Follow up Behavior Support Plan meeting

I’ll take them in order of the list I wrote a couple of days ago…

Harley’s behavior support plan follow up meeting:
This happened last Thursday…right on the deadline date we set during the meeting on the 1st. Unfortunately the area special education director was not able to make it. The ARC advocate also said she couldn’t make it. We couldn’t find child care for the two littles and I felt like I was going into it blind…to top it all off I had the worst migraine I’ve ever had and had just gotten a call that my surgery was scheduled for a very bad time (more on that later).

Well I ended up taking Andrew with me, which means that we took the two littles with us as well. When I arrived at the main office imagine my relief when I saw the ARC advocate had shown up after all…she had rearranged her schedule and had her 10 year old son walk home from school just so she could attend this meeting. I also had a representative from Creative there. (they finally were able to complete their observation day on Wednesday, the day before the meeting).

We have had such issues with the school psychologist…she keeps bringing medications up as the “big issue” – which is illegal…the school cannot force us to medicate or change our child’s medications. She has been warned three times and it’s to the point that the superintendent of our school district is now involved in Harley’s case.

Because I had the advocate and Gabe from CP there and the littles were being pretty loud, I had Andrew take them to the recreation center next door to the school.

The meeting went on and on for half an hour and we had gotten no where. At this point I could barely keep my eyes open due to the level of the migraine I had. Finally the ARC advocate raised her voice and said if the medications are brought up one more time we will disband this meeting and recall it when Dr. Lutz can be here (the superintendent)…just at that point the principal of the school FINALLY joined the meeting and the advocate pointed out to her that she was so frustrated with all these violations she was about to call the meeting over until such time she could get someone in that the school psychologist would listen to.

They had the plan written in such a way that it was not clear what his behaviors were nor was it clear how to best handle it. They were asked about the antecedents to the behavior and not one person in that room could pinpoint or outline what could be causing his behavioral outbursts. The only thing we could come up with as a group is that if something is not his idea or he has the perception it is too hard for him, he will begin to escalate.

Once again, even after all these warnings the school psychologist brought the medications into the discussion as we were discussing Harley’s inability to “stay awake” in the mornings. Even the ARC Advocate lost it at this point and threw her pen down.

The meeting went on without further mention of the medications and we discussed the meat of the meeting. They had a “plan” that they would discontinue the “token” system…but had no plan as to when. When I asked when they thought they would stop it at the school’s level they mentioned middle of next month…That will not work…Again, they had to be reminded that he is having some major routine changes and to expect an increase in behaviors and taking away the token system when he is that stressed will just increase the opportunities for him to have behavioral issues. Then we have 2 weeks of school before Winter break…things will calm down and just as he’s getting back on track we will have Spring break. We were able to get them to agree that the token system will NOT be discontinued until we can again meet.

When we got to the portion of the priorities of how to deal with Harley if / when he becomes physically aggressive the meeting took off again…their plan was to remove him to a quiet room or sensory room and if he continued to escalate, they would call law enforcement in. I asked that prior to law enforcement being called they should call me and I would come and intervene if at all possible prior to law enforcement getting involved. The principal expressed a concern that if behaviors arise while I am on driving restriction from my surgery that would not work…so Gabe from CP spoke up and asked that if I am not available, they are to call CP and have a staff member from there come and intervene prior to law enforcement being called.

All in all the meeting which should have taken less than 1 hour ended up lasting nearly 3 hours. We will be receiving a copy of the behavior plan with the changes within a week (supposedly!) and will have another meeting to have it corrected should it need to be corrected. Tentatively we are planning to meet in late January to discuss the token system and to review what other strategies can be used or to update it based on the decrease in behaviors or newly displayed behaviors.

I can tell this is going to be one Loooooong school year – at least they should have it down for next year and write a VALID plan for his transition to high school in a year and a half.

Wow, I went on and on and I think I touched on everything that was of importance from that meeting. I am not sure how much more I will write tonight…but will slowly try to get updates done on the rest of the list I made in the previous post.

Thanks for reading if you made it this far…. Ask away any questions for clarification. I use this blog as my ‘tracker’ so to speak when I need to refer back for notes for other meetings…So If you feel I left something that could be a crucial part out, please let me know by leaving me a comment.