Mia's schooling concerns take center stage
I've been meaning to write about this for a week, but it's here now! Last Monday (the 8th) we had Mia's Multidisciplinary Evaluation Team (MET) meeting, during which her various teachers and therapists discuss her eligibility for special education. As the school psychologist said, there's no way she's not going to be eligible for special ed., but every three years they have to go over it and figure out her placement. This is in anticipation of her Individualized Education Program (IEP) meeting, which will set her goals for the next year.
I thought it might be a bit acrimonious, but it turned out it wasn't. Her therapists agreed that it wouldn't be a good idea to subject her to standardized tests because she wouldn't understand them and wouldn't perform well at them, so they're going to keep track of her progress as they have throughout the year to come up with goals. This is what they do all the time, naturally, but because they need to evaluate her, it takes on a bit more importance this year. The Traumatic Brain Injury specialist for Mesa schools told us they're trying to get her classified as "multiply disabled" as well as TBI in order to get more funding. I'm not sure why she wasn't classified that way originally, but that's nice. So they're tracking her as usual, and won't worry about more formal testing.
It's the same with her teachers, but her main teacher brought up an interesting point. She said that she's been keeping stats on Mia all year, and one day she'll meet a goal, say, 8 times out of 10, and the next day she'll only get it twice out of 10. The TBI specialist and Krys and I all said at the same time that that's TBI kids, and one just has to deal with it. Mia does learn, but it takes her a long time and she usually experiences several setbacks while she's trying to get it into her long-term memory. If she's having a good day, she might do really well on a goal, but if she's having a bad day, she won't. We told her teacher to take an average, as she's tracking her stats each day. That will give her a better idea about her abilities.
Mia is doing fairly well with handwriting, as she works on that every day. We also learned that she knows the Pledge of Allegiance, with was kind of neat. She's working very hard, and the therapists and teachers all had nice things to say about her. We're still concerned about her pinching her teachers, but we're all working on that. The reason I thought there might be friction was because of where they have been talking about putting her - namely, the moderately disabled class instead of the mildly disabled class, where she is now. She really belongs in a class somewhere in between those two, but that no longer exists at Mesa schools, so we chose to put her in the mildly disabled class, which is too fast for her. The moderately disabled class, however, is too slow for her. So there's been talk about putting her in the moderately disabled class, which we oppose. I wasn't sure if that would come up at this meeting, and it didn't, so the meeting stayed friendly. I'm sure it will come up at the IEP meeting, so I hope that can remain civil. That would be nice.
Her IEP meeting is on the 8th of April, so that will be the next time we discuss her schooling. Should be fun!
I thought it might be a bit acrimonious, but it turned out it wasn't. Her therapists agreed that it wouldn't be a good idea to subject her to standardized tests because she wouldn't understand them and wouldn't perform well at them, so they're going to keep track of her progress as they have throughout the year to come up with goals. This is what they do all the time, naturally, but because they need to evaluate her, it takes on a bit more importance this year. The Traumatic Brain Injury specialist for Mesa schools told us they're trying to get her classified as "multiply disabled" as well as TBI in order to get more funding. I'm not sure why she wasn't classified that way originally, but that's nice. So they're tracking her as usual, and won't worry about more formal testing.
It's the same with her teachers, but her main teacher brought up an interesting point. She said that she's been keeping stats on Mia all year, and one day she'll meet a goal, say, 8 times out of 10, and the next day she'll only get it twice out of 10. The TBI specialist and Krys and I all said at the same time that that's TBI kids, and one just has to deal with it. Mia does learn, but it takes her a long time and she usually experiences several setbacks while she's trying to get it into her long-term memory. If she's having a good day, she might do really well on a goal, but if she's having a bad day, she won't. We told her teacher to take an average, as she's tracking her stats each day. That will give her a better idea about her abilities.
Mia is doing fairly well with handwriting, as she works on that every day. We also learned that she knows the Pledge of Allegiance, with was kind of neat. She's working very hard, and the therapists and teachers all had nice things to say about her. We're still concerned about her pinching her teachers, but we're all working on that. The reason I thought there might be friction was because of where they have been talking about putting her - namely, the moderately disabled class instead of the mildly disabled class, where she is now. She really belongs in a class somewhere in between those two, but that no longer exists at Mesa schools, so we chose to put her in the mildly disabled class, which is too fast for her. The moderately disabled class, however, is too slow for her. So there's been talk about putting her in the moderately disabled class, which we oppose. I wasn't sure if that would come up at this meeting, and it didn't, so the meeting stayed friendly. I'm sure it will come up at the IEP meeting, so I hope that can remain civil. That would be nice.
Her IEP meeting is on the 8th of April, so that will be the next time we discuss her schooling. Should be fun!
posted by Greg at
8:00 AM
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