The Kindergarten Dilemma

I have been dreading this. Kindergarten terrifies me.

We worked so hard to get Liam where he is today. It took lots of diligence and patience and busting through red tape to get him the very best possible treatment. We LOVE his ABA therapy center and feel really blessed that it has all worked out, and even better, that it is working!! I would love to leave him there forever. Unfortunately, it doesn’t count as school. In order for Liam to have a shot at graduating from high school, he must start school  by age seven. He’s six, which means this coming fall, he has to do something that counts as kindergarten, or he can’t graduate. I’m certainly not willing to take away that option at age six. Sorry.

We have major problems with starting school. First and foremost, Liam’s social skills are nearly non-existent. His receptive language skills are barely there. This makes putting him in a class with a bunch of other kids and one teacher a very difficult situation for him without help. Convincing the school that his therapist should attend with him might prove to be difficult, and getting them to pay for a full time aid is likely impossible. Our little district just doesn’t have the knowledge or resources, but Liam is not “bad” enough (according to the school) to qualify for placement outside the district in a school with better programs and resources. Secondly is the logistics of the situation. We both work at least half an hour from where we live and from the school Liam would attend.  Even “full day” kindergarten is not a full day. There is a before and after school program, but I think Liam would crash and burn being thrown into a free for all like that, especially if he were expected to do well in class later. It all just sounded like a terrifying nightmare.

We heard about an online charter school. At first I was extremely excited about this possibility because Liam could remain at the center, do his schoolwork online with his therapists, continue receiving daily ABA therapy, and still get credit for kindergarten. However, the more I thought about it and discussed it with the people who work with Liam, I began to see that this was only the best option for me…not for him. In order for Liam to gain real ground in the social aspects of life, he will need to be around typical kids, where things aren’t quite as scripted as they are in his therapy sessions. That won’t happen with an online school. The goal, of course, is to get Liam ready for a real classroom, with a real teacher, and real classmates who he really interacts with. These are mountains for Liam. Luckily our family loves the mountains.

A friend suggested a private school near the center where her son is currently attending.  We decided to look into it. This kindergarten program is part of a children’s ministry at a local mega-church. I met with the director and fell in love. They have a beautiful facility and a fantastic program that is based on developing relationships and hands on learning. It has a somewhat Montessori approach, which I loved. The best part? No IEP needed. They are completely willing to work with Liam’s therapists and program coordinator, allowing them to be involved in Liam’s curriculum planning and behavior intervention, etc. We signed him up the first day registration was open to the public.

So its settled, for one more year anyway. Liam will continue to ride the van to the center, his therapist will take him to kindergarten and stay there with him. Then she’ll take him back to the center for the afternoon and he can continue with his ABA therapy, and they can fill in some gaps that may need to be addressed before school the next day. Once again we believe we are putting Liam in the best possible situation for him.

I guess we have successfully kicked the terrifying public-school-sink-or-swim can down the road for at least another year. 

Phew. 

The Meeting

(Re: May 2010)

Shortly after receiving the written results from Liam’s Early Intervention Evaluation, we went to out first Case Conference.  I was expecting this to be the day that the professionals gather together and let us know how we can best help our child. 

Boy was I wrong.

Josh and I both attended, along with the preschool teacher who did much of the evaluation, the speech therapist who saw Liam, the psychologist who brought up the A word again, and the special education director from our school district.  They started out by essentially reading the written report that had been mailed to us. Come on, I’d had it in my hands for 5 days, I had practically had the thing memorized.  Then they said that Liam qualified for the developmental preschool in out school district, which was held every day during the school year, for half a day.  There would be about ten children, and the teacher in charge was roughly nine hundred and forty years old.  But she had aides to help her.  Then they proceeded to set ten goals for Liam to reach for during the following school year.  This didn’t feel right.  It was MAY. They were telling us that our child has some sever developmental challenges but that they couldn’t help him until the following school year.  Even then, the attention given to Liam would be limited, and their goals could hardly be called goals.  Josh asked if this is what they thought was best for Liam.  The special education director looked at Josh and managed to say with a straight face, “We have autistic kids in our program.”  Ummm that’s not what he asked you, lady!! 

Needless to say, we didn’t sign anything.  We told them that we were pursuing this privately as well, and that we would be in touch.  The school psychologist followed us out and told us (off the record, of course) that she thought it was a good idea that we pursue this privately if we had the means. 

We stood outside in the parking lot just looking at each other.  Josh said, “It looks like we’re on our own.”  I said, “Yep, it sure does.”