So where'd I leave off?

ah yes, the conference call with my husband instead of me...

Oh let me tell you how this behavior plan came about -- I called the Spec Ed director first thing in the morning. I explained that I would NOT send Harley to school and that I have been keeping him home because there is no behavior plan in place to protect him should another extreme behavior happen. Within an hour she was at the school forcing the staff to sit down and write one. Wow, finally I'm getting some progress and action now! Too bad these staff don't want to do their jobs unless they have their supervisors breathing down their necks...

So I gather all the paperwork (IEP Draft, BSP) and call them back...Luckily the special ed director is still there and I can again be put on conference call. I told them that Andrew couldn't really fill me in and they would need to...
First came the BSP - they finally formulated one but there is a number of issues with it...First off their way of helping him overcome the behavior is to "have him remain in the psychologists office for ALL recesses and lunch for the remainder of this school year"...Er, why do they think this is acceptable? not only that but how is this overcoming it? This is simply avoiding it altogether!? Does he not also deserve to get fresh air and exercise? They feel it's "incidents" -- such as someone teasing him or saying something to him that he misunderstands -- that happen during recess and lunch, and possibly the noise and a sensory overload for him -- but does that mean he gets denied recess? NO!! not in my book! My argument is that he has a one on one aide, assigned specifically to him so why can't she be out there to help him and support him? Isn't "playtime" with peers just as important as "inclusion in the classroom" if not moreso?
The other issue with this behavior support plan is they wrote it in a way that it 'expires' at the end of this school year (since he is transitioning to a new school). Nope, WRONG AGAIN! That means he would not have a BSP as of the first day of middle school -- what are they asking for disaster? They are going to change his peers, environment, schedule, setting -- everything and not have a behavior plan in place as of day one?! Nope -- he just won't go to school unless he's got a behavior plan in place...
The third issue with the BSP would be that they have been given an opportunity to receive training FOR FREE from the behavior team that has been seeing Harley for nearly 4 years now. They would train whatever staff wanted to be trained and provide all the "equipment" required to use the token system they have been using with great success...The psychologist is extremely defensive and says she just doesn't understand WHY I feel they need to learn from "those people"...and "Just what do you think they can help us with?"...Well, obviously their system is not working so I thought maybe they would want to learn how to use a system that is PROVEN to work with Harley. They refused...

Now for the last argument about the "plan" on the BSP to keep him indoors during recess and lunch...He has a goal in his IEP to "demonstrate socially acceptable behavior and conflict management for the situation 3 out of 4 times...current baseline is 0! So Would it NOT be the perfect time to try to meet that goal by supporting him in his interactions on the playground? Recess? Lunch? Well, this pretty much got tabled till our next meeting which is supposed to take place by the end of next week (although due to ARC's availability, we won't be able to do it till early the following week).

The Spec Ed director told me that I was correct and the office discipline form was completely inappropriate considering Harley's situation. She has discussed it with the principal and the record has been removed from Harley's permanent file.

Now I tried very hard not to nit pick the rest of the IEP and touch only on the professional facts. I am trying to look at it from a non-emotional point of view...such as I would for an assigned parent peer -- There were a number of errors and inaccuracies in the IEP and those are just trivial at this point. We just need to get the "meat" of the document correct.

They completely left out OT services on the services page. Well then he wouldn't get any services through OT, yet they have a long list of "sensory items and a sensory diet that would be beneficial to him on an educational level" -- An OT would be essential to implementing it because you know you can't just pull someone off the street and say "this kid needs some sensory input. Get on it"...People need to be trained in the right way to accomplish which sensory need needs to be met at the given time...an OT is the only qualified professional to teach that...Strike on the school again...

Then on the modifications page, they do not mark "sensory aids". Nor did they mark "behavior plan/contract". Nor did they mark "adjusted grading scale" (which Harley's had all of his educational 'career'). They also missed the box that the "modify complexity of assignments" - now if he's in 7th grade working on a 2nd-3rd grade level, wouldn't you expect those boxes be marked?

I am just flabbergasted by how very disorganized this school is. It's unfortunate that the ARC agrees to the fact that the school's probably gotten away with this for far too long because most parents don't take an active advocacy role and just sign off on the IEP (such as my ex husband used to do!).

In talking to the caseworker from ARC I am thinking of, when TTC is over later this month, jumping back into the political/advocacy/committees I was on years ago. I am torn though because those things mostly require day time attendance and I really don't want to have to pay a sitter for the boys to go to a lobbying effort. IDK, I may just start on the smaller scale although ARC thinks I should just jump in with both feet as we have some very crucial items needing attention in our county's decisions -- such as them moving the special ed dept to function under ESL programs' director because the current director (for the whole county) is retiring this year and rather than fill her position they are just combining special ed with English as a 2nd Language dept...It is NOT the same programming and I see far too many students falling through the cracks...

Oops I got on my soapbox there. It's been an exhausting day...I lost count of how many days in a row I've had to keep up this pace...well...Since Thursday of last week I guess? I want to lay in bed and take a big ol' slumber...