This is a follow up to yesterday’s post.
So, after I got home from work, I started crafting the email to the principal of the school to demand the termination of the two aides. Continue reading
school
Security Matters
As frequent readers here can tell you, getting my attention – my full attention – is a Bad Thing.
My wife and I are a team when it comes to the Monster and his various appointments, therapies, and whathaveyou. She’s the one that most folks deal with – she’s friendly, and nice, and inclined to want people to like her. Me, the warrior dad… I’m the one that things come to when there’s a Problem.
We have a Problem. Continue reading
Balance
I’ve spent the last few days being very negative about the Baltimore City Public Schools, with regards to Autism. I’ve smacked them around regarding the choice of the schools where the program is located, and about the transportation services they do – or, frankly, do not – provide.
And that’s all fair. Nothing I’ve said is untrue.
What is unsaid is the positive side, and I do not want to give anyone an impression of the school system’s efforts towards children on the Spectrum as the modern-day version of tossing kids into a back room and ignoring them. Continue reading
How Do They Choose?
The Monster started his second year of public schooling this year, very early in the morning when the bus arrived – 75 minutes before his first bell – to pick him up at our house.
“Together We Grow”, the program that the Monster is enrolled in through the Baltimore City Public Schools, is a special reverse-inclusion program for students, where five or six IEP students are joined by five or six non-IEP students to give them social role models. Last year, the Monster was attending it at Garrett Heights Elementary-Middle School, and while he is returning there this year, he was offered an alternative placement in the same program at another school, Furman L. Templeton Elementary School. Continue reading
Off on the Wrong Foot
So. The new school year begins on Monday.
We’ve been building up to this all summer, trying to keep him from back-sliding as much as possible, and now the day is finally here. Continue reading
Getting in Gear for the School Year
After today, there are only five days before the Monster returns to school for his second year in the public school system.
There are a lot of questions about the coming school year. How much has he regressed over the summer? How much good did his ESY services at camp do? How much good did the social interaction from camp do? Will this year be better in terms of his progress?
And my big question for this year – will the bussing be any better? Continue reading
Sis Boom Bah
I had to get up early this morning to handle emergency-backstopping on a software push this morning, so I was up this morning to watch Twitter as the principals from the Baltimore City School System were off to their kick-off for the new school year.
Now, I think that they’re all entitled to a pep-rally of sorts, especially as the year kicks off. We need it, after all – to get into a mindset that will enable children to learn, to support them in all of their endeavors, and to get a running start to the new school year. On the other hand… Continue reading
“Free” and Appropriate
Two weeks from Monday, the Monster returns to school.
Since we’ve been a little out of touch with the school this summer – or at least that’s how I’m feeling, to some extent – the wife reached out to the Monster’s teacher to get a list of school supplies for the coming year in the Together We Grow Kindergarten class. Most of the list really isn’t all that surprising to me… but still. Continue reading
Night and Day
A month from Friday, the Monster returns to school.
The summer’s just been racing by. We’ve not had a lot of time to catch our breath, and admittedly a lot of his workbook’s been ignored while we’re doing other things, but there’s that looming date around the corner for things getting underway again on the educational stage. Continue reading
Free And Appropriate Impacts
I’ll be writing about our weekend over the coming days – I just need to have some time to get a few more photos taken and to collect my notes, and then I’ll be getting that cranked out.
This morning, though, was my meeting with the Monster’s providers. With the bus problems last week, and my irate emails to the school system, his IEP coordinator asked me to come in this morning to discuss the implementation of FAPE vis-a-vis his education. Continue reading