Yep, I'm talking about school starting! Princess Bear (PB) starts tomorrow. She's so unbelievably excited its a joy to watch. I really hope that she keeps that enthusiasm for school! Now on the other hand, I'm completely filled with trepidation. The school district is so in debt that its almost comical. One of the cost cutting measures was to fire all of the therapist that PB had worked with for the last 4 years. The therapist that had been with the school district for over 30 years! They decided to bring in district therapists. You know lower paid therapists that were not as qualified, not as experienced and generally not as knowledgeable. I don't understand why when there are budget constraints that special services are the first to be axed. These kids are not the ones that should be used as guinea pigs. They need stability more than any other group. She was previously working with an Occupational Therapist. Now she will be evaluated by an Occupation Therapist once a year and then be turned over to at Occupational Therapy Assistant. By trade my mom is an OTA. I am very familiar with what she had to learn to pass her boards. It is no easy feat and I'm not sure if I was pressed if I could do it. That said it is no where NEAR what an Occupational therapist is trained in. With a child like PB who has a huge variety of skills and delays it was so reassuring to have people who knew what they were doing.
Then we can discuss the fact that 1 year and 10 months after the school caught on fire the kids are finally going back to the "old" school. Small problem- they aren't done fixing everything yet!!!!!!!!! They also assured me that with the new geothermal system that the entire school will be air conditioned and that it no longer needed to be written into PB's IEP. Well, as of registration the A/C wasn't on or even tested yet.
Then there is a the fact that we literally live a block away from the school and on Saturday I received a notice of PB's bus schedule. Um, excuse me? My child never has taken the bus for the heat issue. Its just easier for me to take her. I have no idea why they thought she needed bus transportation this year but its not happening. I also wonder why if we live 1 block from the school and school starts at 9am why she was supposed to be at the corner at 8:22 for an 8:32 pick up? Seriously, what is up with that? We could walk there and back a time or two in that amount of time!
On the flip side this summer was more successful than summers past. Although not according to my mother who felt the need to tell me that one more time I blew a summer and didn't do enough for my daughter and therefore screwed her over. Could I have done more? Yes. I will always admit that. I'm not perfect and sometimes just downright lazy. That said my daughter has mastered many more of her sight words (around 45 of the 52 that we worked on). Do I wish she was reading? Of course! I also think that by Christmas she will be. So there is the big news on this front! I just hope that the school year goes better than I am anticipating because this knot in my stomach is not a good thing!
No comments:
Post a Comment