Then the principal slowly said, I think I'm going to have to reconsider what I was going to advise you to do.
That's already good. Listening is good.
She then pivoted, and took me totally by surprise and asked, is your daughter explosive, or oppositional?...
The principal then surprised me again and asked, does she have any sensory issues?...
The principal indicated that DD's Kindergarten class would have 27 students in it, and no aid.
That last bit is the part where it goes wrong IMO. FIRST you determine needs, then services. If your DD needs an aide to function in the LRE, that need determines services, not the staff that the principal happens to have on hand.
Of course, you have to do the school's eval process and write an IEP to decide appropriate services and get them in place. Or does DD already have an IEP?
I indicated that I was willing to be on campus for the last 3 hours and 45 minutes of each day, after I finish teaching my own morning classes.
In your shoes, I wouldn't want to do that. (a) it's the school's obligation to provide an appropriate education; (b) you don't want your DD or the school to be depending on you for that.
FWIW, I found that my occasional volunteering in the kindergarten was *more* dysregulating for my DS-now-11 than just being in there himself.
The principal then replied that she was going to have to reconsider her teacher assignment for my daughter, and continued by suggesting that we set up a student support team in the first weeks of school to address differentiation and DD's special needs.
I think that's sensible.
To me, the above reads as boilerplate. To my mother, also a teacher with three decades of experience, it sounded like boilerplate as well. Mind you, it's a good response, but nobody on this campus has worked with my daughter, and there's lots of room for them to say that they can't serve her needs.
Is this a public school? Again, she's entitled to FAPE.
To me, it doesn't sound like boilerplate-- it sounds like the beginning of a process. It sounds as though the principal was listening and gathering information to think with. To me, that's promising.
Meanwhile, my wife is doing the happy dance because she somehow expected our first conversation to go horribly wrong and for DD to be booted out of school in September.
Booting a kid with a documented disability (anxiety should count) is harder than booting a non-disabled kid. Search "manifestation determination" on wrightslaw.com.
DeeDee