KINDERGARTEN!!!

What? Baby Nate is going to Kindergarten? I feel like I must be living in some future version of my life. He cannot be big enough. I guess every parent feels like that.


Today was the big IEP/Transition meeting for Kindergarten. You may remember a few months back that I was freaking out about our Kinder choices, and then decided on an awesome school. Today it was time to review Nate's progress over the past year, make goals for next year, and to plan for his transition from his current school to his new school. The meeting included 9 of us: me, his current teacher, his upcoming Kindergarten teacher (liked her), the Early Childhood Education special education director, his current and future speech therapists, his OT (who will continue to be his OT next year at the new school), a teacher from the special program he will be in at the new school, and a "placement specialist" who was leading the meeting. (The PT could not make it, but his current one will still be his PT at the new school next year.)

Nate has made a great deal of progress this year, especially physically, so it was nice to revisit where he was and compare it to where he is now. For example, this time last year, someone was holding Nate's hand to walk down the hall every day to lunch. At the beginning of this year, he was walking by himself, but carrying his lunch box made him off balance. Now, he is walking in line, carrying his lunch box. Now the goal is for him to walk at a steady pace instead of running a little, stopping for a few seconds, walking a bit, running to catch up, etc.

So if you are interested in what an IEP looks like, you can read on to see what we're working on with Nate. (I know I like to see other kids' IEPs to give me ideas.) If this bores you, skip down to below the line.

Goal #1: Given self-help routines and personal responsibility tasks and activities, Nate will independently participate in these tasks 80% of the time.

Translation: Nate was 2 (almost 3) when they tested him for preschool, and this is still the test they are going on. They will retest him next year. But basically, the only area that showed significant delays was "self-help" skills. This can be anything from navigating the school to putting on his jacket to minding the teacher to participating in classroom activities such as writing, cutting, pasting, etc.

Under this goal are several measurable objectives:
a. Will independently complete a classroom task, persevering when the task may be challenging.

Translation: Nate gives up easily, lol. For example, when the early childhood education teacher was asking him some questions to see how ready he was for Kindergarten, she had him name the numbers she pointed at. By the time they got to 10, he said, "I'm done with numbers." She moved on to colors, and he was like, "Can we leave now?" :) The truth is he can count to 100 with just a little help, and he's known all his colors and shapes and all this easy stuff since he was 2. But if he is bored or having trouble with something, he will either give up or throw a fit.

b. Given the task to transition with his class in a line in the school hall, Nate will independently maintain the pace and appropriate spacing with his peers.

Translation: As I pointed out above, he doesn't walk at a steady pace. His PT says it's because running is actually easier than walking, because you're just basically letting gravity propel you forward. We are also working on this goal in his outside PT (she actually has him walking on a treadmill at 1.5 miles per hour for 5-7 minutes) because it does get annoying to try to walk beside him, and walking in line is such a big part of elementary school. I like this goal. I was going to bring it up myself, but one of the therapists beat me to it. This is basically his only PT goal, and his school PT time was dropped in half from this year, to only one session of 30 minutes per month.

c. Will visually attend and participate in classroom task and activities without resistance.

Translation: Nate is resistant, lol. On a more positive note, Nate's current teacher and therapists all commented on how much better his behavior has improved over the last month. For awhile there, he was coming home "on red" every single day. Now he's on green every day, with a few yellows here and there. His teacher said he is much more compliant and less resistant. But we are still working on him following instructions the first time he is asked (including at home).

d. Will participate in directed activities, managing tools to complete the activities.
 
Translation: This is basically his OT goal. His OT is very happy with how far he has come in writing, coloring, etc. He can write his name, and also pretty much anything you spell for him. This past weekend I helped him make a card for his great grandma that read: "HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY LITTLE BITTY MEMAW LOVE NATE." It was all over the page, and I had to translate it for her, but he wrote it. OT is actually a bigger concern for me right now than PT because I have been concerned about his writing skills compared to other kids, but the OT said he was doing great, and she really thinks this may be the last year that he will qualify for OT in school! Nice!
 
Goal #2: Given 5 opportunities to communicate with his peers and teachers, Nate will interact with an adult or peers as both a speaker and a listener with 90% accuracy, during three consecutive therapy sessions.
 
Translation: When they wanted to give Nate speech therapy when he was entering preschool, I thought they were crazy. Talking is one thing he has not been delayed at. He has always had a great vocabulary for his age, he is easy to understand, and he doesn't shut up. However, their concern was his ability to communicate well. When they asked him questions, his answers did not fit the questions. Since he has been in speech therapy, his sentences have gotten longer (which was one of the goals, and is no longer a goal since he has met it), and I can tell his communication has improved. However, he is still not great at conversing with his peers. He will talk to adults all day long, but he largely ignores other children. He has started playing with other kids (mostly in the past year), but he's still in the "parallel play" stage where he will play alongside them but not "with" them. Nate's social abilities are one of my concerns, and where I hope he will really improve in Kindergarten.
 
a. ... the first objective is actually the same word for word as the #2 goal. The speech therapist said when she has him in a group, he will talk with her and will sometimes talk with the other kids ONLY IF they are talking about trains. :) But it's not really communicating.
 
b. Given 5 role playing situations, Nate will ask an appropriate question for a given situation (ex. Are you okay? after seeing someone fall) with 90% accuracy during 3 out of 4 trials.
 
Translation: Take an interest in people around you, kid! My mom and I have talked about role playing conversations with Nate before, but we would end up telling him to go up to a friend and say, "How are you?" Well, 4 year olds don't say how are you! We don't want to make him that wierd, socially awkward, too-polite kid. :) I think they're going in the right direction with this goal.
 
c. Given 5 opportunities to communicate, Nate will talk about something he has recently done, watched, or played with using at least two adjectives in his description with 80% accuracy during 3 out of 4 trials.
 
Translation: Okay, the speech therapist wants him using more adjectives, which ... whatever, great. But also, it is like pulling teeth to get Nate to tell you anything about what happened at school, or what did you do last night, or what happened in the movie. He usually asks you back: What?
 
d. Given 5 opportunities to express himself, Nate will explain why he doesn't want or should do something with 90% accuracy during 3 out of 4 trials.
 
Translation: Nate will use his words instead of screaming.
 
Nate will get speech therapy twice a week for 30 minutes at a time. Why so much? I don't really know.
 
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So, Nate will get 30 minutes of PT per month (Whoo! .. sarcasm), an hour of OT per month, and about 3 hours of speech per month. I really haven't cared so much about the amount of PT he gets at school because he also gets an hour of PT (hippotherapy) every week. But once Nate starts full day Kindergarten ... I don't think we'll have time for outside therapy. Gulp. He's been in therapy since he was 6 months old. I know I have to wean off of it at some point, and it's great that he doesn't need it as much anymore, but therapy has been a HUGE part of our lives for so long!
 
Back to the meeting. Then there was the question of whether Nate would be in the regular Kindergarten class all day or if he would be pulled out to the special classroom for anything. My initial, strong, gut reaction is that he is in the regular class all day. But then the "special program" (sorry, I can't call it by name, it's hard to not give away too many details on the internet) teacher said she would be teaching a "social skills" class for 30 minutes every day in the special education room. Well ... social skills are like our primary goal/concern for Nate, so it does make sense to pull him out of class to do some focused work on that with other kids. For some reason, I'm still hesitant about this, but I know I need to put aside my pride and stubborness about the issue and just allow him to get the supports he needs. That's why he has the IEP, and that's why we want him in this school. Also, the speech therapist will see Nate one time a week in this social skills group, so that means she will only pull him (along with a buddy) out of class for speech therapy one other time per week. I don't want him missing too much time in the classroom.
 
The only other "special" issue was transportation. They had him all set up for the special needs bus. Two years ago, Blake was adamant that Nate not use a special bus, and eventually I did see his point and agree with him. Nate was going to the neighborhood school, along with a bunch of the kids who live on our street, and if he was riding the bus, we wanted it to be the same bus as his friends. So we said that when the PT clears him to ride a regular bus (in other words, without a harness to keep him in his seat), we would revisit the issue. Until then, we would drive him. Well, they brought it up again today, and again I told them we would not be using the special needs transportation. They all looked at me like I was crazy, and I could tell they disagreed with me. And honestly, I think we're probably being a bit unreasonable. But really, we do not mind driving Nate to school at all. At all. We actually like it, and look forward to doing it next year. The Kindergarten teacher asked what about field trips. I said I would like for the PT to assess him to see if he's ready for the regular bus. They asked if we would consider letting him ride the regular bus daily if the PT said it was okay, and while I was thinking about it, they reminded me that would mean Nate and 5th graders on the bus with no aid. No. No. No. No. No. We will drive him until he's in college, thank you very much.
 
Can you tell I'm nervous about this and just have to talk/write it all out? :) But I really do know it's all going to be okay. For now, Nate is saying he doesn't want to go to Kindergarten and wants to stay in preschool, but he was excited this evening when I was telling him that I met his new teacher and she said we could stop by the class and visit one day before the end of the year.
 
Oh, and can I just say--How I wish I could show myself 2 years ago or 5 years ago how GREAT Nate is doing. Really, we are SO grateful and proud and relieved and amazed. It's so much more than we ever imgained. Days like this can be stressful and they sometimes point out the delays and deficits, but they are also nice because they offer benchmarks to see how far Nate has come, and how far our whole family has come. Kindy, here we come!