Slow Process

Two months later I’d still heard nothing. 

In the meantime I started my first FT job since I became a parent, so it was a huge transition and I admit I didn’t stay on top of things very well.  Things with Katie went from not great to terrible without me there every afternoon when she got home from school to enforce our previous routines.

I called the student services coordinator back and asked about the status of the plan.  He told me he’d sent it home in Katie’s backpack!  Loose in the backpack of the kid with an identified problem of not bringing home papers!!  Without a phone call or email to give me a heads up!  And what happened to having another meeting where we discussed the services they could offer??

 He’d assumed the plan was in place and all going to fine, since he hadn’t heard any more from me!  Never mind the fact that it requires a parent signature to make it official and that he’d never gotten it back from me!  Ugh!  I was extremely unimpressed with the help this system was NOT providing!  I asked him to please send home another copy that day and I would look for it now that I knew it should be there.  He said I should read it over and let him know if I wanted anything changed, or sign and return it if not.  

Now, granted, I am not an expert in 504 plans by any means, but what I received seemed so simplistic and generic, I had a hard time imagining this was going to make a big difference.

The accommodations listed were:

- Special Ed busing                          At least they got the main issue that started it all!

- Preferential seating to avoid distraction.     Well sure, wouldn't teachers already be 

                                                                                           doing that for any ADHD kid? 

- Acknowledge positive behavior.                  Duh! Isn't that kind of a given?

- Provide space for student to calm down.

- Discuss changes to schdule ahead of time with student.

- Allow time at the end of the day to organize take home materials.

I spoke to the coordinator and reminded him that I'd asked if someone could check in with her at the beginning and end of the day to help her organize herself, but I didn't see anything like that included in this plan.  He said they'd discussed that and wondered if they couldn't start with giving Kate a wipe-off check list she could do at these times instead, and see if that would solve the problem.  I agreed to give it a shot, so they added:

 - Provide checklist to help keep student organized.

I signed the plan and returned it April 7th.  It had taken most of the school year to get a plan in place, but at least now that it existed I was assured it could be reworked in future and would follow her throughout her academic career as she moved up.