I am going to piggy back off yesterday’s post and finish up my rant. The struggles with Ella didn’t stop when we left pre-school. Some guidelines and people involved have changed, but the frustrations and push back we have faced during Ella’a kindergarten year have been just as real.

As per NYS guidelines, we met with Ella’s team before the end of her pre-school year to discuss the plan for the fall. Not much was changing as far as her IEP went, but we were again faced with the task to choose a new school for her to attend. I was eight months pregnant at the time and wanted to get things moving before Jack arrived. We discussed five potential schools at the meeting, and the district sent out requests for us to see those locations.

One of the reasons we loved Ella’s second pre-school so much was because she was in a class with kids of all abilities. They would play with her, talk to her, sing to her, and just run over to her to say hi. Ella thrived on that interaction and it made that classroom a place she loved to be. We mentioned this at her annual meeting and asked for a similar placement in the fall.

Steve and I had already decided that classroom request was going to be one of the main factors in our decision when picking a school for Ella. As we began driving to all of these school locations, we quickly realized that distance from home was also going to be a factor. Ella didn’t do well on the bus going to her first pre-school and that was only thirty minutes away. We feared anything much longer than that would be awful for her. Some of the rides to these schools were not entirely on main roads either.

We looked at every school but one. It was the same routine every visit. We toured the campus, got a glimpse of classroom placement, talked to administrators and teachers, answered questions about Ella, met with a team of therapists, and were given a run down of what a typical day looked like. One of the schools wanted to put Ella in a medically fragile classroom with no aide. They immediately were checked off the list. Three were willing to work on the social component we requested, but two were initially placing her in classes with non-verbal children. The final school we never went to see because we ultimately decided it was too far away.

We ended up going back to the closest school for a second visit and met with the administrator. We wanted to make sure that Ella was going to get that social piece we wanted and asked about the placement of other children in the class. We were assured that Ella would be brought into another classroom for morning circle, or lunch, to give her more socialization with other kids and that her main class would be filled with children of all different abilities.

Fast forward to May and I can list all the issues we have had with the district/school on more than two hands. First, on day one, bussing was an issue. They didn’t have the proper equipment they needed to transport her to school. Not quite sure how that slipped through the cracks, but it caused some missed school days and late arrivals. You know things have escalated to a whole new level when Steve calls the district for answers. It was a hot mess.

As the year progressed, communication from Ella’s teacher and therapists decreased. It was never exceptional, but it definitely got worse. Her teacher was sending me home notes like, “Ella learned about Christopher Columbus and the letter G today!” Ummmm, ok. What about her behavior? Did she do anything new? Did she use the potty? I was also getting perfectly assembled crafts sent home with no explanation. Was I to assume Ella is an artistic genius? Never once was it mentioned if Ella even participated in those crafts. That was a question I eventually brought up for clarification.

As for updates with therapy, forget it. We were lucky to get those once a month. We would ask and sometimes get an answer, sometimes not. The ONLY therapist we got an email from weekly was the speech therapist. I called the principal with my concerns and she told me that the therapists don’t have time to update parents frequently, and that Ella’s speech therapist is an exception when it comes to parental contact. She actually told me, few people work as hard as the speech therapist does. Whatttttt?

The final result of all of that was a meeting being called. At this meeting, we agreed upon a weekly google document to be filled out by each therapist saying how she did for the week with her goals. Everyone stayed on top of it and we felt a little better knowing what was going on. When you have a non-verbal child you rely on her teachers and therapists to let you know what’s going on. Otherwise, you are in the dark.

Guess what she still didn’t have before quarantine? Her daily social visit to another classroom. Each time we ask, we are given a different reason why it didn’t happen. In all fairness, I think she went two of three times all year and it wasn’t her aide who took her as initially discussed. It was her speech therapist.

It is yet to be determined if this year was the right placement for Ella, but we will be giving it some more time to see. A new year means a new teacher. Fingers crossed things work out better.