IEP meeting for Mikael and

[Guest guest]

The IEP meeting was informative and maybe I'm just a bit oversensitive reguarding my children but the meeting started off on the wrong foot. First we talked about and his issue with attendance and I let them know that all of the kids were exceptionally sick this year with flu symtpoms, pnumonia and other ailments. That they are under the care of a fantastic peditrician and I think I can tell when my children need to stay home. Then Joe brought up his reportcard because they kept saying that he has made fantastic progress and Joe said if that is so why isn't it reflected in his grades. They quickly changed their tune when 's classroom teacher addressed that issue. She says that he has not been outwardly aggressive since the first week of school where she stopped him from throwing his chair at a group of kids. We then talked about him getting our initials on each homework assignment from now on and there will be alot more letters to us reguarding his assignments and progress. They are planning for intensive resource for him for the fall. When I asked why they can't start now they gave some kind of strange excuse reguarding scheduling issues as the reason. I mentioned the ESY (Extended School Year) program for Gabe and they said he didn't qualify and the way they discribed it I understood completely. All and all he is doing much better than we thought in reguards to behavior issues and accidemic issues are going to be continued to be addressed. at this point of the meeting was behaving remarkably well. 's teacher returned to her classroom and a whole set of new people came to take the other ones places so we could talk about Mikael. Joe and I were strongly concerned about Mikael's deteriation during the summer months and I mentioned ESY again but said ESL (English as a Second Language) instead and everybody got a hearty laugh on me. Joe didn't think it was nice at all either.......it didn't kill me but I thought it was rather rude and quickly got over it. Their oppinion is that Mikael doesn't qualify either and that things will be different for him since he is returning to Kennedy again in the fall so it won't be traumatic for him like years previous. He will be starting intensive resource starting the fall and also continue in his social skills group. His classroom teacher said that she believes that his Aspergers is getting worse because his handwriting is deterorating lately and that his Turrets is still challanging for him because of his repetitive behaviors such as throat clearing, head twitching and leg stomping. She says that he doesn't swear or is inconciderate in any of his behaviors/tics and Joe and I told her that he never has. She said that she noticed that Mikael doesn't actually talk to other kids but rather makes general statements like instead of asking lets say "Bobby can I have a pencil?" he says "Can someone pass me a pencil?" They said that he is fantastic at parallel play but interacting is challanging for him. They noted that he is so eager to be helpfull and is kindhearted but they are concerned about his "obsessions" of flying dragons and any kind of cats. They also said that they were astounded as to his creativity that has blossomed. Mikael has always been in the past rather ridgid and refused to be creative but now he is blossoming. I really think it has a tremendous amount of testmony as to his fantastic classroom teacher. She has really brought out the good things in Mikael. By this time was screaching and couldn't figure out if he wanted to be in my lap or if he wanted to stand and be independent. Joe tried to comfort him but it only made matters worse and one of Mikael's team asked me if had issues too. I think she knew the answer already but she wanted to know and so did some of the others as to what his issues were. We told them that he is Autistic and has SI issues and they immediately understood his behaviors. He was breaking away from me and sitting on the floor and banging his head on the cement floor and Joe was trying to wrestle with him not to and to stay in Joe's arms. The meeting was just too long for and we brought him out and ended the meeting. We brought out for frozen lemonade and he was happy in his restrictive carseat. To tell you the truth it was all rather exhausting but we are going to do it again in a month before school lets out. I hope this wasn't too scattered and that it is somewhat clear. Thank you for listening.

heather howard