Then we get to today. The only service our school can provide DGS at this point is counseling. His classroom teacher will only let him go during the only recess of the day, which is late in the afternoon. If there is no PE he doesn't get any "wiggle" time until 2 p.m. Today, for reasons he would not tell me, he had to take a five-minute timeout during recess. The coach doing recess left him there a lot more than five minutes and he wasn't allowed to go with the counselor. He had FIVE MINUTES counseling this entire week! He is supposed to have 30 minutes twice a week. Counselor was out on his other scheduled day.
That is wholly inappropriate. I think it would be reasonable to call the principal on the phone, ask when the IEP meeting can be scheduled, and talk through some key principles:
--your DS has to have access to recess; it helps him stay stable
--counseling should not come out of recess; it is routine at this age to pull kids out of academic activities, and let them make up the work. Principal must override classroom teacher on this point.
--counseling is necessary and should be occurring regularly, not taken away at random.
I've probably said it before-- if you can afford a professional advocate, or a free one from the state, it can help you get this done without pulling all your hair out.
Unlike some PPs, I don't advocate taking mental health days off school after a meltdown-- it can teach the child that if he melts down, he gets a free day off school. But the strategy of keeping him in that environment has to work in tandem with making school treat him reasonably.
I think you are going to need to bring outside help to bear in order to get a fair IEP in place.
DeeDee
