We are now far into the school year. The teachers have been met. The schedules have been set. Ms. Maxie has received her first birthday party invitation and has the first field trip of the school year planned. Pretty soon we will turn around and it will be fall break. As usual, the first grading period is coming to a close and the Progress Reports were sent out yesterday. All the reports but one (at least in our house); Sir Dantes did not get a Progress Report.

Follow up:

Here is the deal folks…I am not happy with the way this school year is shapin’ up. For those of you that have been following my blogs for awhile I am sure that around this time last year you read about my nervousness of Sir Dantes starting school and then my relief that he had such a great staff and school. The players haven’t changed, but I have. How so? Well, I think that I have had a year of being able to observe and read. The more that I observe and read the more I feel as though Sir Dantes is not getting the best that can be given. If you really think about it, none of our children are getting the best they deserve so perhaps I should rephrase that…Sir Dantes is not getting the same quality of education he deserves.

He deserves to be in the regular classroom more, he deserves that his homework is graded on time, he deserves modifications to be made, he deserves a Progress Report. And, we his parents, deserve regular updates on his progress. He, and we, are not getting this and I am not happy about it.

I felt somewhat hopeful after the first I.E.P meeting that what we viewed as legal needs for our son would be met. After receiving the “final” copy of the I.E.P I found a few things I was not happy about. I sent an email (“if it is not in writing it never happened”) to his Special Education teacher addressing the changes I wanted and received and email back tonight that these changes could be made without another meeting. Cool. That is fine, but why can you not get me the things I need to see how Sir Dantes is progressing?

First, where is his freakin’ work? School started on August 12th and today is September 17th. I can count on one and a half hands how many worksheets have come home for us to view. Most of the sheets have been related to his time in Speech Therapy. At least she is trying to step up. After four weeks of spelling test I have only had one sent home to see. There have been a few cute coloring sheets. That is about it. Where is his math work? Where is his reading work? Where is his science and social studies work? Where is his Progress Report?

There was one little homework sheet sent home to do and he competed it. It came home two times before it finally did not come home again. I put in the “Return to School” section of the folder. Why was it not checked? What is he doing all day? I have yet to receive the schedule I asked for so we could track the time in the regular classroom since they told us (not in the I.E.P and one of the changes I asked for)that they would start increasing the time.

Who am I upset with? Should I be upset with the staff or the state or the Federal Government? To be quite honest, I am not sure. I loved the progress and staff last year, and as I stated earlier, they are all the same. I do adore them. I think that they are so overloaded. I mean, one Special Education teacher and one or two aides for an entire school. Really? That is what our special needs children are worth? Yet, let us make sure that the SRO is fully equipped with gas for his car the entire year. Can the dude not buy his own gas?

And, he is suppose to be there to make sure the children are safe. Well, where was he today when Sir Dantes darted in front of a car at the after school pickup? For some reason, whichever teacher was in charge of the after school pickup just decided to let Ms. Maxie direct her brother to the appropriate spot and left them alone. When Sir Dantes saw his daddy’s car, he darted off towards the car and no one, including the SRO, was there to try to help Ms. Maxie stop him. Luckily the driver in the big SUV saw him. Maybe we do need that aide full-time beside him and demand not only that but a whole new I.E.P?