an advocate.  However, with issues that arose before our IEP meeting, I was called to email various people around the school and district.  And with the advocates help with wording, it was probably very clear to most people that I had hired someone to help me.  The vernacular wasn’t mine.  Notsomuch!

The last 3 weeks of school were left.  I would be lying if I didn’t say it was a bumpy road.  It was uncomfortable, mostly for Emma, but for me as well, since I was working on campus.  There were a couple of incidents that left me speechless.  And I will tell you about those…tomorrow!

*By “them”, I’m referring to the district, specifically the special education department within the district.

*I will be scattering photos here and there just so you can remind yourself exactly how cute Emma is!

Remember awhile back when I told you about Emma’s displeasure for school? You can read about it here or here.  Well, it continued to go downward.  She was throwing temper tantrums.  She was crying before school every morning that she didn’t want to go school.  It was horrible.  This is the same girl who, in kindergarten, would cry over Christmas break and summer break because she missed school.  This wasn’t a good situation.  From my point of view, I tried to be the “nice” mom.  You know the saying, “Being Nice Gets you Nowhere”?  Typically I don’t practice that.  I think being nice can get you far.  In this situation, though, I was running out of options.

Emma at the Grand Canyon in April (what, you can't tell that's the Grand Canyon in the background?)

I had to be proactive.  I was beginning to feel helpless, and helpless wasn’t a feeling I was going to live with for long.  I told Brett that I wanted to start looking at other schools.  I looked at 4 schools, 2 in district and 2 private.  The first school I visited was a private school.  Brett came with me, as did the kids.  And I asked a friend, who had been in my same situation with her son, to join us.  I didn’t walk away feeling in love with the school, I really liked their philosophy.  I didn’t like the setting so much.  It was a very small school (as in, number of students).  But it would definitely benefit Emma academically.  However, the biggest piece of advice I took away was to hire an advocate.  I hadn’t really thought of this….and I’m not sure why.  Along with the packet for the school, I took away a list of advocates. Three were highlighted.  Of those three I called two and spoke with them.  One advocate had a background in paralegal services.  So her background was more from an attorney’s standpoint.  The second advocate had a background in family and marriage counseling.  After speaking with both of them, I checked out their webpages.  Brett wanted me to go with the “lawyer one”.  I wasn’t so sure that was the best way to go.  After all, my approach with the school has always been more relaxed and not so much “bulldog”, if that makes sense.  In the end, I decided to go with the advocate with the counseling background.

We were getting the ball rolling.  We were going to make changes.  I first met with her on April 26th. And that meeting changed it all.

What was your first impression of Katy Perry’s song “Firework”? To be honest, I thought it was all about sex. I was quick to jump to conclusions and I was wrong. Brett, my husband, REALLY loves this song. He told me to listen to it again, and really listen to the words. Check out this video.

What comes to your mind now? Listening to the lyrics really help me put it into perspective. Seeing the video clarified things even more for me. There’s a little bit of all of us in this song, I think.  For Brett, the first thing that pops into his head when this song comes on is Emma.  It’s easy to see why, especially now that I’ve watched this video.

Where have we been the last 5 months? (It’s been that long, sad but true)  It’s kind of hard to say.  I felt like in the beginning of the New Year, I didn’t have much to write about.  And then came the last month of school.  And BAM!  I had a lot to write about.  Then the problem was finding the time to write, and knowing exactly how much I could write!

There’s so much to share, I won’t give you the details tonight.  But I will share details soon.  And I’ll tell you exactly what has happened.  I want you to know the journey we’re on.  I want to encourage people who may be on the same journey.  This is not an easy path, but I wouldn’t be anywhere else.

I promise to come back with the story.  And I apologize that it’s been so long!  I’ve missed blogging.  Now it’s time to catch up!