I requested a meeting with his Special Ed teacher and Kindergarten teacher about 3 weeks ago. We finally had it today. The teacher was very nice in describing the situation, but we still felt bad that she explained that this has been taking place since the December timeframe and we were not notified. She said that last week they decided to test him on a regular day to see how many times he had to be prompted to do his work, and they counted 33 times and it was a good day. So he definitely needs additional help. She also explained that Jonathan seems more tired than not. She can tell how Jonathan's day is going to be when she has to tell him more than twice to hang his jacket and backpack. I explained that he sleeps 10 sound hours a day and that nothing has changed with respect to the supplements. Now that I am writing this blog, I just realized that during December I added a number of new supplements that Yasko believed were necessary for children with his mutations. But since budget is now very limited, I had not done any urine tests to see what changed. I am going to take those out this weekend and see if that makes a difference next week.
Back to the behavior situation, I told them that that was my biggest concern last year when we had the IEP meeting but I feel that no one then really listened. I wanted a full-time aide back then and it was denied. The gave him 20 hours a month of Special Ed support and his kindergarten teacher tends to spend way too much time with him redirecting him and working with him. They said that he gets a lot of attention now, and I told them that obviously it is not the most appropriate support since the kindergarten teacher feels that he is not performing well.
They gave us positive feedback and indicated that they believe that Jonathan is very smart. When he is interested, he can do amazing things. The music teacher said that what amazed her was that Jonathan's body language is deceiving. He seems not to be listening and focusing, but if you ask him to do the work, he does it. The Speech pathologist also commented on how extraordinarily his language has developed this year. She has been working with Jonathan since he was 2 1/2 years old so she can really see the improvements. They also commented that Jonathan is very sweet and social. And that he is not aggressive. On the contrary, he is gentle and sweet. They call him the "gentle giant". Jonathan is a big kid for his age (both tall and heavy).
The main issue is that he needs to be prompted and redirected too much for a mainstreamed school environment and the 1st grade teacher may not tolerate that. We asked if he should repeat kindergarten and the teacher said that that would be terrible for him because he is too advanced and would be bored to death. They realize that part of the problem is that he is bored at times and loses interest. But the teacher has problems passing him with a straight face because he is inconsistent.
The action item is that we are having an IEP meeting next Wednesday at 8:45am to discuss 2 of the 4 focus areas and expand them. This will be an addendum so that we can have the normal IEP meeting again in June. But we need an immediate solution to the current problem.
I was very sad/upset/frustrated today about this because there is little that we can do. Since I work full-time, I cannot homeschool him, or even work with him on tasks that would help him concentrate. And at home we have limited time to work with him. But I need to figure something out. I know this is going to be like this the rest of our lives because the main problem is that Jonathan is in a "predefined learning environment" where he needs to adjust and mold to their rules rather than an environment that is more flexible and caters to his needs. Even with IEPs, the main issue is that he is not neuro typical and we are trying to have him fit in an neuro typical environment with help. The current help is not appropriate apparently. We'll see what the school proposes.
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