Kayla's School Placement

There are 8, or 9, schools in this district. Not every school has programs, or services, to accommodate those with special needs so they have certain schools that contain certain classes. An example is there are a couple schools with classes for those with autism.

Then there are the 'educable mentally disabled' (EMD) classes, 'trainable mentally disabled' (TMD) and a 3rd one that I forget the name (for the most 'severe' disabilities.) Kayla's home school has the TMD class and the one that would be a 'step below' that one. They don't have the EMD class, which is where they suggested would be the best placement for Kayla.

At her placement meeting I stressed that I wanted Kayla to be at her home school in a general ed 1st grade classroom as much as possible, with pullouts for the individualized help she needs.

Basically, what it came down to was the home school didn't think they would be able to accommodate her (even though, by law, they are supposed to provide the services and supports she would need).

They never said she couldn't go to her home school, just that they didn't think it would be the best option for her and she wouldn't get the level of support she could get at School B.

There is a teacher in the resource room but they felt that with the 40+ kids that shuffle in and out of there that Kayla's day would be 'disjointed.' That what the resource room teacher would be teaching would be above Kayla's current level and she wouldn't get the specific instruction she needs.

The students that use the resource room have mild learning disabilities, or medical diagnoses like ADHD, and are just getting that extra help to get caught up.

One option was having Kayla spend part of the day in the gen ed 1st grade class and part of the day in the Kindergarten class. (no thanks.)

We were told School B has the EMD class and there are only 5 students (1st and 2nd grade this year, no K students) with a special ed teacher and an assistant. The students join the regular gen ed class for the usual 'lunch, recess, specials.' School B has 'programs' for those with 'mental disabilities.'

I again stated my vision for her placement and read statistics from reports on why inclusion was a better placement and is more beneficial for all involved.

Then the school psychologist and special ed teacher from School B spoke up saying they have more flexibility on scheduling and with what they have at their school they could make what I wanted happen.

They would assign Kayla to a regular gen ed 1st grade classroom (and they had a specific teacher in mind already); the assistant in the special ed classroom could be Kayla's aide in the gen ed classroom. Kayla would get pulled out for a much smaller amount of time to the EMD class for intensive instruction on reading and writing (they use the Handwriting Without Tears program - yay!)

So we visited School B yesterday. I didn't want to like it. I had a chip on my shoulder and was upset that we had to consider another school. I was upset that she wouldn't automatically be going to her home school. I was upset that her home school didn't seem like they were making a real effort to do what needed to be done for Kayla to be successful in their school. I was upset that we didn't really feel welcomed ... they were nice enough ... it just felt like a general lack of 'how can we make this happen?' but instead a "she has a cognitive delay and needs to go to another school."

But the truth? We actually really did like School B. It's an art-infused school. The mission statement is "...committed to providing meaningful opportunities through arts-infused, technology-based, and differentiated learning experiences that create lifelong learners."

They have 2-D and 3-D art classes, music (vocal and instrumental), dance, drama (among all the other regular core academic classes.) A couple times a month the arts teachers come to the classrooms and they do the arts in the classrooms pertaining to the lessons. I think Kayla would absolutely love something like dance and drama in the classroom.

We met the gen ed 1st grade teacher and she was wonderful (also Teacher of the Year 2 yrs ago!). So open and welcoming and accepting. She had no hesitations of Kayla's placement being in her class with a pull out to the EMD class (instead of the reverse of Kayla's placement being the EMD class and 'joining' the 1st grade class for some things.) She's open to modifying Kayla's work (and told me last year she had a student she had to modify work for - the class had 20 spelling words, this student was only tested on the first 10, although she was exposed to all 20 in the classroom.) Last year she had 4 students from the EMD class join her class and worked closely with their teacher on modifying their work.

So even though a part of me wants to fight to have Kayla in her home school, we've decided to go with School B because of what they are willing to do and what they can offer Kayla to make it successful for her. Tomorrow we meet to go over the finer details of placement on her IEP and get her proposed schedule; I want to make sure the majority of her time is specified to be in the regular gen ed classroom.

I just wish this all didn't have to be so stressful!

Handwriting Update

I've mentioned before how having low-muscle tone affects Kayla's fine motor skills; especially tracing and writing.

She still struggles with tracing letters - how to stop and start again and lift up her pencil instead of making continuous lines or loops. Sometimes the tracing she does over a letter looks nothing like the letter she was tracing; other times it looks pretty darn good.

The special ed teacher works with Kayla on tracing, but she is using the 'dotted/dittoed' letters and in the parent-teacher conference I mentioned to the regular ed teacher that I didn't think that was the best way for Kayla to trace/learn. I think the dittoed letters are too 'busy' and not easy for Kayla to follow along, and she agreed, so hopefully they won't be using that anymore.

While the OT is still using Handwriting Without Tears (HWT) worksheets with Kayla it hasn't quite been incorporated for Kayla in the general classroom setting yet; so I'll be sending some info to her teacher so she can start using that with Kayla too.

The school district uses D'Nealian style handwriting. The instructions for forming some of those letters are so long! Example for a lowercase 'd': Middle start; around down, touch, up high, down, and a monkey tail. Uppercase "B": Top start; slant down, up, around halfway, close, around again, and close. Kayla is supposed to memorize these little ditties for each and every letter so she knows how to form them correctly? I wouldn't even be able to remember these every time I was working on making letters with her!

For contrast here is how you would verbally cue writing those letters with HWT; lowercase 'd': Big line down, little curve. Uppercase "B": Big line down, jump to the top (to remind her to lift her pencil and bring it back to the top), little curve, little curve.

The other style has too many instructions on forming each letter; Kayla needs something short, concise, clear, and to the point...not all of that 'extra' wording.

Despite using HWT with the OT, dittoed letters with the special ed teacher, and D'Nealian style with the regular teacher, Kayla IS making progress! It's been very exciting these past few months watching her get closer to writing her own name.

This paper was done at the beginning of June, near the end of the last school year. The note says this was done free hand, by herself, with only verbal prompts from the teacher. This was the first time she wrote out letters that closely resembled her name.


Last week she wrote her name on this drawing (after much gnashing of the teeth and stubbornness on her part - ie when I told her to make an 'a' she just drew a line down - so numerous erases and 'try agains' she finally completed this). The letters aren't so big as in the example above, so she's starting to get the size and spacing down.


I was so encouraged to see in just a few months how far she's come in writing her name independently. Now she doesn't do it like this on a consistent basis yet, but it's coming along - and showing progress is what matters!

I know she has a ways to go still, but I'm excited to think of the time when she's writing sentences and stories and letters...and once again I'm reminded that she'll do it, in her own time.

Grains of Gratitude

1. I'm grateful I was able to attend a Handwriting Without Tears workshop yesterday - now I have a little better understanding of how to use this program (that I bought last year!) with Kayla. I'm grateful it was an easy drive to Alexandria, VA and back.

2. I'm grateful my mom didn't mind being home all day with both kids while I went to the workshop. And I do mean all day, I was gone from about 730-530. But her sister came to visit so she wasn't totally alone with the kids. :)

3. I'm grateful for the 'little things' in life...such as a melting a little bit of peanut butter with a piece of chocolate (like a Hershey's Bliss dark chocolate), stirring together and drizzling over vanilla ice cream....yuuummmm! It's my new weakness and indulgence.

4. I'm grateful everything was settled with regards to Kayla's placement for the next school year. I'm grateful I had a nice meeting with the principle and the confusion was cleared up. I'm also grateful I'm able to still be able to communicate with Joe all the way in Afghanistan over important matters like this. It helps being able to talk it over with him too.

5. I'm grateful that Kayla had such fun in her Kindergarten program...singing and dancing! At her preschool program she didn't move or sing much even though she loved singing the songs at home. Practicing at school without all the parents in the audience is a lot different then doing it live! I'm glad she participated more this year instead of standing still :) I'm grateful my sister was able to be at the K program too - I know Kayla loved having her Aunt Kelly there! And Kelly was able to help with filming so Joe could see too.

She cracks me up in this video. There are a couple spots in the song where the kids hold hands, but B (the boy next to her) tries to hold her hand a couple times when they weren't supposed to and she's so funny not wanting to hold his hand at those times. She knew they were supposed to be doing other hand movements, but she was perfectly fine to hold his hand when they were supposed to. And at the end it's quiet before the kids start singing "la la la la"' but Kayla starts a little early so you hear her singing "la la la la" before everyone else.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

1:1 Update

The bottom line is they don't feel Kayla needs a 1:1 to shadow her throughout the whole school day; so they will be getting another classroom assistant to help Kayla during those times the teachers felt she needed the most individualized attention.

Her teacher was asked how things were going during times like library, music, & PE and she said as far as she knew there weren't any issues. If there were no one has mentioned them to her. So they felt Kayla did fine in those settings without needing a 1:1. They didn't think she needed one during lunch, or recess...except at the end. When they blow the whistle I guess Kayla pretty much ignores that LOL The teacher said someone was always having to go get Kayla and bring her in line which would make them late for computer lab. So this assistant will go round Kayla up right before they blow the whistle (they should have been doing that before if it was making them late).

One of the therapists asked if they were using the buddy system and the teacher said "oh yeah, they all want to be the one to hold Kayla's hand!" So the class leader for the day gets to do it and she said that helps Kayla stay in line when walking with the class (she tends to wander!)...and Kayla does have her turn being class leader as well. Her teacher said she does everything the other kids do, and in fact she just loves to hear Kayla recite the Pledge of Allegiance, said she gets a kick out of hearing her say it.

So it seems like they might just need this extra assistance when Kayla needs to be sitting at her desk concentrating on whatever work they are doing. If someone isn't right there with her she'll just get up and do her own thing. Having someone make sure she's doing what she's supposed to be doing will help.

The meeting wasn't without a few frustrations though.

In May when we did the initial IEP I asked about them using some sort of weighted item to see if that would help Kayla sit still, or stay in her chair for longer periods. I don't know if Kayla definitely has any sensory issues, no one has ever mentioned it, but I do wonder about it. I've heard having a weighted item can help kids settle down and not have to constantly get up. I was told they have some weighted items shaped like animals that can go in a child's lap but they had to have permission to use them; so I gave permission. It was put in her IEP. But no one has used this yet. I wonder if she's so fidgety and can't stay in her seat then why haven't they at least tried to use one to see if it would help? So that was brought up again.

Last year during parent/teacher conference I asked the OT assistant (the one who actually works with Kayla during school is different than the OT who goes to the IEP) if she was familiar with Handwriting Without Tears. She said they had it but she wasn't using it with her because Kayla wasn't ready for it. Huh? I thought the whole point of the program was to get her ready to write. I found out later that OT only knew about the Kindergarten workbook and not the preschool one.

So I asked the OT who was in yesterday's meeting about that program and she said yes they have the preschool one and yes they could see about starting it with Kayla.

Right after that her teacher mentioned they have a 1-hr time block for "writers workshop" and she wanted to know what she should be doing with Kayla during that time since she can't write. Someone (not anyone in the meeting yesterday) had told her to let her color during that time. Umm...no! She isn't going to sit there for an hour and just color. She already knows how to color so she isn't going to be learning anything further by just coloring. Her teacher said she did spend some time with her during that period going over writing the letter K. I know the teacher can't spend the whole hour with Kayla, I know she has to go around and spend time with each of the other kids as well, but Kayla isn't going to benefit by being allowed to color for the rest of that time (as much as she does enjoy it!).

So I'm thinking this writers workshop is the perfect time for someone to be working on the Handwriting Without Tears program with Kayla. The OT asked her teacher if she gave her some papers and handouts from a writing program could she use that with her during that time. But the program is more than just using papers and handouts - there are other materials that go along with it. You can't just give the teacher these papers and expect her to know or understand how the program works if she's not at all familiar with it. They have workshops for teachers to learn how to use it. We bought the program when we were at the convention in Boston and I still don't understand how exactly to implement it with Kayla, but I'm trying to work my way through the workbook and different activities.

I'm thinking the OT assistant that actually works with Kayla could come in the classroom during that time and work on the program with her. Right now she is pulled out for 1:1 with the OT for 1/2 hr 2x a week. I think we need to amend that as she is really behind in fine motor skills and learning to write. They'll have to check with the OTA about changing her schedule around to see Kayla at the time they do the writers workshop.

I also suggested they try using a timer...ie..."Kayla you need to sit here and work on x,y,z until the timer goes off, then you can do x,y,z." We've started using it during dinner when she wants to leave the table constantly. I set it for between 5-10 min and tell her she has to sit at the table with us and when the timer goes off she can get down. It seems to be helping, so hopefully they'll do that in school too.

At the end of Sep we have parent/teacher conferences...I'll ask how things are going during the writers workshop and if need be will call for another IEP to amend it so the OT is in the classroom working on that writing program with her.

I also found out they hired another Kindergarten teacher so they will be taking students from the 3 current classes and making a 4th one. Kayla will stay where she is, but at least the class size will be a little smaller.