So, it has only been a week, but we just had our IEP meeting this morning and I cannot say enough good things about DS's new school!!! It's a public school for the gifted and we were discouraged by the old school and by some parents for even considering sending DS there.
But this school has the resources and even more importantly the enthusiasm to deal with our quirky DS! He's the only special needs kid (he has autism) in 2nd grade so he gets 1:1 weekly meetings with the ESE teacher. He's the only 2nd grader getting OT (and there are only 6 kids getting OT in the whole 2-12 school!!) so he gets 1:1 weekly OT. There are 4 2nd graders getting speech, but the SLP was willing to do 1:1 speech for him if we wanted. (We elected the small group for conversational/social skills.)
His 2nd grade teacher loves him, the OT was impressed that we already have him set up with his sensory tools, and the ESE teacher was shocked (so he said) with DS's reasoning skills.
I know this is a honeymoon phase, but it is such a striking difference from the first week of Kindergarten where he was in time out for most of his recesses and the teacher never liked him. And even different from 1st grade, where he had a good teacher, but the administration was indifferent (and not willing to learn about 2e-ness) and he ended up being suspended twice.
Plus, he has one more hurdle to jump before they bump him up in math. Our goal for this year/this school is to focus on academics as a means to prevent boredom and inappropriate behavior. Ooh, I hope it works! Nan
