Thanks all. DD likes the "no matter how hard I try my body won't let me" approach. Alas most of the others would remain in my camp to say. She started insisting on attending her IEP meetings about a year and a half ago so she could know exactly what was in there if someone tried to violate it. Major step in the right direction.
A new wrinkle we face is that literally everyone who has worked on DD's case for the past 5 years is gone. Her self appointed "protector" from district administration as well as her replacement both left the district. DD moved on from the special Ed school she attended for the last 4 years. Even my advocate of 5+ years retired from the case and has been replaced with a new one. Since our agreed unilateral placement at a new 2e school didn't work (see another thread I started about online programs for kids with LD's for more about that) she doesn't have a school placement this year. This means no school team. Our IEP team consists of us and the top 3 sped officials from our district. I asked that the gifted teacher be included as well. Yes the one who said "just have faith in yourself"...
So this week district sped bigwigs met with my new consultant to figure out a plan. The district did a 180 from needing full time spec Ed placement and agreeing to pay for unilateral placement at 2e school because no approved spec Ed school was available that could meet her needs to deciding they want to drop her full time in mainstream 1000 student middle school. DD shadowed for a day and it was a sensory nightmare. Came out stressed to the hilt - had chewed her hand to bits trying to make it through the day. Anxiety and migraines - both under total control for several years - were triggered that day. No way it could be considered an appropriate placement.
So as consultant explained to them about DD's reaction to local middle school they declared "all of that comes from Pemberley - not DD. DD is just fine." Consultant had to explain that no she met with DD and these were direct quotes from her. Took them off their game and seems to have prevented disastrous placement at middle school but now they are saying "DD has to learn to navigate the world". They are trying to insist that she WILL be back in district for high school. A school with 2000 students. Yes for the last 4 years she has been in a class with a 5-1-1 ratio and still had to leave sometimes when the behavior of the other students became too distracting. Yes she was on the verge of a panic attack spending one day in a school half the size of the local high school. But this is all ME creating issues that aren't real. These people coming in after DD has done all the hard work to get this far know her and the situation better than I do...
My first thoughts are to point out that some people thrive with careers amidst the craziness on the trading floor of the stock exchange, others in the solitude of being a forest ranger. There is no one correct way to navigate the world.
I want to point out that DD has worked her derrière off to get to where she is. She has developed the ability to focus through distractions being at the sped school with inappropriate peers. This is an asset but she shouldn't be penalized for developing this skill. As platypus points out above she already works 100x harder than others. Its unfair to dismiss that and expect her to work even harder. In essence to put her in an environment she has to use all her skills and resources just to survive. I doubt she would make it through her days in tact (ie anxiety and migraine free) let alone be able to actually learn anything.
Shouldn't they be setting her up for success rather than for failure? Shouldn't she be one of their success stories rather than throwing it all away so they can check a box on some form showing that she has been "mainstreamed"?
I have all the passion to make these arguments but everyone who got it is gone. I now have a bunch of administration robots who just want to minimize expenses and check boxes. Meeting her needs is less important than going through the required steps to demonstrate that they tried to meet her needs. They frankly don't care if she loses all progress she has made. If they put her in an inappropriate environment and it causes her to become an emotional basket case and/or have to go back on migraine meds that make her a zombie she will need the kind of out of district placement she's already outgrown. Terrible for DD and what I would consider cointerproductive but perfectly appropriate if all they need to do is check boxes. It becomes much easier for them.
So how do I say that? Especially if they are claiming that it is me NOT DD who feels this way?
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