School - Worse the Second Time Around

Ask anyone in my family and they'll tell you - I never enjoyed school. As I got older, my dislike for school and all it encompassed grew with each passing year. I have discovered since having children of my own that I still hate school, just for different reasons now.

FrogBoy is in a fully-included classroom. This means that while the school recognizes that he has "special needs," they also agree with us that he doesn't need to be singled out from his "normally" developing peers and put in a classroom with a bunch of kids that can't speak. While a typical classroom environment is harder for him on many levels, he's up to the challenge, and frankly, does quite well.

However...

FrogBoy has what is called an IEP by those in the know. That stands for Individualized Education Plan. It's really a nifty little thing; it is a written plan that outlines special accommodations to be made in the classroom to help him achieve what might (or might not, if you were me) come more naturally to other kids. For example, one thing listed in his IEP is that he can have a copy of either the teacher's notes or another student's notes, because he is a VERY slow note-taker, and he stresses over getting every little word PERFECT. This can be distracting for the whole class, so he has the option of getting copies of the notes. Of course, once he found this out, he started asking for copies all the time; we had to squelch that because he became lazy. (Again, he's a typical kid in most ways)

The school has a countdown clock that was purchased for him in first grade. It has moved up with him to each new teacher. When an assignment is given, the amount of time allowed for the assignment can be entered into the clock, and he can gauge where he's at without asking the teacher every 3 minutes (which would drive her crazy), and without hearing the ticking of a timer (which would drive him crazy). We've been told by the teachers that this clock actually benefits all the kids in his class because it helps to keep them all on task.

The IEP meeting is a fun meeting. NOT. It consists of me, SuperHubby, the school principal, Froggie's teachers (however many he has that year), his speech therapist, his occupational therapist, his school case worker, the autistic itinerant, the school psychologist, and our parent advocate. In a small room. For at least an hour. One by one they tell us how he's doing, what he should be doing, and how we can help him achieve his goals for the year. Our advocate is great - he knows all the laws and has a son who is autistic, so he has fantastic ideas on how to combat some of the school issues we might come up against. I will say this meeting gets my panties in the proverbial wad every year. Maybe after I get a few more under my belt they won't, but considering we've done it 5 years running and I still stress about it, I kind of doubt that. I want to make sure I don't leave anything out. You can call an emergency IEP update meeting during the year, but that takes an act of Congress. Otherwise, you get one shot a year. You need to make it count.

Another great (ha!) thing about school this year is that the autistic itinerant has decided we need to track Froggie's behavior. Unfortunately, it's really hard to motivate him. He really only wants Legos. (Seriously, one day I picked him up and he had banged his elbow at recess...and he greeted me at the door with "Mommy, the ONLY thing that will make it better is if you get me a Lego.")

So the itinerant decided to come up with a system for tracking FrogBoy's behavior that was more complex than learning to speak Latin. There was a points system involved, and he got different points based on his behavior (3 for great, 2 for so-so and 1 for not-so-great). And this was in each class (he has 7). Then we would average the day and see what his "score" was. Then, depending on his score, he either had a good day or a bad day. THEN we knew how to reward/reprimand him.

WHAT?!?!?!

I called the itinerant and told him no way. I couldn't figure out his stupid system, so I was pretty such it would be hard for me to explain it to FrogBoy. Plus, I really felt like "good" was a subjective term, and if he didn't know what consisted of "good" behavior, what did it matter? The itinerant told me I was being difficult (nicer terms, but that's what he meant. And I was.)

We finally agreed on a system where Froggie gets a smiley face, a straight face or a sad face. He gets that - if you get a smiley, your behavior was good. If you get a frowney, your behavior was bad. Pretty simple. (That was my idea) Then the faces are averaged and he gets one face for the day. If he has a happy day, he gets to watch 30 minutes of TV that night. And it works.

Sometimes I feel like the teachers are learning on my child. Maybe that's how it has to be. Maybe there just aren't that many spectacular kids like mine. And maybe there just aren't that many autistic kids that are able to be mainstreamed...which would mean most teachers don't get to run across the opportunity to teach them very often. I will say that the teachers at Froggie's school have all been great to him. And even the ones who haven't taught him know him by name and know ABOUT him.

And that's comforting.

But I still hate school.