Shocking success with school administration

I was called yesterday by the school to schedule an emergency IEP (Individual Education Plan) meeting for today. The call was not a surprise, because I had dropped off one of my infamous letters at the school earlier in the day. I had been ruminating at home about the end of the school year and the upcoming IEE (Independent Educational Evaluation)and it occurred to me that some problems that **** had been dealing with probably had not been documented in his file. And if they were not documented, as far as the evaluator was concerned, they might as well not have happened at all. So I sent a letter to the school.

Dear Mrs. C***,
I want to make sure that certain incidents that occurred in school this year are documented in ****’s file. There were several incidents when **** was bullied and one time that he manifested self-mutilation.

The first incident of bullying was brought to my attention by a concerned mother on April 7, 2008. I was told that a mother who volunteered in ****’s class observed a number of children using a code word, “black,” whenever **** was approaching them. They would whisper it to each other when he approached as a type of warning. I informed Mrs. G**** of this the same day I found out and she replied, “Are they doing that again? I thought that stopped a while back.” So apparently **** had been bullied in the classroom before. Mrs. G**** informed me that there was a bullying assembly the following week and she would also address it with the class. The third incident that I am aware of occurred this week. **** came home very upset because he was told by a number of his classmates, most notably L****, that the end-of-the-year pool party had been canceled. **** suspected they were lying, as other students had told him that the party was still on, and wanted me to find out what the truth was. I called the host and the party is not canceled.

Last week I noticed that all of ****’s eyelashes were missing and I asked him what happened. He told me that he pulled them out during class.

**** will be receiving an IEE soon. Hopefully ****’s socialization and anxiety issues will be addressed.

As I suspected, the school administration was completely unaware of the bullying incidents, although they knew about the eyelash thing, since I had called them last week in a panic about it. So in 1 day we went from having a proposed 504 plan that dealt with accommodations for ADD only, to an IEP plan with 90 minutes of special ed help 5 days per week for writing and math skills, starting in September. He will also be evaluated to see if he could benefit from occupational therapy.
Oh, and I also took **** to the doctor a few days prior to all this and he *was* diagnosed with nonverbal learning disorder. The doctor kindly faxed the report to my home last night and I ran off 7 copies to bring to the meeting. The doctor also recommended physical and occupational therapy for ****. Interestingly, ****'s IQ testing results were 132 in verbal skills, which is almost gifted. 84 in nonverbal. And 78 in processing speed. Makes perfect sense. His teachers and I knock our heads into the wall wondering why it takes him so long to complete his assignments. Well, if your hemispheres weren't communicating properly, you would think more slowly too. So he has accommodations that he can do a smaller portion of schoolwork and homework and still get full credit.

I am very happy with these results. I think the accommodations will take some of the intense pressure off of him that he went through this year. And the special ed help will bring him up to speed, hopefully, in the areas of his deficit.

I brought a huge binder with me with his 8 by 10 picture on the cover. Inside it was chock-full of all of his assessments, reports, homework and handouts from the seminar I had been to. I combed through all that material and web material to glean any possible accommodations or services I thought might be of benefit, and asked for everything. Amazingly, I got almost everything before I even asked for it. The letter I sent yesterday must have scared them. I'm OK with that. I didn't send it out of malice, which I explained. I sent it to make sure that the IEE evaluator was fully informed. Perhaps this is a case of the squeaky wheel getting the grease. I felt a little guilty, also, because yesterday was the last day of school, and today was the day for the teachers to all clean out their desks. So on this one day, the craziest of all school days, the teacher, school administrators, and a district administrator took time out of their day to sit with me and try to help my son. I was deeply touched and thanked them. I was also glad to have my friend by my side. There is another mother at our school whose kids also take the bus and she and I have spent mornings chatting these past 3 years. We have become friends. She is the one who told me about TASK in the first place (where I took the seminar). And she has a special needs child as well. So I asked her to attend the meeting as my advocate, and she agreed. One thing that she told me a couple of weeks ago was that she heard it was good to bring a food item to these types of meetings. I decided to go to a bakery restaurant near here that makes the BEST oatmeal raisin cookies I have ever had, bar homemade. And I got a little case of those mini Arrowhead water bottles.

I am wandering though the rest of my day in a state of shock. I have heard so many horror stories about school administrations being miserly with providing expensive services. I thought it would take a lot more effort to get anything close to this for my son. My hope is that giving him intervention now will help him to have a brighter future.