IEP meeting!

This morning we had our IEP meeting with the public school system to talk about preschool. As you probably picked up from previous posts, I was pretty nervous about this meeting. I've heard of other kids in our community not getting IEPs or the services/accommodations that they needed. And I honestly didn't have time to do much research about what I wanted for his goals and accomodations, so I felt kind of blind and at the mercy of the school system walking into this meeting. But, I prayed a lot about it, that the school people would have Nate's best interest at heart and that I (and Nate's other advocates there) would have the presence of mind to think of everything he needed.

Well, God totally exceeded my expectations with this one! Nate DID qualify for an IEP based on him having a physical disability. And they are offering him physical therapy, occuptional therapy, AND speech therapy! :O I was shocked! In a good way. Nate currently has PT and OT, but he's never even been evaluated for speech because he's always been such a good talker. The speech therapist there today said she was also a little surprised he qualified, just listening to some of the things he was saying this morning, but the day of the evaluation, he showed a few problems that might hinder him some in preschool. For example, refusing to tell someone his name when asked, lol. (He's just stubborn.) Oh, one funny thing--The evaluator noted that when she was looking at a Barney book with Nate, she asked him what he was drinking, and he told her "Diet Coke." Ha! I have no idea where he came up with that! He must have heard someone that morning say that, cause neither of us drink Diet Coke. But apparently Barney does.

So they made some wonderful goals for him and offered him quite a bit of therapy. Even though he may not need speech therapy, we are always happy to get him all the resources he can get. In preschool, they won't pull him out of class for therapy. The therapists will come in and play with the whole group and especially focus on Nate's needs and evaluate his progress. So it can't hurt. As we were leaving, our early intervention person who was there to advocate for us whispered to me, "You got the motherload of services!" She was shocked at how much they offered him, compared to kids she had seen shortchanged in the past. I told her, "Well, I prayed really hard about it." :)

There was only one point of contention: the school bus. Blake and I had discussed that although we would certainly drive him at first, at some point, he's probably going to want to ride the bus like the other kids. Plus, it will be winter, and I'll have an infant to bundle, and it may a lot easier for us. Well, the PT thought that, considering Nate's sensory issues that often make him oblivious to where his body parts are (causing him to fall off the couch and our bed and anything else off the ground fairly regularly) that he should be in a harness (kinda like a seatbelt) on the bus. The problem is, harnesses are only available on special needs buses. Blake raised objections about this, and I agree with him. We want Nate mainstreamed in every way, so we don't want him set apart even on a different school bus. Also, riding a special needs bus may determine where he goes to preschool. The city only has a few special needs buses, so it's likely they'd round up all the kids that need to ride one and take them to the same school. We'd rather have him at the school closest to us.

Which brings me to the next good news. There is a very nice, very new school practically in our subdivision. Farmer Elementary is less than a mile from our house, and that's where most of the kids in our neighborhood go to school. I had heard that they only had a full day preschool program, and I was so disappointed because we really wanted Nate to go there but we only want him in half-day preschool this year. But today they told me that there IS a half-day preschool program at Farmer! We put that as our first preference and said we wouldn't even need transportation if he went there, hoping that would increase our odds. That would be soooo great, because I could walk to pick him up on nice days, and he'd get to know the school, teachers, and kids in preparation for Kindergarten.

So, it was a GREAT meeting. I still can't believe my baby is going to preschool, but I'm feeling really good about it now. He will probably start Aug. 30, so that will give us a month to settle in with baby Georgia before starting.