Kindergarten IEP (Part 2)

At this meeting, in April, we were trying to figure out where Eden will be and what services she'll need in kindergarten. The hard part about this is that Eden (as well as most kids) are constantly changing. She progresses and regresses all the time. It's like trying to hit a moving target that is continuously changing in size. Sounds super simple right? 

Well, after going over the current school stuff for a while and reading my letter to them (see the previous post on this here). We started the process of discussing where we thing she'll be in the fall and what will be the best plan to get her started in her classroom. There was what I felt were great discussions about what everyone thought Eden needed and could handle. The school was very open to suggestions and very helpful in explaining what each task we were planning for was going to be like. 

This is what we came up with for a plan for her. This is for classroom time, special education classroom time, behavior stuff, specials, lunch, recess, OT, Speech Therapy, and transportation. First thing, we decided that Eden would need a 1:1 aide at school all day (except at OT and speech).

 She'll be receiving OT in 2 30 minute sessions a week; one time in a group and once individually. We all agreed that this will be something we may need to increase because of her sensory needs. We also wanted to spread it out throughout the week so it's not concentrated in one day. 

 She'll have Speech 2 times a week for 30 minutes in a group setting and the Speech Therapist will be in the classroom with Eden a couple of times to help her with her social communication. This was the difficult one, I was really voicing the fact that she has more trouble in stressful situations communicating than in a 1 on 1 setting. That's why we have the group therapy and some classroom time with the therapist. The classroom time is also so we can work possibly with helping her aides with any speech tools they may need.   

She will have a behavioral consultation so we can come up with a comprehensive behavior plan for her. They want new behavioral goals than the basic ones that the preschool has so they have a fine tuned plan in case of any issues. The "report card" that the younger ages use have behavioral and responsibility goals on them. We decided that these goal may not be the best for Eden so she'll have her own set of goals made up by the behavioral consultant and teachers. 

All of the "specials" in kindergarten are 40 minutes long we had to determine what she could handle in each. This was interesting as we are not sure how she is going to do at these. She's never actually had these types of things (besides art maybe) as a structured activity. I'll list what we determined is how long she would actively participate without a problem and using her current classroom schedule as a starting point. Again, this is a best guess that we came up with. Art for 20 minutes, music 20 minutes, Physical Education 10 minutes, and Library 30 minutes. We took into account what Eden can actually sit and do, how well she'll participate, attention span, and her ability to cope sensory wise. 

We are going to try to see if Eden can handle 10 of her 20 minutes in the lunch room and recess isn't going to be an issue at all. Eden has always had trouble at meal times in school and at home. Food is a huge anxiety and sensory problem for her. Not even mentioning the fact that she'll be in the lunch room that is very noisy and with a lot of smells, I'm not optimistic that this one will stay like this. We'll see though, because we thought we'd try. We also are going to have an option for her to sit at a less crowed table. They have a couple of them set aside so kids are still in the lunch room but not sitting 30 to a table (or however many it is). There is another option of lunch in a separate room altogether, but that is if our original plan doesn't work.

She will have 1 1/2 hours in her regular Ed classroom for regular instruction everyday. This after all the other things that we discussed. They will break it up if needed and find things that she will be able to participate well in and then increase it from there. Overall she'll be about 40% in a "main stream" classroom and 60% in Special Education (which OT and Speech are included in those). 

We are requesting a seat belt in the bus that she is taking so I have peace of mind that she is safe and will stay seated. She'll be going in a bus, but to a different school than in our town so she will go on a different bus than my other children did. 

Eden will have the same academic goals as the other kids until we can see that she may need them changed. I don't see this as an issue as she picks up things really quickly. She'll be tested a little differently to see if she has achieved these goals as the current testing is mostly and oral test. Given that she has communication delays this wouldn't be the best way for us to test her. 

Last, we are going to have another meeting shortly after school starts to see how things are going. If we need to change anything this way we don't have to worry about calling a special meeting to do it. It's already in the plan. I'm so excited for this and I think this is a great plan. I feel that we worked as a team in this and really made a plan that is going to work for Eden to give her the best education that she can have.