Thanks DeeDee and deacongirl. I have to say that I find it interesting that amob registered yesterday specifically to respond to this thread with an argument that is almost verbatim the principal's position. Not that it is unwelcome - I am always happy to hear alternate points of view. It helps me to understand the school's position and to formulate my response. I hope this was not a one-hit-wonder, though, and that amob sticks around to participate in the discussion.
To be clear we were given a stark choice last year - we could either address her anxiety or we could address her LD issues. Spec ed services would not be provided in the private we were certain would control the anxiety. In the end the school district assured us that they would do whatever was necessary to control her anxiety. It worked great for a few months and then it fell apart. It escalated to the point that this principal was involved in intentionally triggering her anxiety and then punishing her anxiety response as bad behavior. Does it not send a strong message that the district put in writing that they acknowledge violating her IEP and providing assurances that they would be certain to address her anxiety in the future? IF they were making a good faith effort to do this the problem would not be so serious. IF they were trying to control her anxiety and they knew that they did not have an appropriate classroom placement available wouldn't they have approached us prior to this so that we could work together to find a solution? Wouldn't it have made more sense to have us sit with next year's teacher and brainstorm ways that s/he could comfortably control the classroom and not trigger DD's anxiety? Wouldn't it have made sense to bring this to our attention so that we could have had that therapy/medication option explored properly? Instead their plan was to have her walk into a classroom on the first day of school, face her biggest anxiety trigger head on with no preparation and no support system in place. How can this be interpreted as acting in good faith?
Perhaps the constructive thing to do here is try to brainstorm other classroom management options that would both meet the teacher's need and not trigger DD's anxiety. Since the school district did not do us the courtesy of doing this perhaps amob can. I am serious in this request, by the way. If you are going to weigh in saying that I am wrong I hope that you will also point out what you think would be right.
