preping for ARDs

For anyone out there who has kids w/ special needs, we have entered the time of year for ARDs...yayee us.  For those of you who don't have to go thru this process w/ the public school system, and ARD is a meeting w/ your child's teacher, administrator, speech therapist (if applicable), occupational therapist (if applicable), physical therapist (if applicable), and the person who decides if the child qualifies for special needs education (Forgot the job title...oops.) and the parent/s.  so there is a lot of folks in one room.  and we discuss his progress over the past year and plan what his goals for the next year will be and what the setting will be.

Thankfully, most of my ARDs have been very calm and agreeable, as I have a rough idea what I want to see for Bub and what they want to do w/ Bub.  This year, when I got the invitation I sent it back w/ a note saying I wanted to discuss options to see Bub have more inclusion w/ his neurotypical peers (for those of you who are not autie parents, neurotypical means NORMAL)  *lucky bastages*   lol.  *kinda*

So Bub's teacher asked me to come for a parent-teacher conference today.  It went well, and she really liked my ideas for Bub to have greater inclusion.  Oh yeah, I haven't mentioned specifically what my idea was, have I?  I am a nerd...sorry.

Bub's campus has a deaf education classroom, Bub's main modality of communication is ASL, sooooo  (kinda see where I'm going???)  Let's get Bub in w/ the deaf education kids who ARE behaviorally "normal" and age appropriate normal, and get Mr. Man to model more signing w/ kids his age.  cuz right now, Bub is one of the oldest kids in his class,

So, Me and Bub's teacher are on the same page, which will make this idea much more likely to happen next year.  Yayee for parent involvement!

However....his teacher shared some disturbing info about how special ed is going to be managed under the current school superintendant...info this autie mom is going to have to start doing something about and start advocating and riling up some other parents...which isn't easy cause we special needs parents are TIRED ALL THE TIME!  you have no idea.  think of taking care of your kid after your kid just took a hit of acid...that is our ALL THE TIME!!!  so getting additional parental involvement may not happen, but I can try.  I'll write about that next time.  I'm running on 4 hrs sleep following a 18hr day.  must sleep.

loves to all! N