A New Day Has Come

Let's just start with this confession...I love Celine Dion. Her music, her passion, and her voice are all incredibly beautiful. She gives me chills!

Today I feel as though a new day has come in my life.

Today was the day of my autistic student's IEP meeting with his parents. There was a huge level of anxiety and nervousness going into this morning's meeting. Our nerves have been shot anyway because of the last three weeks of screaming, outbursts, cryings, etc...all of this from one student.

We received an email last night from the special education case manager. She told us to prepare some notes about our student's behavior and how it is affecting the classroom environment. I sent an email back to her stating that we are ready with our notes. I also thanked her for all of the hard work she has done on this case, and I thanked her for the huge amount of support she has shown us over the past month. I did also key her into the fact that we (his regular classroom teachers) were prepared to vote "NO" on the IEP if this student was not placed in a more appropriate placement for him.

We get into the meeting, and there are 11 of us seated around the table.
 - 2 parents (Both of middle eastern desent. Very intelligent and well spoken parents. I was so impressed!)
 - The advocate representing the parents
 - 3 regular classroom teachers
 - Our school's principal
 - Special Ed case manager
 - Special Ed diagnostician
 - School Psychologist
 - Director of Special Education

Suffice it to say, it was a full house. Our diagnostician was the one who ran the meeting. She has been testing our student for the past 2 1/2 weeks. She presented the parents with this massive evaluation tool they use for students like this. This test is designed to measure 500+ different areas of communication, social development, language development, etc. I had never seen this test before, and it blew my mind. The diagnostician told all of us that this student had over 190 areas that were deficient or non-existent for a normal student in the 6th grade.

She went on to discuss observations of him during the evaluations, in the classroom setting, and beyond. It was clear that he is severely lacking in communication skills, oral expression, and social interaction. The advocate chimed in (frequently) wanting to know if there is a way for our student to work on these skills in the regular classroom. The diagnostician told them all that given the severity of his deficiencies, the pace of the regular classroom, and the need for specialized instruction for him it is not feasible to keep him in a regular classroom setting.

The parents (and the advocate) are leery of putting their son in an type of "resource" or "CDC" class. They want him to have social interactions with his peers. The diagnostician, the case manager, and the principal presented the parents with a specialized class we call "Stars." It is a class taught by a licensed special education teacher with extensive training and experience with exceptional children. Currently, the class only has 4 students. This setting provides a more one-on-one setting which is needed for these select students. They receive instruction aligned to the same standards of all 6th graders.

The parents were pleased with this option and agreed to move their child into this new class setting that is more appropriate for his needs. Additionally, he will have a special education assistant with him at all times. The advocate pushed to have that single assistant named during the meeting. (She was way too pushy for my tastes. I understand her roll, but this woman was too overbearing at times. I wanted to give her a piece of my mind at times, but I bit my tongue.) He was assigned a male assistant that has already been working with him. This assistant is the ONLY one that our student will respond to throughout the day.

We are all hopeful that this new placement will allow our student to make huge gains in his deficiencies this year. I pray every night that he will get the help he needs. Only time will tell.

When we walked out of that meeting this morning, I could not help but grin from ear to ear. There was this enormous weight being lifted off our shoulders. My mind raced with thoughts and questions of what life would be like the rest of this year without the screaming everyday.

Thourough today, I would see several of my friends and colleagues around the school. They would all just smile at us, jump up and down with us, hug us, etc. To be frank, out team and hallway have been on everyone's prayer list for weeks. Everyone in the school knew of the difficulties on our team. There was this sense of renewed energy today as we all learned miracles can happen.

So a new day is on the horizon! What will the rest of the year bring for our team? Will we finally be able to teach in a classroom without fear of screaming and tantrums happening each day? The excitement builds!

On a side note...thanks to each of you for you wonderful words of encouragement, thoughts, and prayers over the past few weeks. It has been a very trying time, and hopefully the rainbow will shine brighter now that the dark clouds are beginning to fade. Love to you all!